jk bro, i've yet to destroy any gpu from overclocking too.

haha yes but they'll scare seeing that ...I destroyed my GPU once but due to water cooling..damn, that's why retired now.

I destoyed one by putting a 6-pin power to a 8-pin power GPU

wah i did not no that could hapen... 

Nvidia’s GameWorks program usurps power from developers, end-users, and AMD

Over the past few months, Nvidia has made a number of high-profile announcements regarding game development and new gaming technologies. One of the most significant is a new developer support program, called GameWorks. The GameWorks program offers access to Nvidia’s CUDA development tools, GPU profiling software, and other developer resources. One of the features of GameWorks is a set of optimized libraries that developers can use to implement certain effects in game. Unfortunately, these same libraries also tilt the performance landscape in Nvidia’s favor in a way that neither developers nor AMD can prevent.

Understanding libraries

Simply put, a library is a collection of implemented behaviors. They are not application specific — libraries are designed to be called by multiple programs in order to simplify development. Instead of implementing a GPU feature five times in five different games, you can just point the same five titles at one library. Game engines like Unreal Engine 3 are typically capable of integrating with third party libraries to ensure maximum compatibility and flexibility. Nvidia’s GameWorks contains libraries that tell the GPU how to render shadows, implement ambient occlusion, or illuminate objects.

In Nvidia’s GameWorks program, though, all the libraries are closed. You can see the files in games like Arkham City or Assassin’s Creed IV — the file names start with the GFSDK prefix. However, developers can’t see into those libraries to analyze or optimize the shader code. Since developers can’t see into the libraries, AMD can’t see into them either — and that makes it nearly impossible to optimize driver code.



Previous Arkham titles favored Nvidia, but never to this degree. In Arkham City, the R9 290X has a 24% advantage over the GTX 770 in DX11, and a 14% improvement in DX9. In Arkham Origins, they tie. Can this be traced directly back to GameWorks? Technically, no it can’t — all of our feature-specific tests showed the GTX 770 and the R9 290X taking near-identical performance hits with GameWorks features set to various detail levels. If DX11 Enhanced Ambient Occlusion costs the GTX 770 10% of its performance, it cost the R9 290X 10% of its performance.

The problem with that “no,” though, is twofold. First, because AMD can’t examine or optimize the shader code, there’s no way of knowing what performance could look like. In a situation where neither the developer nor AMD ever has access to the shader code to start with, this is a valid point. Arkham Origins offers an equal performance hit to the GTX 770 and the R9 290X, but control of AMD’s performance in these features no longer rests with AMD’s driver team — it’s sitting with Nvidia.





The first three scenes of the benchmark in Arkham Origins hammer tessellation. AMD’s driver allows us to manually define the tessellation level — changing that setting to x4 improves performance in the first three scenes of the test by 11%, from 134fps to 150fps. Total test performance improves by 7%, from 148fps to 158fps. AMD attempted to provide Warner Bros. Montreal with code to improve Arkham Origins performance in tessellation, as well as to fix certain multi-GPU problems with the game. The studio turned down both. Is this explicitly the fault of GameWorks? No, but it’s a splendid illustration of how developer bias, combined with unfair treatment, creates a sub-optimal consumer experience.

Nvidia’s GameWorks program is conceptually similar to what Intel pulled on AMD 8-10 years back. In that situation, Intel’s compilers refused to optimize code for AMD processors, even though AMD had paid Intel for the right to implement SSE, SSE2, and SSE3. The compiler would search for a CPU string rather than just the ability to execute the vectorized code, and if it detected AuthenticAMD instead of GenuineIntel, it refused to use the most advantageous optimizations.

Nvidia has done a great deal for gaming over the past decade. Features like hardware PhysX support and 3D gaming may never have gone truly mainstream, but they were appreciated premium features for the gamers that wanted them. G-Sync, by all accounts, offers real advantages as well. GameWorks, however, doesn’t just offer Nvidia customers an advantage — it curtails developer freedom and sharply limits AMD’s ability to optimize as well. Even if Nvidia never deliberately sabotages GameWorks code to run poorly on AMD or Intel GPUs, the inability to optimize these functions is itself a genuine competitive disadvantage.

Sauce: Nvidia’s GameWorks program usurps power from developers, end-users, and AMD

It was my old 4850 haha when plug in 2nd PC accidently plug in wrong power cable . Turn on , heard a small spark noise...Both GPU and PSU died lol...it was a good PSU too.. =(

good psu ? hmm i question that statement.. lols

Incoming wall of texts
I didn't pasta everything btw. Bolded interesting parts.

so.. am i suppose to enjoice that i got a Nvidia card instead of AMD's?

this seems 'limiting' to everyone

but in a business view, its perfectly normal

hmm i am very sure if Mantle successful(this is "just or story") implemented into GCN, and Nvidia stock market fall.. Nvidia Share holder not happy... very sure Nvidia would  sued AMD ... (or make something up to sued AMD of un fare reason or infringement )

Edit: i mean  if this was another way around..

in a business point of view, its completely acceptable as the youre obviously striving to be better than your competitor and get more as well

but in a consumer view, thats just Nvidia being a jacka$$, trying to monopolise the market again

we need competiton man, later AMD vs Intel happen

this move is purely there to annoy AMD users

as for Mantle, i heard alot about it but its still not ready?

hmm if like that, im DEFO gonna sell my Powercolor R9 290x OC with 30% off ori price

in a business point of view, its completely acceptable as the youre obviously striving to be better than your competitor and get more as well

but in a consumer view, thats just Nvidia being a jacka$$, trying to monopolise the market again

we need competiton man, later AMD vs Intel happen

this move is purely there to annoy AMD users

as for Mantle, i heard alot about it but its still not ready?

make sure your PC 290x OC is faster than 780Ti and same price as Tri-X 290 or else no one wants.. hahaha