I'm really interested in seeing how well Vulkan works on the different CPUs.

We all know that AMD has worse single-core-performance, but many more cores... so Vulkan could be a stronger argument for AMD than for Intel.

As I've never had an AMD CPU I'm quite intrigued by the current development.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: psychodriverI will support the underdog if they're doing a bare minimum to deserve that support. Right now (and for a while) AMD is falling below that bare minimum.

I can accept that this is the case for you (and for many). For me it's not. I cannot and will not use a binary blob for such an important component as a GPU.

If nvidia would go open source I would re-evaluate my stance, but until then it's AMD all the way. I personally am a developer first and then a gamer and I cannot waste countless hours trying to figure out the quirks of proprietary software, it's simply not what I'm paid for.

Apart from that I do not want to support an immoral company such as nvidia (3,5 = 4 anyone?). If that means I cannot play some AAA-games (of which most I'm not even remotely interested), then fine.

What I cannot stand is all the bullshit regarding blaming only AMD.

In this case I point my finger at feral and say: "You never even cared for the OpenGL standard and just tested it on nvidia hardware and their quirks"

View this comment - View article - View full comments

View video on youtube.com

Spoiler, click me

Nvidia has also been the single worst company I have ever dealt with! :p

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: kernelhavokSo if you continue to buy AMD hardware, as it is generally cheaper, and knowing the last few years of poor AMD prop-driver implementations -- then you really only have yourselves to blame.

And if nvidia will have a monopoly one day and I have to do my daily work with a proprietary driver (which will be a huge pain in the ass and a lot of monetary loss for me) I know who to blame :)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Personally I really think Feral just fucked up on this one. I think they only ever tested this on nvidia to begin with.

I've already developed a 3D-game engine for an university course once and albeit it was of course on a much smaller scale we had issues too. All students working on the same engine only had access to AMD cards and we always had problems with the nvidia ones (where we needed to present our work).

And that was although we were sticking to standard OpenGL... but by no means we were experts and some things just behave differently in a state-machine on different hardware.

Anyway, what I want to say is: I too think that the open source drivers (e.g. RadeonSI) are much stricter than the nvidia-binary-blob. So if you fuck up, it will show.

And boy, you can fuck up in OpenGL so easily. (I have no experience with DX ;))

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: GuestJust a note: I have this game running with a radeonHD 6950, and Mesa 10.6 (I'll try 11 soon enough). I say running. It displays things. At similar frame rates to above. I'll look into it more tonight.

Does Mesa 11 give us something (same GPU here)? I mean the R600 doesn't implement any new features, does it? Oh, maybe some minor things that are not yet in Mesa 10.6, but nothing major. That's all just in RadeonSI :(

View this comment - View article - View full comments

This is the last game I support, ported by Feral without looking twice.

I've had a wonderful time with XCOM and Total War, although I use an unsupported gpu-manufacturer.

But now I really think that Feral has too much on their plate and that they are (currently) not up to the task of quality porting anymore. If a game from 2012 that runs perfectly fine on Windows is not really comparable on Linux by one of the best supported gpus out there (nvidia 970) I just think they have too much work in porting too many titles, hence can't deliver the quality I am used to.

I supported them by buying from their store, but I'll play the game on Windows where it actually runs, despite an AMD card.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: MaelraneI fear that then it will not happen at all. Nvidia has far more resources to spend on optimizing their binary blob. So it's a classic chicken/egg-problem.

Well I guess the crowd will never start "spreading nonsense" in the first place, then? ;)

I'm not sure I understood you correctly, well actually I'm pretty sure I don't.

Anyway: Of course it is nonsense to compare an optimized driver for heavily unoptimized games, but that is another story and complete and utter bullshit to begin with.

Who would ever think that instead of optimizing your product (e.g. a car) you want the vendor of a product that your product is dependent on (gpu, or streets ;)) to optimize that?

The current situation is like: the creators of a car with square wheels demand help and optimization by the roadworks-authority.

Instead of learning how to program, the devs just hack together some opengl code and let the gpu-vendors create optimized driver-versions for their particular game.

That is the real problem and I'm curious if Vulkan will be able to solve it, or if devs will just not accept Vulkan and stick with DX11/OpenGL.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: MaelraneI fear that then it will not happen at all. Nvidia has far more resources to spend on optimizing their binary blob. So it's a classic chicken/egg-problem.

Vulkan drivers won't do as much to abstract the hardware as OpenGL drivers do, which means there will be less room for optimization and workarounds on the driver side. However, games and engines can still be optimized for different hardware architectures, and thus give an edge to one hardware vendor over another.

Nvidia is currently working on Batman: Arkham Knight alongside Rocksteady devs. It may be just because it's a promotion-title for nvidia, but I'm not so sure.

They would have the resources to "support" AAA-companies in optimizing their Vulkan-code to nvidia as well. And that's what I "fear".

So I agree with what you said

Quoting: tuubiI'm sure we'll get a lot of badly optimized Vulkan code though, and that's where Nvidia might still employ their heuristics or game specific fixes to increase performance. It would be better for us gamers if they directed that money and effort towards helping developers produce better code, by providing freely available documentation and code snippets instead. Even if said documentation would be biased towards Nvidia's hardware strengths and quirks.

PS: Sorry if this is a tad off topic, I know this thread isn't about Vulkan.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: MaelraneOh, but I was not talking solely about the GOL-crowd, but in more general terms. Sorry if it sounded differently ;)

I'm pretty sure that as soon as the results are starting to roll in about AMD getting their shit together, that the word will spread fast in the Linux camp. We do not like monopolists, and many of us use and recommend Nvidia today for pure pragmatic reasons.
I'd love to shift to AMD myself, but it won't happen until their cards offer an equal or better performance than Nvidia.

I fear that then it will not happen at all. Nvidia has far more resources to spend on optimizing their binary blob. So it's a classic chicken/egg-problem.

View this comment - View article - View full comments