VAR: FF vs Shader Performance

OpenGL OpenGL: Advanced Coding
21

I detect a bit of a sentiment in Matt’s statemements that seems to suggest that ATI would make an optimization suggestion based on it hurting NVIDIA hardware rather than helping ATI hardware. I don’t think this is correct, and I think Matt would be doing himself a disservice if he was making this suggestion. But, he’s a smart guy, and I think he’s just a victim of a wording fumble.

I don’t think there’s a sinister plot to have people needlessly work worse on other cards going on here.

It’s been said that the 9700 implements the fixed function using the programmable engine. If that is indeed the case, then that would be a set of shaders that probably do more than your own custom shaders would do.

In that case, the overhead of using fixed function wouldn’t be just the extra instructions executed, but also the overhead of loading that big fixed-function shader into the card everytime you switched away from your own shaders. The card probably only has limited amount of program area, after all.

Thus, I think it’s very likely that the 9700 may run faster if you stay all with custom shaders, than if you switch back and forth. Thus, it’s a reasonable position for ATI to say “don’t switch,” without considering the impact (or not) on other architectures.

And, for people doing advanced shader set-ups right now, they’d probably want to heed this advice. Once there’s CineFX harwdare around to optimize for, these same people may have to split their rendering two ways for peak thoughput. Or not; depending on which way the profiling goes.

[This message has been edited by jwatte (edited 12-21-2002).]

22

Originally posted by jwatte:
I detect a bit of a sentiment in Matt’s statemements that seems to suggest that ATI would make an optimization suggestion based on it hurting NVIDIA hardware rather than helping ATI hardware. I don’t think this is correct, and I think Matt would be doing himself a disservice if he was making this suggestion. But, he’s a smart guy, and I think he’s just a victim of a wording fumble.

No, not a wording fumble; I meant what I said.

  • Matt
23

And it does you great credit, Matt.

24

Ummm… okay…

I expect all companies to do whatever is best for their shareholders. In terms of competitive position, it’s just as good to slow down your competition as to speed yourself up. I would consider any company that does not do whatever maximizes its profit to (A) be a dysfunctional company, and (B) be in breach of its fiduciary duty.

  • Matt
25

So I see, money is all that matters?

26

Its what makes the world go round Humus.

Do you think either ATI or nvidia could afford to produce such cool hardware if they didn’t make shed loads of money in order to finance it all?

27

Yes, profit is important for any company, but it doesn’t neccesarily need to be the whole purpose of the company as Matt seams to be implying. If I ever start a company it would be with the purpose of contributing to the human kind in one way or another, new technology, important research results or maybe just a cool game. Hopefully paving the way with some good fun too. Money would not be the purpose, rather just a bonus.

I certainly don’t agree that a company that doesn’t “do whatever maximizes its profit” is “dysfunctional”. Profit is just one out of thousands of possible goals with a company.
Also, I could just go kill a man and argue I did whatever maximized my profit, after all, I got his wallet. But I wont do that, cause it’s wrong and unlawful. A company that does not endorse laws and ethics have no right to exist IMO. Now this is of course stretching it way far, but you get my point. I firmly believe that a company that tries to win market share by stomping on it’s competitors is doing something fundamentally wrong. The market forces only works so long as it’s controlled by good intention.

28

What happened with that rumour about ati drivers checking the module name against “quake3.exe” and optimising accordingly? Was that true? Can’t remember…

Anyway, I wish you luck with your company, humous - can’t say I’d feel that secure working for you, though - you need hard nosed b*stards at the helm these days.

29

Originally posted by Humus:
[b]Yes, profit is important for any company, but it doesn’t neccesarily need to be the whole purpose of the company as Matt seams to be implying. If I ever start a company it would be with the purpose of contributing to the human kind in one way or another, new technology, important research results or maybe just a cool game. Hopefully paving the way with some good fun too. Money would not be the purpose, rather just a bonus.

I certainly don’t agree that a company that doesn’t “do whatever maximizes its profit” is “dysfunctional”. Profit is just one out of thousands of possible goals with a company.
Also, I could just go kill a man and argue I did whatever maximized my profit, after all, I got his wallet. But I wont do that, cause it’s wrong and unlawful. A company that does not endorse laws and ethics have no right to exist IMO. Now this is of course stretching it way far, but you get my point. I firmly believe that a company that tries to win market share by stomping on it’s competitors is doing something fundamentally wrong. The market forces only works so long as it’s controlled by good intention.[/b]

Sorry mate - but profits and having a good cash-flow are the root of all good in business. You need to maximise profits in the good years to finance the bad ones -

30

companies don’t need to make money as only purpose, i know of quite some companies with quite a bunch of success, that don’t have money as first (and if they make money, both their workers and their customers get it, by lowering prices, giving bonus to the workers and all).
one of these is called migros, and is one of the two biggest companies in food (and other) supply in switzerland. its a great company to work in, and a great company to just buy food in, too… not such a capitalistic system like you get elsewhere, only there to try to hype you some adverts to buy the new stuff wich is more expensive than needed and in low quality.

and if there is one company in the gpu/vpu development wich tries to get all people always on their side with sometimes questionable ways, matt, then its your own company. you are not the only one of your company who nearly always states first, use our exts (exts that never fit onto other hw, and you know it and design it that way, and yes i see the good points in that, too…), before use ARB exts. it’s your company that releases nv30 emus and all just at the time the other company makes a bether vpu, so that you can hype it, together with a cg release, to get all people playing with the emulator, at 1/10th fps or so, and think uh cool, what their next gpu can co is imense and impossible on other hw. most of it is possible on todays hw, but it took you damn long to get cg working on other hw than yours and your emulators, just like your proprietary extensions.
its your company that makes marketing hyping everywhere, spitting out uncontrolable benchresults on not existing hw to make people believe waiting months and paying then 500$ or so for a gpu is worth it, while it does not have much more than the old hw.

i could continue…

oh, and its your company that has huge problems with all downloads, who releases non-bug-free software, instable and untested sometimes, who does not react on customer support if its not a big name (never got replies from you all except possibly in here).

most of humus stuff works according to the ARB exts on every hw that is new enough. can’t see that from any, even gf2mx demo wich run years ago. i don’t see them working on my card now.

anyways, enough rant. i’ll continue using gl, and i’ll continue using ARB gl, non proprietary bull****. and if your own cards are not fast with standards, its YOUR problem. i will not support your proprietary exts, i see no gain in them. i will not use ATI exts eighter, jfyi…

companies who work on the same should not try to bitch eachothers, but instead to try to get a good compliant standard that works on both sides. they gain the customers of the other company as well. then the ones with the bether product wins, not the one with the bigger marketing that can fool everyone to use their stuff…

in any other buziness, you can’t develop your own proprietary stuff. why should you be able to do it on gpu’s?

31

Originally posted by Nutty:

Do you think either ATI or nvidia could afford to produce such cool hardware if they didn’t make shed loads of money in order to finance it all?

actually a lot of technology advanced stuff has been made on a very limited budget

32

It’s traditional to give examples, when making such statements, zed. Preferably related to high technology like CPU’s or GPU’s.

33

On the university over here a couple of researchers developed an extremely fast algoritm for routing table lookups with which they made routers based on standard PC components that are able to compete with highend hardware implementations.
Budget: Essentially zero.

[This message has been edited by Humus (edited 12-22-2002).]

34

Originally posted by Humus:
So I see, money is all that matters?

In business, yes, it’s the only thing that matters.

  • Matt
35

Originally posted by mcraighead:
[b] In business, yes, it’s the only thing that matters.

  • Matt[/b]

wrong way of thinking.

first point on making some company: you want to produce something / provide something some one needs, so your first thing that matters is getting your stuff done VERY_WELL and in a way everyone gains
second point on making some company: getting enough money to pay every worker enough he’s worth
third point on making some company: getting more money, so you can expand

the third point is actually not really needed…

to the first point standards are very important, if your tool you want to realise has to fit together with some other tools.

money making is point 2, not point 1. else, get into porno business, or drug selling, or any other illegal business. they gain much more money…

business is part of our lifes. the main goal of our life is not to get money, but to be happy. to be that, stuff has to work together in peaceful harmony. sure, having some other one in your life, who competes with you gives some fun. but only if you define together the rules.

same for business, else its off the way people need it to life. => they provide some stuff that should work together harmless. and they should work together with their “enemies”, defining standards wich they both follow, and in-wich they try to give the best.

never seen problems with business that worked that way. the way you want it, matt, only serves you: you get more money to life in richness. it does not serve us at all. but we are your customers, your main goal should be making us happy. and you don’t make us happy if you spit out every time more nvidia-specific stuff less working together with other companies and always trying to force people to use only your stuff.
there’s a reality out there, and its not an nvidia only world. we have to code for other companies so please provide tools that work together. stop that stupid war you played now during the last years. it does not help anyone.

36

Originally posted by Humus:
[b]On the university over here a couple of researchers developed an extremely fast algoritm for routing table lookups with which they made routers based on standard PC components that are able to compete with highend hardware implementations.
Budget: Essentially zero.

[This message has been edited by Humus (edited 12-22-2002).][/b]

That’s insane - universities are among the biggest businesses around. The budget was not essentially zero - you simply fail to factor in the huge costs of the facilities they were using, and the time it took them. The university will have exclusive rights over any technologies developed using their facilities.

37

Originally posted by mcraighead:
[b] In business, yes, it’s the only thing that matters.

  • Matt[/b]

That’s an extremely narrow view.

38

Originally posted by knackered:
That’s insane - universities are among the biggest businesses around. The budget was not essentially zero - you simply fail to factor in the huge costs of the facilities they were using, and the time it took them. The university will have exclusive rights over any technologies developed using their facilities.

In Sweden the university researchers pretty much own the rights their work developed using university facilities. In this particular case the researchers started a company (EffNet) based on this idea and the burden on the university was minimal. The algoritm was developed on the university, but most of the actual work was done within the newly started company.

39

Originally posted by davepermen:
your main goal should be making us happy.

Nope, my main goal is to make myself happy. It’s quite possible that in order to make myself happy, I will do things that will make other people happy, but that’s not my primary goal.

I don’t agree with your points (1), (2), or (3). Even point (3), about “expanding”, misses the real purpose of a company: to provide return to its investors. Sometimes expanding a company will do that, but sometimes it’s better to pay a dividend to your shareholders.

Point (1) is a goal, but only a secondary goal. You make a good product in order to make money.

Point (2) is a non-goal. Salaries are a cost that are subtracted out of profit.

Remember: at no point did I say that life is all about making money. I merely said that business is all about making money.

If you feel so inclined, look up the law and look up “fiduciary duty”. Publicly owned companies that are not attempting to maximize their profits are in fact liable to be sued by their shareholders. So when I claim that a company that is not doing so is “dysfunctional”, the law is on my side…

There are countries where the law is less kind to shareholders. For example, in Japan, there are some corporations that sit on piles of cash and do next to nothing with it, neither paying dividends nor investing it wisely. Japanese corporate law makes it very difficult for shareholders to oust management for such behavior. American corporate law, despite many problems (for example, the law severely discourages hostile takeovers), is far better.

  • Matt
40

Originally posted by Humus:
In Sweden the university researchers pretty much own the rights their work developed using university facilities.

That’s a rather unusual arrangement, allowing researchers to freeload off the university facilities…

When I was at the graphics lab at MIT, I had to sign an agreement granting MIT exclusive rights to all inventions made using lab facilities.

MIT makes a lot of money off such arrangements. If you want to form a spinoff company, you have to work out an arrangement with MIT – say, you’d get rights to use your lab inventions in the spinoff, and MIT would get a fairly significant share in your company.

  • Matt