AMD’s Graphics Executive Richard Huddy is a well respected figure in the industry. Huddy has worked for ATI, AMD, Nvidia, Intel and is now back at AMD. He is also considered one of the pioneers of the DirectX API so it’s fair to say that his opinion matters. Huddy had some pretty critical things to say about Nvidia’s Gameworks program, claiming that Nvidia are using exclusivity contracts with game developers, hidden by NDAs, to disadvantage AMD. Furthermore, he claims he has evidence from various independent software vendors that those NDA-bound contracts are the reason why many game developers, particularly those in the Gameworks program, cannot work with AMD to optimise the game engines for AMD hardware. The most recent example of this is obviously the whole saga of AMD graphics cards running WatchDogs poorly.
Huddy thinks Gameworks is bad news for the industry because it is closed source, game developers receive code from Nvidia in a pre-compiled DLL forms whereas with Mantle the entire code is open source for game developers. Huddy claims the idea of using pre-compiled DLLs is a foreign idea to the games industry and is significantly more inefficient than allowing game developers build what they want from the ground up with the source code of an API. The heart of the concern is that Nvidia-written DLLs are being used for games that consumers with AMD graphics cards will play, as well as games that review sites will use to benchmark AMD hardware. All in all Nvidia’s Gameworks program is accused of locking down and fragmenting the gaming industry. It would be interesting to hear Nvidia go on record and rebut some of AMD’s claims.
What are your opinions on Nvidia Gameworks?
Source: MaximumPC
Image courtesy of Nvidia
lol AMD bitching again. 😀 Like Mantle isn’t propriatery…..
Actually, it isn’t, and Intel and nVidia are free to acquire and use the code as they wish.
Nope. Not true. Intel recently asked for access. If the code was free and available they wouldn’t need to do that.
On the contrary, Intel asked for access to Mantle but AMD refused cause it is still in its beta testing. They said one its released they can gladly use it
So basically it’s not open source at the moment just like I said.
There is a difference
People who won’t admit their mistake are simply disgusting.
BETA VERSION.
Do you get your chicken half cooked as well?
Also I am an Intel/Nvidia user.
The only reason MAntle is not open sourced yet is because its still in its testing phse. Meaning the creators will still be adding things to it hence why it is BETA. You dont see Nvidia giving away stuff like CUDA or G-Sync technology because its proprietary, But at least AMD has come right out and said that once its finished the beta, its free use for anyone who wants to use the api. The fact here is that This guy worked for Nvidia and INtel and AMD , so he kind of knows what goes on behind the scenes at these places and of course AMD has its own Gaming Evolved contract just like Nvidia has its own in-game contracts, But holding out just to stay on top is kind of taking the hardware out of the picture and placing the all mighty dollar first. Its like someone once said. If Nvidia could, they would only sell Titans and Titan blacks because everything else is not optimal for gaming, and since that comes from an Nvidia director, we can see that the gamers are the ones loosing out. But be damned if I buy an Nvidia card this year. If they think just because there cards perform better because they have been programmed to do so. I’ll take my chances with the open source Mantle API and see how gamers and developers can take it to the next level and show Nvidia that the world doesnt consist of monopolies and works better together.