[GameGPU] ARK: Survival Evolved, GameWorks

[Silverforce11]

I know you upgrade often Railven but have you stop to consider what you are getting for your money.

I mean games like my example in the OP, the graphics is basically crap but the performance demands 980Ti to run at 1080p on medium settings. I can forgive Ark if it launches with better performance, but if it turns out like Project Cars where problems were known years before launch but were never fixed.. well, gamers ought to demand better.

Your examples like FFXIV (I played that, its good, but runs great on my 7950!), Wow etc, don't need a lot of GPU grunt so unless you're at 4K its kinda wasted GPU power.

 

[railven]

I know you upgrade often Railven but have you stop to consider what you are getting for your money.

Getting a GPU that meets my need at a given point? How about this, tell me what would be different if I went with an AMD card? Would would I get for my money?

I mean games like my example in the OP, the graphics is basically crap but the performance demands 980Ti to run at 1080p on medium settings. I can forgive Ark if it launches with better performance, but if it turns out like Project Cars where problems were known years before launch but were never fixed.. well, gamers ought to demand better.

Do I need to play Ark? First, it's a Steam Early Access, which I personally refuse to buy - I don't feel like paying to be QC tester is how it should work.

And now we get to the nerfing issue. Here is how I saw it:
Had I bought a 290X I'd be in the same boat when I bought a 780. So, I'm screwed either way, no? AMD doesn't seem to want to give it's users any real advantage (we run great on neutral games, but terrible on NV games! vs we run great on neutral games and somewhat better on NV games!) yeah it seems easier which to choose. And it seems long as I keep my card relevant, I get that crazy NV paid for optimization. Seems fair.

Your examples like FFXIV (I played that, its good, but runs great on my 7950!), Wow etc, don't need a lot of GPU grunt so unless you're at 4K its kinda wasted GPU power.

At what resolution? I couldn't keep 60 FPS in all areas (not using CPU bottlenecked areas either like towns) when I had a 7970 OC'ed to 1125/1525 (or whatever Overdrive max was at the time) at 1440p. I always had to reduce at least shadows or use LoD culling. And now the DX11 client is a Gameworks title - I can only imagine some nefarious crippling effects on AMD cards. [EDIT: And then I went CF7970 and it was worse than one card. When I finally sold my 7970s and used SLI 660 Tis it was BETTER than when I had CF 660 Tis. And I was honestly blown away by how much better it felt. Of course then SLI proved no better to me than CFX and I sold that off soon as I could (which I got a 780 rush to begin with, I bought the 290X hype and when it launched that blower...my god, it shattered me Haha.]

And I like to use my GPUs, a lot, I mean I paid for it. I got WoW @ 3840x2160p downscaled to 1440p and it looks marvelous. I never realized how blurry MSAA makes games look. Before on the 780 I'd dip in raids under 60 with 1440p+4xMSAA, now not a single hitch.

I have the disposable income, I got the permission (te he), and when I want to upgrade - I will. I'm throwing my blind fanboy Radeon only rule out the window. If NV delivers a better product the day I'm at the store, Nvidia gets my money. If not, then AMD does. I'm probably the ideal customer these companies want. And either one can have me, long as they deliver a product I want when I'm buying. I'm not gonna do the "sit and wait" thing any more. Why? Save a few hundred dollars? Get a few games free? Or, it feels recently, if you're an AMD fan - wait for that magic driver, that magic OS, that magic utility, that magic game fix...

Come on, don't you find it a little pathetic AMD just NOW, fixed their DX11 overhead? NOW, when we're all jabbering about moving on to DX12 and Win10 and "uArch of the Future" NOW they fix it? Woof.

 

[Sabrewings]

Also a key developer thing to note here: you optimise at the end, when the code base is finished or close to completion. I see nothing wrong with what they're doing, it's an early access game. They're adding content as they go along while removing and tweaking others. Expecting them to refine their not-100% code base this early on is willingly asking them to halt development and waste 90% of their time.

Absolutely 100% agree. Yes, the game is a technical disaster right now but you don't optimize before all of your feature sets are available. Certain early access games have done that and taken much longer to add their feature sets. You put everything in place first so you don't undo optimizations you already did in the past which translates to wasted effort.

It's too bad all early access games can't be like Kerbal. I enjoyed two great years of Kerbal before it went 1.0. I suppose part of that has to do with Unity, but it is easily the best early access experience I've ever had.

 

[el etro]

Very Good PS3 launch title.

 

[Subyman]

Absolutely 100% agree. Yes, the game is a technical disaster right now but you don't optimize before all of your feature sets are available. Certain early access games have done that and taken much longer to add their feature sets. You put everything in place first so you don't undo optimizations you already did in the past which translates to wasted effort.

It's too bad all early access games can't be like Kerbal. I enjoyed two great years of Kerbal before it went 1.0. I suppose part of that has to do with Unity, but it is easily the best early access experience I've ever had.

Yes. It was kind of hard to read this thread. As has been said, its early access. Saying its "unoptimized" is obvious and doesn't say anything negative about the game since its not done. That's not to say benchmarking the game is irrelevant though since the game is for sale. Those that are interested in purchasing it should know how it will run, but I don't see this as a bad mark for the developer or certain GPUs. It does give us cause to keep an eye on this game to see if the cards begin to align as the game reaches launch.

 

[Dribble]

What a lot of fuss about nothing - its early access, everyone knows its not done.

As for early access as a method of game development - why so hostile. It means smaller devs can make the game they want. They don't need some huge publisher to pay upfront and dictate what goes in the game. If the idea is good we the people who are going to play the game can support it, and get a much bigger say on the games development. It's a great way of doing things.

Sometimes I think people here don't care anything about games other than who's gpu's perform better. That's pretty sad tbh.

 

[ocre]

NV is very lucky to have such customers. Keep on upgrading everytime they release something new, even when it isn't much faster like the 970/980 vs 780Ti, but they just neuter it in GW titles to make people upgrade anyway.

I mean if GW titles perform like neutral games:



780Ti owners could actually skip this gen and not buy NV's latest just because.

You may not know this but PC enthusiast like to buy new hardware.

2 years is like ages when it comes to PC hardware. Very few of us need to buy HW.......that is rare. Enthusiast are keeping track of the HW that is out and doing as much research as they can on stuff that has yet to launch. They spend their time because they have a passion for this technology.

Buying HW is the ultimate goal. They want to, they love to... it is their passion. It may be something you dont understand and you may not ever. But you spend a lot of time on these forums and you also seem confused by the enthusiast around you.
People want to buy new HW. Waiting years and years is no fun.

You dont seem to understand that many of us have more than one PC. We have people around us that we give our old HW to when we buy new HW. This is our hobby and something we love.
Buying new stuff, that is ultimately what keeps us going!!!!

You cant take that feeling away. You may not understand it....
but many of us love PC

 

[AtenRa]

AMD doesn't seem to want to give it's users any real advantage (we run great on neutral games, but terrible on NV games! vs we run great on neutral games and somewhat better on NV games!) yeah it seems easier which to choose. And it seems long as I keep my card relevant, I get that crazy NV paid for optimization. Seems fair.

Not directed to you personally,

First AMD raised prices, next inline is to do the same thing NV does with GameWorks games, screw the competition and its own last gen GPUs.

People doesnt care when NV does it, they will not care when AMD will.

Welcome to 2016 PC Gaming. :'(

 

[SirPauly]

Thanks for the link OP; I didn't know the developer may add nVidia Turf Effects and WaveWorks. Neat!

 

[AtenRa]

Absolutely 100% agree. Yes, the game is a technical disaster right now but you don't optimize before all of your feature sets are available.

As has been said, its early access. Saying its "unoptimized" is obvious and doesn't say anything negative about the game since its not done. That's not to say benchmarking the game is irrelevant though since the game is for sale. Those that are interested in purchasing it should know how it will run, but I don't see this as a bad mark for the developer or certain GPUs. It does give us cause to keep an eye on this game to see if the cards begin to align as the game reaches launch.

What a lot of fuss about nothing - its early access, everyone knows its not done.

Just to point out that it is funny how the game IT IS only optimized for the Maxwell 2 GPUs.

SLI broken, Kepler performance broken, AMD GPU performance broken, CF broken etc etc

 

[Enigmoid]

Just to point out that it is funny how the game IT IS only optimized for the Maxwell 2 GPUs.

Kepler SLI broken, Kepler performance broken, AMD GPU performance broken, CF broken etc etc

ALL SLI/CF is broken because its in early access. SLI/CF support is probably the last thing on their minds right now. Right now they are adding and refining their content. SLI/CF patches for the 0.1% will come later, if at all.

 

[railven]

Not directed to you personally,

First AMD raised prices, next inline is to do the same thing NV does with GameWorks games, screw the competition and its own last gen GPUs.

People doesnt care when NV does it, they will not care when AMD will.

Welcome to 2016 PC Gaming. :'(

[EDIT: I know not direct at me, just answering from my perspective ]

I was there when prices were raised, I was fine with it long as performance was there. I understand ultimately all this is a luxury hobby. I always think of the guy who said something like "eat Ramen for a week and buy the better videocard." Haha.

When AMD does it, we'll see what happens. I personally believe then the user base WILL wake up and will start to call out these shenanigans for what they are - anti-consumer. But until then, NV is left to free roam a market that is willing to put up with them because they are offer something they want (note: I said AMD offers nothing to their user base, and it's true. What can an AMD card do now that an Nvidia card can't? Nothing.)

Once people see the fences, perhaps they'll start tearing them down. But, face it, I don't see AMD getting to that point. I see AMD riding on the back of console optimizations. NV will continue to select specific MUST PLAY games and lather them with features that breaks AMD performance. And AMD (and it's users) will sit there and start threads like this.

Welcome to 2016 PC Gaming. :'(

I personally find this hilarious. From like 2009ish to just about last two years, it was all 'console port garbage, blah!' Now some of these same people openly buy a console, and cry for 2016 PC gaming WHILE claiming their preferred brand will be the better product because of "console optimizations."

The double speak from some people is just amazing! One guy is literally selling 290(X) cards by the dozens, or at least advertising for them, but doesn't even own them and then he buys a console. Haha.

This all just reeks of "I'm taking my ball and going home." If your team is losing (badly) it's "eff it, I don't like PC gaming anyways."

Woof. I'm glad I'm a gamer first, because the DX11 client in FFXIV is really nice, and if it comes at the expense of AMD performance (mind share and market share) that's on them, because I'd rather have the DX-NV Riddled-11 Client than the DX9 client we had before.

 

[AtenRa]

[EDIT: I know not direct at me, just answering from my perspective ]

I was there when prices were raised, I was fine with it long as performance was there. I understand ultimately all this is a luxury hobby. I always think of the guy who said something like "eat Ramen for a week and buy the better videocard." Haha.

When AMD does it, we'll see what happens. I personally believe then the user base WILL wake up and will start to call out these shenanigans for what they are - anti-consumer. But until then, NV is left to free roam a market that is willing to put up with them because they are offer something they want (note: I said AMD offers nothing to their user base, and it's true. What can an AMD card do now that an Nvidia card can't? Nothing.)

Once people see the fences, perhaps they'll start tearing them down. But, face it, I don't see AMD getting to that point. I see AMD riding on the back of console optimizations. NV will continue to select specific MUST PLAY games and lather them with features that breaks AMD performance. And AMD (and it's users) will sit there and start threads like this.



I personally find this hilarious. From like 2009ish to just about last two years, it was all 'console port garbage, blah!' Now some of these same people openly buy a console, and cry for 2016 PC gaming WHILE claiming their preferred brand will be the better product because of "console optimizations."

The double speak from some people is just amazing! One guy is literally selling 290(X) cards by the dozens, or at least advertising for them, but doesn't even own them and then he buys a console. Haha.

This all just reeks of "I'm taking my ball and going home." If your team is losing (badly) it's "eff it, I don't like PC gaming anyways."

Woof. I'm glad I'm a gamer first, because the DX11 client in FFXIV is really nice, and if it comes at the expense of AMD performance (mind share and market share) that's on them, because I'd rather have the DX-NV Riddled-11 Client than the DX9 client we had before.

Well the consumer buys what its best for him/her. If the consumer believes that NV Cards have an advantage they will go and buy NV GPUs.
Im sure AMD is watching the reaction of the consumers and they will try to do the same, they are not a charity or a non-profitable organization that try to keep PC gaming neutral after all.
They will yield to what is best for the company and how they will get more money at the end.

 

[railven]

Well the consumer buys what its best for him/her. If the consumer believes that NV Cards have an advantage they will go and buy NV GPUs.

Yerp, plain and simple.

Im sure AMD is watching the reaction of the consumers and they will try to do the same, they are not a charity or a non-profitable organization that try to keep PC gaming neutral after all.

Why do you feel you have to even state this?

They will yield to what is best for the company and how they will get more money at the end.

Yerps, and from what I've seen mentioned, they're gonna fleece their user base as much as they can. I just hope that fleecing comes with advantages, not just increased prices. Time will tell.

 

[Azix]

gameworks aside, people are paying money for alpha/betas. this is kind of hilarious

I expected better from this game from the trailers honestly. Where did they get that gameplay from? Adding gameworks at all to a game already working that badly is not smart. I mean what could it possibly offer over other better means? It does not need it

Tho I would guess since they are doing this early access thing and have the game running this badly they would be easy to get to use gameworks. They aren't in a position to refuse nvidia.

 

[railven]

people are paying money for alpha/betas. this is kind of hilarious

And people are complaining they aren't optimized. Haha.

 

[ShintaiDK]

and people are complaining they aren't optimized. Haha.

lol

 

[AtenRa]

Why do you feel you have to even state this?

Because they havent done that the last 2-3 years. They had the chance with Mantle for example, they didnt take it.
Hope their GPUs will work better in Win 10 and DX-12.

Yerps, and from what I've seen mentioned, they're gonna fleece their user base as much as they can. I just hope that fleecing comes with advantages, not just increased prices. Time will tell.

They should, NV does exactly that and they get awarded handsomely :whiste:

 

[Azix]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMhzzJXRe-0

this video tricked a lot of people. lol

I think we are going to need devs to take a stand for us. If they say they won't use it unless the playing field is fair, then that might work. It's what they should do since they should not differentiate between AMD and nvidia when it comes to their consumers

 

[railven]

Because they havent done that the last 2-3 years. They had the chance with Mantle for example, they didnt take it.
Hope their GPUs will work better in Win 10 and DX-12.

If you're debating someone and you feel they need to be reminded "this company isn't a charity" you probably shouldn't bother debating that person.

They should, NV does exactly that and they get awarded handsomely :whiste:

Well that's a tad deceptive. Sure, it comes with a performance price but at least NV is giving their users something to talk about.

I can't think of a single thing beside Mantle that I can do on an AMD GPU. TrueAudio I guess would be a second.

 

[railven]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMhzzJXRe-0

this video tricked a lot of people. lol

I think we are going to need devs to take a stand for us. If they say they won't use it unless the playing field is fair, then that might work. It's what they should do since they should not differentiate between AMD and nvidia when it comes to their consumers

Good luck with that. MSFT basically copied the "court the devs" playbook from NV and rode it to huge success with 360. Once MSFT stopped courting devs that beautiful catalog nearly dried up with all their once "console exclusives" getting PS3 "Ultimate Edition" versions.

Fast forward to now and Sony with it's strong user base in PS4 vs Xbone and devs are lining up to work with Sony, once strong MSFT partners (activision and the CoD-franchise) are seen buddy-buddy with Sony execs and getting first dibs at DLC/Beta/Perks once exclusive to Xbox users.

These devs (publishers) are here to make money and they will take whatever hand outs they can get. Exclusive marketing, access to users for free "QC" testing, etc etc. And NV is doing a bang up job selling themselves to devs and most importantly users.

Nope, this is gonna take AMD fighting dirty to end and get us to where we as users have to fend for ourselves. Right now, just easy to accept the NV pill because AMD is too busy trying to stay afloat.

 

[Azix]

If you're debating someone and you feel they need to be reminded "this company isn't a charity" you probably shouldn't bother debating that person.



Well that's a tad deceptive. Sure, it comes with a performance price but at least NV is giving their users something to talk about.

I can't think of a single thing beside Mantle that I can do on an AMD GPU. TrueAudio I guess would be a second.

Because AMDs and other alternatives are not like gameworks. TressFX for example works better than hairworks and seems to look better for hair, but because gameworks breaks games and causes huge performance losses, people think its a big deal and forget the other options.

Its the reason people like expensive things I think. Just backwards thinking.

 

[thesmokingman]

I owned this game for about two hours. It was the first time I used the Steam refund process. Thank goodness for Steam refunds. You're no longer stuck with steaming piles.

 

[RussianSensation]

It's also very discouraging to have RS call me an idiot because I bought 7970 at launch and didn't wait (like he would have, seems AMD fans love to wait) 6-8 months before buying.

No one said it was required to wait 6-8 months to buy an HD7970. You are just making stuff up. After-market 7970 with 1Ghz clocks dropped very shortly. Gigabyte 1Ghz Windforce 3X was $399 barely after 680 launched. Even HD7970Ghz the follow-up launched in June 21st. Waiting 6-8 months is something you are just making up to defend your reference 7970 purchase.

You bought 7970 reference design that ran hot and loud and overclocked poorly while sounding like a jet engine = your fault

You didn't wait for NV's Kepler response for either price drops or a superior NV card, while everyone knew that NV would release cards very shortly based on all the rumours coming out that time = your fault

You ended up getting a card that had poor drivers (generally speaking all new architectures which GCN was have less than optimal drivers in the beginning of a generation), awful heatsink/fan combo, poor overclocking on a card that when OC sounded like a jet engine. Whose fault is that? AMDs? LOL! It's your fault since you didn't do your research and walked into a bomb. Many people didn't buy the 1st thing that came out in 2012 and actually waited properly to make a decision once 680 launched, price drops started, plenty of after-market cards came out. There were plenty of reasons to get HD7970 on day 1 - bitcoin mining, water-cooling = things you didn't do.

I am sorry that you must love putting up with loud videocards as you bought a reference Zotac 980Ti = once again an awful videocard compared to all the best after-market 980Tis out there. When you bought GTX780 Lightning, you couldn't find a single after-market 290, at all? Hard to believe. Today, the 780 gets wrecked by 290/290X cards. There seems to be some pattern in your buying choices = you almost go out of your way to buy mediocre cards. I mean it's basically known online that a reference 980Ti runs hot and loud and overclocks worse than after-market 980Ti cards. The card is a > 50 dBA jet engine on a reference heatsink once overclocked but yet like you put with a jet engine 7970, you are OK walking into this sort of purchase for the 2nd time?!

And that's what AMD is left with. Fans that would rather WAIT than upgrade. And their market share and sales plummet. And their new CEO comes out saying "we're going to start milking our fan base like Nvidia does" but releases a half-cooked Fury X after bragging about it.

Instead of trying to call me or other members here out as some AMD fans, which is already a false premise, but not focusing on how ARK is a broken game in its current state, you are instead covering up the facts that 7970 reference was a bad videocard, regardless if it came from AMD or NV. Even at $399 it wasn't worth buying unless a gamer was willing to get an after-market cooler or go water. Going reference 7970 meant giving up 10-15% of overclocking headroom performance at a quiet noise levels.

Secondly, you are completely ignoring the market dynamics for AAA PC games and generalizing that "AMD fans would rather wait" than upgrade. No, that's not how things are. It's not AMD fans would rather wait, but a lot of PC gamers would rather skip this 28nm generation and skip pre-ordering $60 broken AAA PC games because they see it largely as a waste of $ and supporting the perpetuating practices of releasing broken games. Finally, a lot of people realize this is a pure stop-gap generation.

This is how I see it now. I got money to spend. if Nvidia is gonna snag games I WANT to play (MGS5/FFXIV/WOW) well and AMD is not gonna respond, I can have best of both worlds. Which I'm okay with. Went from buying an AMD card almost every 9-12 months to buying whatever is available and best for me, if Nvidia gets my money it's only AMD faults.

You think upgrading $600 cards every 9-12 months is normal? I bet less than 5% gamers upgrade this way. An after-market 980Ti is a great card but this comment about why you bought NV vs. AMD has nothing to do with ARK Survival Evolved.....

Let's look at the GPU market objectively. June 2012, AMD launched HD7970Ghz for $499. That level of performance is roughly equal to an R9 280X. What do we have as of July 2015, more than 3 years later?

$480 GTX980 = 55% faster than 280X after 3 years
$550 Fury = 67% faster than 280X after 3 years

But it gets far worse when we start looking at dual-GPU users such as myself.

980 SLI is just 42% faster than 280X CF at 1440P, and even Titan X is just 76% faster. Am I supposed to be throwing $$$ at the screen to upgrade? No thanks, this isn't good enough considering 980 SLI costs $960.

You do realize that since September 2009 (HD5870), GPU performance has roughly increased 33-35% and it generally doubled every 3 years?

Does it look like the market is where it should be right now? Even a reference 980Ti isn't 2X faster than a 280X on those charts but the cheapest 980Ti is $650. Can we buy a $499 card that's 2X faster than R9 280X? Nope.

So instead of focusing how nearly every card this generation besides 980Ti max OC has failed to live up to the expectations, how AAA PC games are broken/optimized, you want to keep shouting from the roof-tops how "AMD fans would rather wait" than spend hundreds of dollars on the current state of PC gaming? Ooo---ook.

As a PC gamer, not an NV or AMD gamer, I don't mind not giving AMD or NV my money or AAA PC gamers $60 of my money + DLC money because all of them have under-delivered in the 2014-2015 era thus far. Things might change but as it currently stands, there is no way we should be paying $650-700 for a 980Ti/Fury X that's 2X faster than a $499 3-year old HD7970Ghz. The regular Fury and 980 are even bigger failures at $480-550 bracket. :sneaky:

Look, it is great that you are on a 9-12 months GPU upgrade path, but denying the current dynamics of AAA PC gaming (developers focus most of their efforts on console versions and GW has ruined most AAA PC games), horrible price/performance of this 28nm stop-gap generation vs. historical generations, and most importantly the topic of the main thread: ignoring the horrible CPU and GPU optimization in the ARK Survival Evolved isn't going to win you any points by trying to spin the entire thread that "AMD fans would rather wait than upgrade."

 

[n0x1ous]

Meh. I just went out and bought an Xbox 360 S 250GB with 19 games for $60 and will load up on a bunch of racing games and skip the entire 28nm GPU generation on the PC. I'll wait until all these poorly unoptimized/broken AAA (including most GW titles) games drop to $5 cuz that's all they are worth, tops. Hopefully PC developers start paying attention cuz I am not going to spend even $1 on a broken AAA game. Nope. GPU sales will suffer too. I just went out and bought Senns HD700s instead of a 980Ti cuz the state of AAA PC gaming is broken and I see no reason to buy $650 GPUs to play broken $60 + DLC games on release.

Woah there, a potato is never the answer my friend!

We all wish that certain market realities were different right now, but at the end of the day, I love PC hardware and PC gaming and nothing is going to change that. If value was all we cared about many of us would be console gamers. PC is still THE PREMIER experience (and with VR right around the corner this is only going to be more clear to the peasant consoles) and we just have to remember that this is a hobby not a necessity and at the end of the day we just like to play with new hardware.

I mean I love PC gaming, but the truth is that I love PC hardware even more than PC gaming which is kinda ironic since its the primary thing we do with them. We all have our vices....