
AMD's Answer to GameWorks: Open Source Tools, Graphics FX, Libraries and SDKs - altern8
http://wccftech.com/amds-answer-to-nvidias-gameworks-gpuopen-announced-open-source-tools-graphics-effects-and-libraries/
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herbst
Thats exactly why i buy AMD cards over Nvidia again and again. Who cares about
super fancy graphics and yet another, 2% faster shader. Want i want is
properly supported Hardware with working Open Source drivers from a company
that has interest in its users hacking their own solutions, even when they get
better than their properitary ones.

~~~
tenfingers
How does the current AMD driver fare in linux land?

Two years ago I was working on a large GL project, and basically the only
workable drivers were either intel, or nvidia. With nvidia being _far_ better
off pretty much anything, from driver quality to debugging tools.

I'm using an HD4400 on my primary laptop, mostly to have a low-end system for
performance tuning. While everybody says that intel should be one of the best
supported OSS drivers (if not the only), the i915 driver constantly breaks
with a million of little issues which are fixed in one release of the driver
and broken again on the next. In the end, all these issues pop up in the wild,
where I cannot even restrict users to a single driver version (because many
times issues are chipset-specific).

Despite whatever I read here, over and over again, the nvidia driver has
always been rock-solid for me, with intel being at least on par, and AMD being
not even remotely comparable.

I had generally harder times with intel even, due to unpredictable gpu stalls.
Even when it comes to power management, the latest i915 driver fails to come
back from suspend.

I really want to switch to something _higher quality_ and OSS, so I'm hoping
AMD steps up the game.

I do not need another half-assed driver like i915.

~~~
anon4
The first and last time I bought an ATI card was in 2003. In the 12 years
since then, the drivers have become a little bit more stable and support the
newer OpenGL interfaces. They continue to be light years behind nVidia.

~~~
herbst
IMHO thats not true anymore. Given i use my GPU for casual mining, generating
Hashes on mass and therelike and not gaming. You may can say Nvidia is worlds
better in Gaming, but far behind in these specific points.

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tenfingers
Here's a newsflash: nobody, except miners, care about how fast can you hash
with a graphic card. I do not buy a card for hashing. The fact that I can run
some fixed opencl safely still doesn't say anything about driver quality.

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sevensor
Sometimes, the free market does something that really impresses me. This is
one of those times. Here we have AMD releasing open source tools in an attempt
to beat a competitor whose hardware is technically superior. Sure, this seems
like a desparate measure from a company that's lost its way and will try
anything to make a buck. And it's probably motivated by a desire to generate
lock-in for their hardware. But that's capitalism!

~~~
SXX

        > And it's probably motivated by a desire to generate lock-in for their hardware.

I don't see how MIT licensed code can generate lock-in for AMD hardware. Would
you care to elaborate?

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sevensor
Perhaps I'm misreading it, but the announcement seemed to imply that the
source code, however open, is for AMD hardware. So by open-sourcing it, they
attempt to generate lock-in to the hardware, which is still just as
proprietary as can be. In other words, I don't think that these tools will
work on your NVidia GPU. Or not well, at any rate.

~~~
SXX
Yeah you misreading it because on slides there is few different things and
some of them was already announced in past:

* Open source game and rendering middleware, tools and most of it is for Direct3D11/12, but some things is OpenCL / OpenGL. None of it can be AMD-only because it's all based around standard APIs. Techs that Nvidia provide with GameWorks only support hardware acceleration on top of CUDA which is proprietary.

* HSA-related stuff include compiler from CUDA. I'm not expert in this area, but HSA is also not just AMD-only thing and there is several companies backing it.

* Linux graphics stack. It's of course AMD-only, but AMD announced that they'll open source their OpenCL and Vulkan implementation so other vendors may benefit of it.

So no. They don't release things that can only be used with AMD GPUs or
anything like that. What more important anyone can take MIT licensed code and
turn it into the proprietary product, etc.

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andromeduck
but most of the stuff people complain about in gameworks is multiplatform in
the same way - especially hairworks

~~~
SXX
Main issue with that part of Nvidia middleware is proprietary license so no
one can publicly share improvements for other vendors GPUs.

Also as far as I understand the default licensing option for most of Nvidia
middleware don't contain source code at all.

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autobahn
AMD also released FreeSync, an open alternative to Gsync, a dynamic refresh-
rate interface for monitors. The Nvidia version requires nvidia hardware and
licensing and adds significant cost to the monitor, whereas freesync can be
implemented in the control boards that already exist for the monitors, and
without cost.

I think they're both great graphics cards, but NVidia tries its best to stifle
competition.

~~~
BuckRogers
NV lost their bet on Gsync, it's just not apparant yet. Intel announced
they're adopting the tech behind Freesync for their own IGPs. Gsync won't hold
up against Intel Kabylake's IGP + AMDs APUs and GPUs.

If the trend continues of Intel adopting AMD's open standard / libre
alternatives to NV's tech, I'm not sure how NV can seriously stand against AMD
+ Intel using the same solutions. Intel IGPs are only going to get better and
better and be more relevant over time, Broadwell Iris Pro was already
impressive and Kabylake intends to take that to the next level.

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rasz_pl
AMD is very badly mismanaged. Ever since K8 engineering is again perceived as
a source of cost. They lost $400mil on failed ARM servers idea without
blinking an eye, but plain refuse to fund proper software support for their
products because that would cost like 30-40 engineer salaries! :(.

AMD is Commodore of this decade.

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Diwoto
I'm all for AMD going open source with these tools (I love the fact they're
doing this) but the reason that developers go with GameWorks in the first
place is because Nvidia is able to allocate staff/resources to the game
studios to assist in implementing.

~~~
SXX
Considering how bad GameWorks features perform in many PC games (e.g in some
Ubisoft titles Nvidia-only features was dropped after release within first
patches) this strategy doesn't work.

Though I only heard good things about Nvidia OpenGL developers support and as
far as I know they do support even devs who isn't part of "Meant to be Played"
thingy. So I suppose many studios that don't even use Nvidia-only features
prefer their middleware because of support.

Sadly AMD is opposite and developers support for OpenGL just not exist. E.g
you can send them emails, tickets and there won't be answer for months.

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taspeotis
Last time I checked AMD was losing something like $200MM a quarter with around
$750MM cash on hand. So they could be out of money in a year.

NVIDIA isn't exactly losing this race ... why not just lock yourself in to
GameWorks?

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akerro
So it is time to buy new CPU and GPU?

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creshal
AMD's finances have been miserable for ten years, and they always managed to
find new investors.

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tormeh
It's kinda weird, actually. I mean, AMD often has really interesting ideas
that may be easy to sell, but execution is always bad and the brand is
damaged.

~~~
tankenmate
AMD's execution being bad has been provably Intel's fault at times; Intel has
been proven to use anti-competetive contracts in the past with their customers
(HP, Dell, etc), i.e. limit good CPU prices/discounts unless customers limit
their use of AMD.

~~~
creshal
That was ten years ago. Ever since, AMD had a free playing field… not that it
helped.

~~~
jamstruth
There was a little while when AMD had the advantage, wasn't there? Putting out
64-bit and dual-cores while Intel was struggling with the Pentium 4
architecture.

~~~
tankenmate
That is what lead to Intel's behaviour; in doing so they limited AMD free cash
flow, and in turn limited AMD ability to fund newer die shrinks. And Intel's
main advantage over AMD at the moment is the fact that it is one die shrink
generation ahead.

~~~
creshal
The Intel antitrust lawsuit was on Intel's behaviour in the 90s – it just took
until 2005 to finally reach US courts (it was filed with the EC in 2000). By
the time AMD had competitive CPUs, Intel had already stopped their practices
to avoid further scrutiny.

AMD just stopped being competitive too quickly to gain a proper foothold.

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oxide
AMD has consistently impressed me with stuff like this, definitely going AMD
this time when it's time to upgrade the ol' GPU. Nvidia be damned.

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singularity2001
They better get into deep learning territory quicker!

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omarshaikh
Looks like another attempt at grabbing a share from NVidia's CUDA ecosystem...
Not gonna happen.

