Which is plenty of reason why ATI should be bending over backwards to fix any issues Bioware (or other companies) might be having, or at least provide a solution to.
I’ve had the same issues with Gladius on the XBOX. Had issues with KOTOR, as well. I think, with the xbox, it’s a severe problem with heat management. It just doesn’t seem to deal with heat well, and after a few hours of constant playing, it’s ready to sieze up and shut down.
Oh man, between the revamped D2, CM4 03/04 (actually this is eating up ALL my time), and TOEE, I am swamped… have mercy…
:P :P :P
I really hope that was at least facetious in nature.
You’re joking, right? It’s up to a IHV to code a developers game for them? You do realize Bioware chose to use proprietary NVIDIA OGL extensions when they wrote the engine used for these games, right? To be fair, NVIDIA really was the only 3D company when it came to developer support in 2000-2001, but I’ve already heard from on ATI engineer who’s flat-out stating that KotOR’s issues are on the developer side and are not a hardware problem. Yes, he could be lying to defend his company’s hardware, but I wouldn’t be too quick to assume that.
Perhaps, but if so, it’s not a universal issue. I’ve played my xbox for hours and hours and hours at a time without problems. When I was in Edmonton over the summer staying at a friends place, I was playing KOTOR for probably 6+ hours at a stretch, in a hot apartment.
Guess you missed my post about the shiny water issue. As for companies fixing drivers for games it happens all the time. In fact there is a hotfix for ATI Radeons and CoD out right now.
I saw your post, and, yes, I’m aware that that driver updates fix bugs all the time (I’m using the CAT 3.9s and I read the bug fix list for each update)… I’m really not trying to bash on Bioware, but why no soft shadows for ATI hardware in the game? According to the ATI engineer there’s absolutely no reason for this not to work. Go ask one of your graphics guys if you have the time because I really am curious if it’s just something that there wasn’t time for since the game is obviously an X-box port and was written for NV hardware or if it’s something else.
I saw your post, and, yes, I’m aware that that driver updates fix bugs all the time (I’m using the CAT 3.9s and I read the bug fix list for each update)… I’m really not trying to bash on Bioware, but why no soft shadows for ATI hardware in the game? According to the ATI engineer there’s absolutely no reason for this not to work. Go ask one of your graphics guys if you have the time because I really am curious if it’s just something that there wasn’t time for since the game is obviously an X-box port and was written for NV hardware or if it’s something else.[/quote]
Here’s your answer - http://swforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=280088&forum=27
Apparently your “ATI engineer” friend is out of the loop.
Now who is being facetious? How does expecting hardware manufacturers to fix issues with their cards manage to equate to them writing the game for the developer? Here’s how things go: Developers get documentation for an API. Developers use said API. Hardware makers’ jobs are to conform and make sure said API works. If said API doesn’t work, how the flying fuck does it become the developers fault?
And that answer doesn’t preclude the fact that the engine does use proprietary EXTs, which could result in the fact that once testing started on ‘other’ hardware your graphics guys saw the performance drop and basically said “f*ck it, it works fine on NV hardware, this ain’t our fault” and now expect ATI to fix their programming decisions.
That said, the engineer works on the D3D software team so he could very well be out of the loop. ATI’s OGL support still isn’t the greatest (a la CoD and Jedi Academy issues, both of which have now been fixed but still annoying to early buyers of those games).
Because a lot of developers’ programmers really aren’t that well educated on the APIs and often end up following their hardware development platform’s IHV’s advice a wee-bit too much, which results in headaches for them for other hardware (performance and/or incompatibilities).
Your posts basically smack of an assumption that it’s a hardware/IHV driver support issue. I’m not convinced of that. Haven’t ruled it out, but I’m not going to be so quick to assume.
So… what makes you think they use proprietary EXTs? Though they might have in NWN, I seriously doubt they did in KOTOR. I’m just wondering where you get these wacky ideas.
Yet you are quick to assume it’s Bioware’s fault.
I’m not positive they have, but when developers spend thousands of man hours having new engines programmed they don’t throw them out the window for the next game and start over, and it’s well documented that Bioware did indeed use proprietary OGL EXTs for NWN.
Wow, just put me into a forum headlock, eh?
I’m not positive they have, but when developers spend thousands of man hours having new engines programmed they don’t throw them out the window for the next game and start over, and it’s well documented that Bioware did indeed use proprietary OGL EXTs for NWN.[/quote]
Our graphics programmers are not newbs. They kick some serious ass and I assure you they are aware of the issues that you mention. As Charles stated, there isn’t much we can do when we make a call to an API and it works on one card, but not another. Unless we want to make a vendor specific hack and that’s not always a good choice.
But using proprietary extensions for an API that’s supposed to be open isn’t a “vendor specific hack”? Oh well.
I am looking forward to the game. I have a P4 3Ghz with 1GB of RAM so performance can’t be that bad, and I can live without the soft shadows.
ummm… cuz it’s your game?
We get the same thing here in corporate non-game software land. If our web servers are down, it’s our fault. If the app server is down, it’s our fault. If the message queues are down it’s our fault.
It really doesn’t matter that the software developers don’t maintain these servers, the customer sees us as being the point of contact and therefore they blame us when anything is wrong.
It’s not really fair but it’s reality.
But using proprietary extensions for an API that’s supposed to be open isn’t a “vendor specific hack”? Oh well.
I am looking forward to the game. I have a P4 3Ghz with 1GB of RAM so performance can’t be that bad, and I can live without the soft shadows.[/quote]
To be fair you fail to mention that we use vendor specific extensions for both ATI and Nvidia. They both use unique render paths. Generally, it’s only for specific effects (i.e. bumpy/shiny) and rarely for any core rendering. This is the same for any dev out there, we all have different render paths for different vendor hardware. Hell, sometimes there are different paths for iterations of the same brand. OpenGL only goes so far and if a vendor doesn’t implement extensions the same as another we can’t do much about that other than applying pressure on their dev department.