ATI's Damage Control

Stealing news from Blue's News is becoming a sort of daily ritual.. anyhow.. ATI seems a little upset about the recent Doom 3 benchmarking that was reported at [H]ardOCP. A website named Team Radeon (who would write for a website for some stupid computing niche? not me) has posted responses from ATI PR people explaining that the ATItanic is not sinking. Also, there's some junk about Doom 3 being bundled with newer ATI cards, which will probably work out better than the Half-Life 2 bundle thing. I think Linguica still has his HL2 voucher.

Heh, silly ATI. Doom 3 probably runs so bad on ATI cards as revenge for them supposedly leaking the alpha :-P

BBG said:

Heh, silly ATI. Doom 3 probably runs so bad on ATI cards as revenge for them supposedly leaking the alpha :-P

Nothing that can't be patched later after ATI says they're sowwies.

ATI can complain about nVidia using partial precision but they render at 24bit instead of 32 in 3d apps, cheat or optimisation? I suppose if you can't tell it's the later

On a different topic is it true that only PCgamer gets to release a review before the game ships?

I don't get it. I honestly fucking don't get it.

What the hell does ATI have to worry about? Carmack SPECIFICALLY stated that vendor-specific rendering paths are usually inferior to industry standard paths (ARB2 I believe provides the best balance of quality and performance for either). The margin by which the 6800 beats the ATI is overkill. Yes, 72 FPS at 1024x768 is amazing, but the standard human retinal intake would be comfortable at around 60. I hate playing certain older games on this card at times because 100 FPS makes my head hurt. ATI and Nvidia both compete for absolutely nothing. Yes, the NV40 is the fastest chipset out on the market. Yes, the NV40 outperforms every other chipset. So what? If ATI's chipsets can run the game at high quality and high performance by any standard, regardless of the 10 frames less per clock cycle, who cares? Does anybody REALLY need such incredible games to run at 80 FPS? No. A fan on high speed cycles a few hundred to a thousand times a minute, and without the use of a strobe light you can see no difference between 700 and 1,000 RPM.

I really admire and respect BOTH companies, and see them as equals. Now I guess it's hard to be unbiased as I have an NV35 card, but I honestly could live with a Radeon 9800 as easily as an Nvidia card.

It would be awesome if they both consolidated into one huge company. Honestly, I wish that particular niche of the PC hardware industry could reconcile differences and consolidate, because if they did, they would absolutely make the best cards ever.

Besides, ATI is growing in popularity. They'll get up there someday, but I still say CONSOLIDATE!

ATI are a bunch of corporate fools. Yet they make some good cards. What do they have to worry about gah.

Laguna said:

It would be awesome if they both consolidated into one huge company. Honestly, I wish that particular niche of the PC hardware industry could reconcile differences and consolidate, because if they did, they would absolutely make the best cards ever.

They could make the best cards ever OR the "super company" could slash R&D and hike prices right up because there would be no competition. Great idea.

BBG said:

Heh, silly ATI. Doom 3 probably runs so bad on ATI cards as revenge for them supposedly leaking the alpha :-P

-1, Redundant
-1, Overrated
-1, Troll

Also one has to take into consideration that nVidia sponsored the last Quakecon, in addition to the supposed ATI based leak of the alpha. All said and told, it seems there might be a little reason for ID to back nVidia up on this one.

But that site about Doom 3 being bundled with ATI cards is showing a Australian offer at EB, and the two aren't even "bundled" persay. It's just an EB offer.

Well, I wouldn't say id's having revenge, if that's what you mean. :) The most simple way to put it is nVidia cards do a little better with openGL apps (DOOM 3) and ATI does better with direct x (HL2). That's the truth... I think when the first HL2 benchmarks are released, we'll see somewhat opposite results than we did with DOOM 3.

So what if I have a ATI voucher! So what if I bought a 9660pro last September so I could play Half-Life 2 when it absolutely positively was coming out September 30! Screw you!

mje said:

Well, I wouldn't say id's having revenge, if that's what you mean. :) The most simple way to put it is nVidia cards do a little better with openGL apps (DOOM 3) and ATI does better with direct x (HL2). That's the truth... I think when the first HL2 benchmarks are released, we'll see somewhat opposite results than we did with DOOM 3.

Wasn't there a quote from Gabe Newell that Nvidia chips would perform poorly with Half Life 2?

I haven't read it, but then again, I don't follow HL2 development. But it makes sense. Just like ATI's aren't performing the best with DOOM 3.

Commenting on the other part of the news post now.

In Australia they are bunding the GeForce 6800 with Doom3 and they are also bundling the ATI X800 with Doom 3. They are also doing offers where if you buy a FX5950 or a Radeon 9800pro that you get Doom 3 for half price. This is mainly at Electronics Boutique, but I'm sure i have seen other shops with the same offer.

mje said:

Well, I wouldn't say id's having revenge, if that's what you mean. :) The most simple way to put it is nVidia cards do a little better with openGL apps (DOOM 3) and ATI does better with direct x (HL2). That's the truth... I think when the first HL2 benchmarks are released, we'll see somewhat opposite results than we did with DOOM 3.

See the problem is that DirectX serves only a percentage of gamers: Those who use Windows. OpenGL is cross-platform, and thank God because I am more of a Linux user than Windows anymore.

Laguna said:

See the problem is that DirectX serves only a percentage of gamers: Those who use Windows.

So "only" 99.8% of computer gamers can use it.

Bleh. I'm so tired of this nVidia vs. ATI crap.

I especially am growing tired of this stuff like "HL2 will run better on ATI" and "Doom 3 will run better on nVidia". It seems like a step backwards...

It is true, though.

For whatever reason, ATI is focussing more in dx, and nVidia is focussing more on GL.

Why is this?

Linguica said:

So "only" 99.8% of computer gamers can use it.

Nonetheless a percentage, Ling. I did not say a "small percentage." But even that 0.02 percent can hurt sales considering that still numbers in the millions.

That means a loss of maybe another 5 to 12 million dollars in revenue for both the publisher and developer and everyone else down the hierarchy. And that's a LOT of money. More than most people will ever see in a lifetime.

Vive La Open Source!

And don't think there won't be a shit storm after Microsoft tries to shut down the open source community. I'd say that popularity with the DirectX API will decrease if M$ decides they're going to go after members of the open source community just because they make better quality products and don't charge for it. The only reason I have XP installed even (after deleting it and deleting my MBR thanks to a Winblows virus) is to play those Direct3D games, which are worth my time.

Either way, I'd still say OpenGL bests DirectX just because anybody can use it. Regardless of whether DX is more organized and easier to code for, it's still Windows exclusive. Do you think those people who own Macs (and I am not a Mac fan necessarily, but they're not THAT bad) or run Linux or FreeBSD are happy because they need to spend $199 to get a fucking OS (and it is required at ZipZoomFly now to buy an EXTRA Microsoft product with XP in order to get XP even) so they can play a game made on DirectX? I don't think that's fair. So fine, Win32 has its own rendering platform. But for them to want to go and shut down the open source community because it takes away from their sales? That's deplorable on more levels than I care to name.

If the phrase "the lust and pursuit of money is the root of all evil" had candidates for poster children, Microsoft would definitely be top choice.

[/tangent]

Mogul said:

For whatever reason, ATI is focussing more in dx, and nVidia is focussing more on GL.

Why is this?

Maybe so they don't have to spend money on competition to crank out a better product (than the other guy -- improvements over the companys' older products is still necessary), while people will still buy their cards, same as ever? If they both tried to be the best at DirectX and GL simultaneously, somebody would actually have to do some innovating, and that's not as cost effective. Now, I'm not saying I could do better...

Laguna said:

But even that 0.02 percent can hurt sales considering that still numbers in the millions.

Not really. IIRC they said that Doom has been sold about 10 million tiles over 10 years. 0.02% of that are only 200 pieces. And 10 million sold copies is a lot!

Scuba Steve said:

Wasn't there a quote from Gabe Newell that Nvidia chips would perform poorly with Half Life 2?

Geforce FX5xxx series and below. Gabe was pissed because they had to write a specific driver and shaders for nvidia's cards. And ATI's money made sure he wasn't diplomatic about it.

Anyway screw Gabe Newell, George Broussard is more honest.

I could care less. I'm a consumer and I'm going to buy whichever card gives me more for my money and right now both new cards cost more than they're worth.

-E

boris said:

Not really. IIRC they said that Doom has been sold about 10 million tiles over 10 years. 0.02% of that are only 200 pieces. And 10 million sold copies is a lot!

I think that it said that Shareware Doom will get over 10,000,000 downloads in its lifetime.

Designing hardware to work better for software is a completely backwards design strategy anyways. If either DirectX or OpenGL won't run right on hardware not perfectly tuned to it, then those libraries have problems (I'm pretty sure that's not true of OpenGL though...).

I read somewhere that nVidia's were the official card for Doom 3, and that ATi was the official card for HL2.

Anyways, I also though that ATi cards wouldn't work with the new shading technology in Doom 3. Oh well.

Laguna said:

I don't get it. I honestly fucking don't get it.

What the hell does ATI have to worry about? Carmack SPECIFICALLY stated that vendor-specific rendering paths are usually inferior to industry standard paths (ARB2 I believe provides the best balance of quality and performance for either). The margin by which the 6800 beats the ATI is overkill. Yes, 72 FPS at 1024x768 is amazing, but the standard human retinal intake would be comfortable at around 60. I hate playing certain older games on this card at times because 100 FPS makes my head hurt. ATI and Nvidia both compete for absolutely nothing. Yes, the NV40 is the fastest chipset out on the market. Yes, the NV40 outperforms every other chipset. So what? If ATI's chipsets can run the game at high quality and high performance by any standard, regardless of the 10 frames less per clock cycle, who cares? Does anybody REALLY need such incredible games to run at 80 FPS? No. A fan on high speed cycles a few hundred to a thousand times a minute, and without the use of a strobe light you can see no difference between 700 and 1,000 RPM.

I really admire and respect BOTH companies, and see them as equals. Now I guess it's hard to be unbiased as I have an NV35 card, but I honestly could live with a Radeon 9800 as easily as an Nvidia card.

It would be awesome if they both consolidated into one huge company. Honestly, I wish that particular niche of the PC hardware industry could reconcile differences and consolidate, because if they did, they would absolutely make the best cards ever.

Besides, ATI is growing in popularity. They'll get up there someday, but I still say CONSOLIDATE!

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What he said.