4 ms·

It feels like graphics drivers do / did this a lot too. At the very least they make specific optimizations for specific games, probably by tweaking settings and

It feels like graphics drivers do / did this a lot too. At the very least they make specific optimizations for specific games, probably by tweaking settings and features that the game developers didn't optimize properly themselves.

kalleboo 4mo ago
Famously if you renamed Quake 3 to "Quack" 3, it would slow down on the ATI Radeon 8500 https://web.archive.org/web/20091016055550/https://hardocp.com/article/2001/10/23/optimizing_or_cheating_radeon_8500_drivers/ https://web.archive.org/web/20091016055550/https://hardocp.c...
- account42 4mo ago
  That's a case of the driver cheating but there are also lots of cases where the game is just full of bugs that the driver has to work around in order to not be blamed for them.
  - Gibbon1 4mo ago
    I've said over the years a few times, this isn't our fault but it's our problem.
  - smallstepforman 4mo ago
    The driver switched to lower mipmapped texture and got caught. There is a ton of that out there for popular benchmark ready games. Run pro drivers instead of adrenaline to run generic baseline real driver.
SyzygyRhythm 4mo ago
There are many, many, cases like this, including correctness fixes. One recent example I remember had a shader that computed: x = a / b * b The optimizer was allowed, but not obligated, to transform that into: x = a However, in this case, b was sometimes 0. And if so, the unoptimized version computed: x = a / 0 * 0 = Inf * 0 = NaN So badness ensued if the that particular path didn't get optimized, which could happen under various circumstances. We had to add some code to ensure that transformation always happened on that game.
- DarkUranium 4mo ago
  I'm curious, what's the ratio of: - deciding to inform the game developer & wait for reply vs not waiting for reply vs just fixing it yourself without informing the developer; and - if informed: developer actually fixing it vs only saying they would fix it vs no reply whatsoever (not counting automated "thank you for your inquiry" replies, in cases where you don't already have more direct channels to the dev than email) I've always kind of wondered this because in a way, it's kind of weird that it's fixed for them, at least for new releases / games actively being developed. (Full disclosure: I'm a game developer myself, with a very high interest in engine plumbing & dev [including graphics], though finding a job for the latter is easier said than done.)
  - SyzygyRhythm 4mo ago
    We always try to inform game devs about correctness issues, but generally we can push out a driver fix before the devs can fix things on their side, so that pretty much always happens. Many things can be fixed quickly by app profile (detecting executable name). And we have a pretty good relationship with most game devs and usually get some feedback. Of course, we don't have infinite resources, so bigger game devs get more attention to tiny ones. I'm not sure what fraction of devs actually fix things on their side, though. Once there's a driver workaround, and we've informed the devs, it's off our plate. Performance is more of a gray area. We contact devs if there's something we can't work around, of course. And if there's something truly breaking. But for things that aren't exactly bugs, just things that could be improved, and we can improve on our own... well, we'll probably keep that for the competitive advantage.
rbits 4mo ago
Yep. I know the Minecraft optimisation mod Sodium has encountered some issues because Nvidia drivers try to optimise the game in ways that can cause issues for them

kalleboo 4mo ago

Famously if you renamed Quake 3 to "Quack" 3, it would slow down on the ATI Radeon 8500 https://web.archive.org/web/20091016055550/https://hardocp.com/article/2001/10/23/optimizing_or_cheating_radeon_8500_drivers/ https://web.archive.org/web/20091016055550/https://hardocp.c...

account42 4mo ago
That's a case of the driver cheating but there are also lots of cases where the game is just full of bugs that the driver has to work around in order to not be blamed for them.
- Gibbon1 4mo ago
  I've said over the years a few times, this isn't our fault but it's our problem.
- smallstepforman 4mo ago
  The driver switched to lower mipmapped texture and got caught. There is a ton of that out there for popular benchmark ready games. Run pro drivers instead of adrenaline to run generic baseline real driver.

SyzygyRhythm 4mo ago

There are many, many, cases like this, including correctness fixes. One recent example I remember had a shader that computed: x = a / b * b The optimizer was allowed, but not obligated, to transform that into: x = a However, in this case, b was sometimes 0. And if so, the unoptimized version computed: x = a / 0 * 0 = Inf * 0 = NaN So badness ensued if the that particular path didn't get optimized, which could happen under various circumstances. We had to add some code to ensure that transformation always happened on that game.

DarkUranium 4mo ago
I'm curious, what's the ratio of: - deciding to inform the game developer & wait for reply vs not waiting for reply vs just fixing it yourself without informing the developer; and - if informed: developer actually fixing it vs only saying they would fix it vs no reply whatsoever (not counting automated "thank you for your inquiry" replies, in cases where you don't already have more direct channels to the dev than email) I've always kind of wondered this because in a way, it's kind of weird that it's fixed for them, at least for new releases / games actively being developed. (Full disclosure: I'm a game developer myself, with a very high interest in engine plumbing & dev [including graphics], though finding a job for the latter is easier said than done.)
- SyzygyRhythm 4mo ago
  We always try to inform game devs about correctness issues, but generally we can push out a driver fix before the devs can fix things on their side, so that pretty much always happens. Many things can be fixed quickly by app profile (detecting executable name). And we have a pretty good relationship with most game devs and usually get some feedback. Of course, we don't have infinite resources, so bigger game devs get more attention to tiny ones. I'm not sure what fraction of devs actually fix things on their side, though. Once there's a driver workaround, and we've informed the devs, it's off our plate. Performance is more of a gray area. We contact devs if there's something we can't work around, of course. And if there's something truly breaking. But for things that aren't exactly bugs, just things that could be improved, and we can improve on our own... well, we'll probably keep that for the competitive advantage.

rbits 4mo ago

Yep. I know the Minecraft optimisation mod Sodium has encountered some issues because Nvidia drivers try to optimise the game in ways that can cause issues for them