AMD’s Robert Hallock speaks against this saying it will hurt the PC market as it’s a ”clear and present threat” to gamers. Forbes ran an article, which someone calls ”bullsh#t.”
That someone would be Nvidia’s John McDonald, who says the article is ultimately misleading because its source is peddling mistruths. Nvidia ‘doesn’t block AMD’.
GameWorks is a suite of tools meant to strengthen performance using Nvidia’s GPU chipsets, like better optimisation for textures, lighting etc. AMD has taken exception with the initiative and says it leads to certain parts of titles being ‘closed off’ and therefore potentially damaging to AMD’s own Catalyst drivers.
”Gameworks represents a clear and present threat to gamers by deliberately crippling performance on AMD products (40% of the market) to widen the margin in favor of NVIDIA products,” Robert Hallock told Forbes.
“Participation in the Gameworks program often precludes the developer from accepting AMD suggestions that would improve performance directly in the game code—the most desirable form of optimization.”
“The code obfuscation makes it difficult to perform our own after-the-fact driver optimizations, as the characteristics of the game are hidden behind many layers of circuitous and non-obvious routines,” he continued.
“This change coincides with NVIDIA’s decision to remove all public Direct3D code samples from their site in favor of a ‘contact us for licensing’ page. AMD does not engage in, support, or condone such activities.”
”We believe that enabling a developer with obvious and editable code that can be massaged to benefit everyone not only helps AMD hardware, but makes it possible for all gamers to benefit from our partnerships with a developer. As TressFX Hair runs equally well on AMD and NVIDIA hardware, for example, you can see this is true.”
John McDonald has taken exception with the accusations by Hallock in the Forbes article, and rubbishes the idea that Nvidia is using GameWorks to undermine AMD’s technology and driver-sets. He tweeted the following:
”It is extremely frustrating to see an article criticizing work you did at a former employer and not being able to comment that the person who you are quoting from was just completely full of unsubstantiated bullshit. Thanks, Forbes.”
”And while I never did, and certainly do not now, speak for nvidia, let me say that in the six years I was in devtech I never, not a single time, asked a developer to deny title access to AMD or to remove things that were beneficial to AMD. Let’s just stop there. But holy shit that article. So frustrating,” added McDonald.
Should PC gamers be genuinely concerned about initiatives like GameWorks? Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs releases today for PC, which is reportedly optimised to Nvidia’s latest GPU series and supports HBAO+ and TXAA.
