Nvidia not only blocks out PhysX but now a basic feature like Anti Aliasing.

4297 Views 76 Replies 16 Participants Last post by fivefeet8, Oct 11, 2009

bkwegoharder

Discussion Starter · Oct 1, 2009 (Edited)

http://www.guru3d.com/news/nvidia-disables-physx-when-ati-card-is-present/
http://blogs.amd.com/play/2009/09/1...-you-should-care/comment-page-3/#comment-1630

for a while now I knew that they have been disabling PhysX if ATI hardware is detected. Even if the hardware is just integrated graphics.

Really Nvidia, but PhysX is one thing, but Anti Aliasing? They have gone too far. Some say that it is not true and that anti aliasing only works on Nvidia cards because it was built using Nvidia specific features, but simply changing the device ID of the ATI card was able to make AA work again.

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DKT70

· #2 · Oct 1, 2009

Blame the Games Developers for allowing this to happen, ffs.
I mean, how can nvidia force this, unless the devs are taking a nice big fat bribe ?
If they are, then they are the ones to blame. I'm sure if ATi got off their arses and actually went to devs and said please support DX10.1, DX11, or Havok, and by the way here is a nice fat cheque, then the devs would oblige.

Seriously, get a *****ing grip, people. Nobody moans on this scale when MS give Rockstar a huge bribe to make exclusive dlc for GTAIV, or take Alan Wake off the PC platform to make it 360 exclusive. I wish I could just easily change the PC ID to make it accept some nice new dlc for GTAIV.

SCHUMI_4EVER

· #3 · Oct 1, 2009

NVIDIA Bites Back – Refutes Claims of Meddling with Batman Arkham Asylum AA Features | Hardware Canucks

It's ATi's fault.

And as for the PhysX...I recall back when I had my X850XT that every HDR game had HDR grayed out cuz the card did not support it...ATi cards do so horribly at PhysX that it may as well not be supported eventhough they technically can do PhysX....so seeing as you feel you can lynch nVidia who should I be lynching for the the HDR being grayed out on my games when played with my X850XT?

seinfeldx

· #4 · Oct 1, 2009

You mean that Ati and Nvidia are suppose to work with all the developers of all games that are coming out?
Doesn't Nvidia pay big bucks for that to happen?

-StrikE-

· #5 · Oct 1, 2009

SCHUMI_4EVER said:
NVIDIA Bites Back – Refutes Claims of Meddling with Batman Arkham Asylum AA Features | Hardware Canucks

It's ATi's fault.

And as for the PhysX...I recall back when I had my X850XT that every HDR game had HDR grayed out cuz the card did not support it...ATi cards do so horribly at PhysX that it may as well not be supported eventhough they technically can do PhysX....so seeing as you feel you can lynch nVidia who should I be lynching for the the HDR being grayed out on my games when played with my X850XT?

Actually the only thing that doesn't adds up is if it really was ati's fault then why changing ID's make it work? even if you change id's the drivers used and the hardware used stay's the same the only thing is that you show a different id to the program running. I'm not pointing fingers at anybody for the moment but i do find that suspicious.

Maybe your card was to old by then ? :/ had no problem with HDR with my X1550 and neither with my X1050 i think (ain't sure).

SCHUMI_4EVER

· #6 · Oct 1, 2009 (Edited)

This is not a TWIMTBP issue the way they want you to believe, this is nVidia ADDING a feature to the game that the game's engine does not have. nVidia did their customers a favour....ATI just sat back and did nothing. It's disabled cuz leaving it enabled would be like nVidia doing ATi's job for them.

And yes the game's engine has no AA support, look at The Last Remant also done using UE3 and it has no AA support for either nVidia or ATi...the only way to AA is to force and/or use an nHancer profile.

seinfeldx

· #7 · Oct 1, 2009

So you mean they lie when they say changing ID's make it work? I have been given more reasons to believe ati than nvidia since some time.

SCHUMI_4EVER

· #8 · Oct 1, 2009

No they are not lying about that, but they choose to stay silent over WHY Batman - Arkham Assylum has AA support in the first place...or rather they never mentioned that the game engine has no native AA support.

SCHUMI_4EVER

· #9 · Oct 1, 2009

strike105x said:
Actually the only thing that doesn't adds up is if it really was ati's fault then why changing ID's make it work? even if you change id's the drivers used and the hardware used stay's the same the only thing is that you show a different id to the program running. I'm not pointing fingers at anybody for the moment but i do find that suspicious.

Maybe your card was to old by then ? :/ had no problem with HDR with my X1550 and neither with my X1050 i think (ain't sure).

Yes it was too old, it did not have Pixel Shader 3 which HDR needs but that was not my point.
My point was that it's common practice to lock features away from devices that don't support them and really looking at ATi's PhysX performance in PhysX titles like Mirror's Edge, ATi basically does not support PhysX (eventhough it can do it, just at the cost of ginourmous unplayable performance hit) so I don't see what the problem is disabling it for all ATi cards. And if people can complain about PhysX being locked away from ATi cards given their PhysX performance why can't I complain that my X850XT had HDR locked away from it even if it did not meet the Pixel Shader requirement for HDR?

seinfeldx

· #10 · Oct 1, 2009

Would nvidia state to the press that ati have done something better than them in some game or say they didn't do what ati have done!?!? no, they wouldn't, for exemple they bashed dx10.1 instead of supporting it and they bash dx11 because there isn't enough games that use it, since when was some Dx implemented in lots of games before some graphic card that supported came out, it always not very well supported before a graphic card came out that can use it.

SCHUMI_4EVER

· #11 · Oct 1, 2009

No nVidia would not do those things...but so far they have also had enough intelligence not to complain about something that's a result of their negligence...which is what ATi did...or rather what this Ian McNaughton fellow did with the AA in Batman Arkham Assylum.

fivefeet8

· #12 · Oct 1, 2009

seinfeldx said:
You mean that Ati and Nvidia are suppose to work with all the developers of all games that are coming out?
Doesn't Nvidia pay big bucks for that to happen?

It has been stated numerous times on a multitude of hardware sites that Nvidia works far more closely with developers than their AMDTi counterparts and of course throws more resources at it. Heck, even AMDTi has admitted it that they don't have the resources that Nvidia does for DevRel.

I think people are focusing their grievances on a narrow view. There are more parties involved and each could have done some things better. Nvidia is not going to help AMDTi if they worked closely with getting the AA option ingame(same with PhysX). AMDTi should have worked with the developers themselves at getting that option before the game was released instead of crying fowl after the fact.

seinfeldx

· #13 · Oct 1, 2009

I mean i understand if they throw money so they support non standards like PhysX, my question is doesn't they have to pay them just to be working with developers, and aren't developers taking advantage of ati and nvidia making them do their work, isn't AA suppose to be made by the developers of the game?

bkwegoharder

Discussion Starter · #14 · Oct 1, 2009 (Edited)

SCHUMI_4EVER said:
And as for the PhysX...I recall back when I had my X850XT that every HDR game had HDR grayed out cuz the card did not support it...ATi cards do so horribly at PhysX that it may as well not be supported eventhough they technically can do PhysX....so seeing as you feel you can lynch nVidia who should I be lynching for the the HDR being grayed out on my games when played with my X850XT?

No, you aren't understanding what I'm saying. Lets say you have a GTX 275, and an integrated ati card on your system, physX WON'T run at all, even if you have a Nvidia card because Nvidia blocked it out. It used to work with driver 185 something but they recently blocked it out, and they even ADMITTED to doing it. Also, on Windows 7 some users would use an ATI card that they already owned and a Nvidia card as an extra just for PhysX, after driver 185 they disabled physX completely if the drivers detect any form of ATI hardware whatsoever.

SCHUMI_4EVER said:
Yes it was too old, it did not have Pixel Shader 3 which HDR needs but that was not my point.
My point was that it's common practice to lock features away from devices that don't support them and really looking at ATi's PhysX performance in PhysX titles like Mirror's Edge, ATi basically does not support PhysX (eventhough it can do it, just at the cost of ginourmous unplayable performance hit) so I don't see what the problem is disabling it for all ATi cards. And if people can complain about PhysX being locked away from ATi cards given their PhysX performance why can't I complain that my X850XT had HDR locked away from it even if it did not meet the Pixel Shader requirement for HDR?

That is not their phsyX performance, ATI has no way to run PhysX on the graphics card because their are no PhysX drivers that work on ATI cards, so the calculations are instead done on the cpu, when doing that the performance drop is horrible.

fivefeet8

· #15 · Oct 1, 2009

seinfeldx said:
I mean i understand if they throw money so they support non standards like PhysX, my question is doesn't they have to pay them just to be working with developers, and aren't developers taking advantage of ati and nvidia making them do their work, isn't AA suppose to be made by the developers of the game?

The game in question uses the UT3 engine which by default, does NOT support AA. To get AA to work with an ingame option, Nvidia helped the developer. Developers should take advantage of the resources offered by both IHV's because who else would have more knowledge of their respective hardwares.

Squall-Leonhart

· #16 · Oct 1, 2009 (Edited)

UT3 = DFR (Deferred Rendering).

Dx10 does not allow DFR and AA to working as it normally would, without implementing Driver level work arounds (The driver needs to run through a intercept and reroute code path, which applies AA and is then directed back towards DFR, As DFR changes the image just enough to prevent the hardware from retrieving a colour sample which is required to apply AA in DX10 and lower hardware) or using SoftAA. (or implementing a 3 stage render method which would impact on performance heavily)

The option might be available if you force the Dev ID, however its most likely not working effectively and there will be missing or corrupted effects.

Dx10.1 allows DFR + AA in hardware, however the UT3 engine in Batman was not adapted to this.

I mean i understand if they throw money so they support non standards like PhysX, my question is doesn't they have to pay them just to be working with developers, and aren't developers taking advantage of ati and nvidia making them do their work, isn't AA suppose to be made by the developers of the game?

TWIMTBP is a joint venture between nvidia and game dev/pubs and both benefit from the program. People like to assume that it involves nvidia throwing money around, but the fact is it usually costs the dev studio money to even be apart of the nvidia developer network.

This is hardly different to HALO and the missing active camo on Nvidia hardware (requiring faking of an ATI dev string to enable the full camo effect).

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Cid Highwind

· #17 · Oct 2, 2009

SCHUMI_4EVER said:
This is not a TWIMTBP issue the way they want you to believe, this is nVidia ADDING a feature to the game that the game's engine does not have. nVidia did their customers a favour....ATI just sat back and did nothing. It's disabled cuz leaving it enabled would be like nVidia doing ATi's job for them.

And yes the game's engine has no AA support, look at The Last Remant also done using UE3 and it has no AA support for either nVidia or ATi...the only way to AA is to force and/or use an nHancer profile.

The irony is that if ATi devvers can enable it so easily, why wasn't it implemented that easily from the start? What not give ATi some extra performance if all you need to do is just change an ID flag or so? It doesn't make sense and it reeks if you ask me. Especially since the cat is out of the bag now, I see no reason not to release a simple patch that allows ATi cards to use the ingame method as well. Perhaps ATi will have it in the future, I certainly hope so.

And as for the PhysX...I recall back when I had my X850XT that every HDR game had HDR grayed out cuz the card did not support it...ATi cards do so horribly at PhysX that it may as well not be supported eventhough they technically can do PhysX....so seeing as you feel you can lynch nVidia who should I be lynching for the the HDR being grayed out on my games when played with my X850XT?

Minor difference, although you make a good point: ATi simply didn't keep up with an open standard back then, nVidia now is introducing a closed standard while there are open alternatives. Apart from that I think that you had quite a bigger loss back then than we are missing now from PhysX.

Squall-Leonhart

· #18 · Oct 2, 2009

ati's chips are actually quite capable of physx..... but not many people outside of ngohq know of eran's work to make physx work on radeons....

Cid Highwind

· #19 · Oct 2, 2009

Squall-Leonhart said:
ati's chips are actually quite capable of physx..... but not many people outside of ngohq know of eran's work to make physx work on radeons....

I've heard about that quite some time ago, but after that there was a big silence.

Squall-Leonhart

· #20 · Oct 2, 2009

Thats because ATI squashed it.
Nvidia were actually working with Eran to continue the project.

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