The Way It's Meant to be Played Program.

Personally for me, the issue about FERMI vs RV770 is not a big deal. I expect both cards to perform well.

The breaking point is The Way It's Meant to be Played Program. And this falls squarely on the shoulders of game developers and publishers. How long will Ubisoft, EA, 2K, Bioware etc will participate in this program and force ATi gamers to put up with this b/s.

I read on another forum they claimed through conversations with ATi, that ATi plans to address this issue soon. What is soon? And do you think ATi will actually do this?

To me this is the most annoying issue in the GPU competition.

The most recognizable example is Crysis. How is it that the HD5870 has all these new technological advances, yet it's performance in Crysis is about the same as a Nvidia 8800? B/S The Way It's Meant To Be Played program is what it is.

 

Isn't this the program where Nvidia basically pays developers and publishers millions of dollars to optimize the game for Geforce cards and advertise for them?

From a gamer's point of view, this is BS alright, but it's hard to blame the developers and publishers for taking Nvidia's money when AMD is giving them a counteroffer of exactly $0.

 

There's no actual optimization requirements to have a program be branded with that phrase. All Nvidia requires is that the game runs without issue on Nvidia hardware.

It's all about marketing and branding. Your complaints are unfounded.

 

Well there's technically PhysX which Nvidia pays some companies to implement to "deter" ATI users. AMD has their own version of PhysX, but Nvidia is pushing PhysX harder on developers as a marketing trick. Other than PhysX, I don't really know of any other "feature" that a game would benefit from an Nvidia GPU over an ATI.

But yeah, aside from that, it's just a slapped label.

 

Though I can't say what impact the program has optimization, I can safely say that I've never found a game that was completely unoptimized.

As a developer/publisher, you'd have to be either dumb or lazy to release a game that wasn't optimized at all. And optimization is inherently biased, unless if you're willing to spend years making sure that both games are equally optimized.

 

This is just a marketing move. Im sure it doesnt affect the optimization of the game. This kind of posts prove how effective marketing schemes are (no offense)

 

1) It's just a marketing scheme.

2) ATi has done it in the past.

 

I love the placebo effect.

 

So essentially, you guys are saying that publishers and developers are completely neutral in regards towards optimization regardless of the relationships they have with AMD/Nvidia.

I'm having a hard time accepting that, especially in this day and age where you can predict which card some games will run better on even before the official release.

 

No, they're saying that a nVidia or ATI slogan slapped onto a game doesn't necessarily make the game optimized for the respective company.

 

Of course there's bias. Publishers and developers optimize games in such a way to (attempt to) maximize profit. After all, they are businesses, you know.

If a game has no optimization for ATi cards, people with ATi cards won't buy that game. However, the publishers would save money by having less work to do, and they'd get the game out the door sooner so they could start on a crappy derivative sequel/expansion pack/DLC sooner.

It has nothing to do with who paid the big bucks to get their logo on the screen every time the game starts up.

 

Does the game play on your PC even if your GPU isn't the favoured one in the opening splash screen? If it does, then what everyone else is saying is very valid and there's absolutely no point getting your knickers in a twist over an advertising scheme.

 

I see it much less than before, ATI makes better and more efficient cards as of now and have taken back a significant portion of the market share.

 

Of course there is optimization. I mean, Nvidia and ATI use different graphics architecture so obviously some games will favor one architecture over the other depending on what engine they use(ex: Valve favors ATI architecture and Unreal favors Nvidia architecture). However, Nvidia slapping "the way it's meant to be played" doesn't necessarily mean that said game will necessarily be that much better on Nvidia hardware. I think I've actually seen that label on a game that uses an ATI-favoring engine too .

Point is, a developer won't make a game saying "oh I wanna program this so it works better for people who have Nvidia hardware". No they program using a specific engine which by nature of how it works, will favor a given GPU architecture.

For the most part, the "labels" on games are a marketing gimmick.

 

The ONLY game I have ever played in the last 18 years that had an ATi logo was Half Life 2. So for almost over a decade I had to sit there looking at Meant To Be Played on Nvidia. And for years I was reading benchmarks where games were performing better on mid-range Nvidia than on a high end ATi. We can agree to disagree, because I see a difference in the level of optimization for the two manufacturers.

I just hope ATi addresses this. If it means being more pro-active do it. I don't care, give Ubisoft free service to optimize the game for ATi also. And if Ubisoft decides to stay in Nvidia's program fine, but at the beginning of the game, give us the option, Nvidia or ATi. Have the game optimized for both and have both logos, let the gamers decide.

Like I said, an Xbox player doesn't have to watch Meant To Be Played On PlayStation 3, with a Sony avatar dancing around before EVERY single game bootup.

 

You can't have it both ways. If you have some software that's optimized for one type of hardware, then by definition, it's probably not optimized for a different set of hardware.

But again, it's all marketing speak. You're getting worked up over nothing. If you honestly have a problem with seeing the Nvidia logo when you boot up a game, there is almost always a way to disable splash screen on start up.

 

Can you show me these games/benchmarks that you speak of ziddy? I honestly haven't heard of any recent game performing significantly differently on one hardware than the other(at least, not to the point that a mid-range Nvidia beats a high end ATI).

The logo thing is Nvidia's solution to ATI having currently better and cheaper hardware; they basically coax players into buying their products that way.

ATI can only do so much, it's the developers and the companies that use certain engines that by nature will favor one hardware over another. Even console ports sometimes perform better on one platform than the other.

 

Ok, you are getting too damn influenced by these marketing schemes. Nvidia's marketing department is certainly doing a good job for people like you.

I dont no where you get this info, neither where you read this reviews. If you are not going to accept that this is only a marketing move, then buy nvidia, but remember, you are going to be a victim of marketing nonsense.

About those reviews, here is a Stalker test. I dont remember seeing any kind of ATI logo when the game starts up..

 

Interesting, except I don't play Stalker.

I've seen benchmarks where ATi seems better, but noticed it's always using two ATi 4870s to beat one 280. So doesn't seem right to me. Sorry, I think this bias still exists in games.

But either way, I hope ATi does do something about this, the splash screen is annoying and for those saying it's Nvidia marketing. Well yes that is correct also, agreed. And I do see that as a problem. But I'll stop with the griping, as I can see what yeah I'm just whining and just fed up seeing these damn Nvidia splash screens everytime I want to play.

I can't just bootup, and play, not gotta sit there pressing esc, enter, spacebar whatever, nothing working, gotta wait for nvidia to finish. Blargh.

 

That is beside the point though. You are saying that games play better on a given piece of hardware BECAUSE they are branded with a given GPU maker and thus specially optimized. He is giving you a solid example of a game with no branding that not only performs better on a certain type of card, but on the brand you seem to claim is in some way gimped by developers. Just because it doesn't HELP you specifically doesn't mean it doesn't serve to refute your argument.

 

I didn't refute his benchmark... or say that benchmark was wrong.

 

So basically you're angry at having to see the Nvidia logo when you start a game?

I mean, Nvidia helps pay for the game's creation sometimes; they don't just ask nicely to get that label, they pay companies for it so in a sense they're part of the financing team and you don't complain about Ubisoft or the other 5 companies having their splash screen before the game do you?

 

So to settle this once and for all:

Is there a game out there that has this ad and uses Nvidia-specific technologies like PhysX that still runs faster on an ATI card than it does on the equivalent Nvidia card?

I still believe that one thing leads to another: Nvidia pays developers -> developers choose an Nvidia-friendly engine -> game runs better on Nvidia cards as a result.

None of the counterexamples in this thread have given me any reason to believe otherwise. Stalker has no logo, so the way I see it, they're free to bias towards whoever they want.

 

That pretty much sums the thread. There isn't any "truly unbiased" game because any game engine will somehow favor one GPU architecture over another in one way or another.

PhysX is just another tool Nvidia uses to promote games in its favor.

 

So, how is this program "purely marketing" then?

Just because Nvidia doesn't outright say "you must optimize games for our cards if you want our money" doesn't mean that there isn't some sort of implied understanding between the 2 parties. These under the table deals happen in business and politics all the time.

 

Just because it's "under the table" doesn't make it marketing?

 

Well I'm not holding this against you since you're not the one who said it (and you've taken a balanced approach to this from the start), but apparently others don't think so:

 

Ok, I was wrong.
Actually where there is a TWIMTBP logo, it should run better with nvidia cards, even if it goes against logic.
However, the only way to achieve this is by playing dirty, because obviously, nvidia doesnt have the required hardware to fight ATI.

This is a quote from AMD's Ian McNaughton. I know this is only from one perspective but what he says IS true.

ATI screwed it up because of the low support they have on game developers..
But take a look at this game, this shows how weak nvidia really is, with their current gpus.

 

Here's a classic; the Cryengine used in Crysis:




But here's the rub... Nvidia is very active in optimizing their DRIVERS for games. ATI hasn't been as active but has recently been better at being so.

 

(From fmac's quote regarding (I assume) Batman: Arkham Asylum)

Batman was basically bought and paid for by Nvidia. It was built specifically to show off great implementation of PhysX. Consequently, we got a fantastic game because the devs had lots of money to play around with.

But Nvidia shot themselves in the foot, since PhysX causes the game to crash more often than it makes it look better. I and several other Nvidia users with adequate hardware can't run Batman with PhysX on, because it will crash at the end of the intro sequence.

So even Nvidia's pet project can't run "better" on an Nvidia card (unless Nvidia's PhysX is turned off, but then, what's the point?).

 

Perhaps the term 'pure' is a bit much, but it's just a marketing scheme nonetheless. By nature, an engine will be optimized for one architecture over another, Nvidia just plays on this fact to boost their product marketing.

It's kinda like that old Centrino label on laptops. In theory it's supposed to work better and in some cases, it even provided some extra features, but at the end of the day it was mostly a label used for marketing.

 

Centrino in the early days did have real, tangible benefits. Most early Centrino laptops had significantly longer battery life than their non-Centrino counterparts. Until the other component manufacturers got their act together (and Centrino stopped mattering), Centrino did make a difference.

In terms of The Way It's Meant to be Played, AMD is only just beginning to get their act together, so for now this is still relevant.

 

That makes my comparison all the more accurate no? lol

The whole "Nvidia label" is starting to make less and less difference except for software related things(software AA and PhysX notably) since ATI is rapidly overpowering Nvidia in terms of overall GPU efficiency so it mirrors Centrino's evolution quite similarly no? i.e. it started as something significant(when Nvidia and ATI made similar GPUs back in the days of the HD2xxx and early HD3xxx ATI cards) but is losing significance. Eventually, software implementations will be the only things different.

Even now though, for most people, if you're playing an "Nvidia game" with an ATI Gpu, you won't suffer from horrible gameplay, you'll just get maybe a few FPS less than the guy with the equivalent Nvidia card. For most people, that doesn't matter all too much. It's the mindset that "games support Nvidia" which is important, not the actual relevance nor performance gains.