AMD: Frame pacing driver set for July 31st release

[wand3r3r]

The way it is written hear, I think all their cards have hardware frame metering. There is no reason it has to only be on the 690.

http://techreport.com/review/21516/inside-the-second-a-new-look-at-game-benchmarking/11


It did say GPUs, not a specific GPU.

Hmm, it appears you're right?

Thanks for the link.

I guess I was remembering the 690's reviews which were the only ones that have promoted the hardware frame metering. I thought it was a selling point too, I guess not.

 

[bystander36]

It is possible that they all have hardware to help frame pacing, and the 690 has additional hardware. It is also possible that while they have hardware in place to help frame pacing, they may still use some code in the drivers as well. It may not be 100% hardware driven.

They are guarding their secrets for now, so we won't know.

 

[jackstar7]

Looking forward to them.

 

[Leadbox]

Hmm, it appears you're right?

Thanks for the link.

I guess I was remembering the 690's reviews which were the only ones that have promoted the hardware frame metering. I thought it was a selling point too, I guess not.

Maybe I missed it(just schemed through), but there is nothing in that article to suggest that it's hardware frame metering
On nvidia's website the term is hardware based frame metering, that could be interpreted in a couple of ways I guess

 

[bystander36]

Maybe I missed it(just schemed through), but there is nothing in that article to suggest that it's hardware frame metering
On nvidia's website the term is hardware based frame metering, that could be interpreted in a couple of ways I guess

That was what I was saying. It may not be entirely done by hardware. The drivers may still play a part.

 

[Leadbox]

That was what I was saying. It may not be entirely done by hardware. The drivers may still play a part.

Oh it's definitely not entirely hardware, maybe the software is getting it's cue from a part of the hardware somehow. I just don't think that there are dedicated transistors that are frame metering

 

[bystander36]

Oh it's definitely not entirely hardware, maybe the software is getting it's cue from a part of the hardware somehow. I just don't think that there are dedicated transistors that are frame metering

That we do not know. They made it sound like they had dedicated hardware to help frame metering. Whether they are simply monitoring frames, or calculating when frames should be delivered is something we have no idea about until Nvidia says something.

 

[Rvenger]

What a slap in the face. lol Can't believe Nvidia would just post on AMD's message. Somewhat unprofessional IMO. But a little funny because it should put some fire under AMD's arse.

 

[Leadbox]

What a slap in the face. lol Can't believe Nvidia would just post on AMD's message. Somewhat unprofessional IMO. But a little funny because it should put some fire under AMD's arse.

Lol surely that's a troll/fake account, would they do that?

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

I think that instead of just fixing the issue which they still have not done, this is a known issue which has been on going way longer than a year!!!! my 7970's are long in the tooth, and this is just an insult to the people who spent there hard earned money on AMD. Nvidia doesn't need to comment on this, there smoking AMD out of the water........

 

[Rvenger]

I think that instead of just fixing the issue which they still have not done, this is a known issue which has been on going way longer than a year!!!! my 7970's are long in the tooth, and this is just an insult to the people who spent there hard earned money on AMD. Nvidia doesn't need to comment on this, there smoking AMD out of the water........

Since you have them in crossfire, I agree with you completely. Single card users had an overall positive experience with them though.

 

[crashtech]

Since you have them in crossfire, I agree with you completely. Single card users had an overall positive experience with them though.

That's exactly right. My 7970 has been great. But now that there are some faster cards out there, it's time to step up to the new and improved Crossfire, or jump ship.

 

[bystander36]

Since you have them in crossfire, I agree with you completely. Single card users had an overall positive experience with them though.

Event the single card users had issues with them until late January this year. Maybe not as bad as the crossfire issue, but Techreport caught problems with single cards too that AMD addressed early this year.

 

[BrightCandle]

Event the single card users had issues with them until late January this year. Maybe not as bad as the crossfire issue, but Techreport caught problems with single cards too that AMD addressed early this year.

They still do, its just that AMD fixed the specific games that Techreport and others were benchmarking with frame rating tools. Until the GC fix comes out DX9 games will continue to have a problem, as will DX10-11 games that AMD hasn't specifically tested and fixed. There are still stuttering games out there, they are just a bit more obscure as AMD has put in specific fixes for the more popular games.

What worries me more than anything is that AMD's drivers by default seem to need work for a game. If I go and play an old obscure game on the 680 it just works, but that wasn't the case on the 7970, I regularly had major problems with IQ or performance. They seem to need to tweak the drivers a lot for a game and games released before the card or less popular games seem to have a variety of odd problems.

AMD (at least by the specifications and raw numbers) has the better hardware, but in practice it seems to need a lot of software tweaks to make it function well. I don't understand why this is the case.

The frame metering fix is a good thing, it will reduce the average input latency for crossfire users and actually make the reported frame rate more like the actual user experience of the frames seen. We should expect it to perform worse than NVidia's solution partly because its software and not in the hardware but also because its AMDs first go and this technology and its likely to be less than perfect on release.

 

[24601]

They still do, its just that AMD fixed the specific games that Techreport and others were benchmarking with frame rating tools. Until the GC fix comes out DX9 games will continue to have a problem, as will DX10-11 games that AMD hasn't specifically tested and fixed. There are still stuttering games out there, they are just a bit more obscure as AMD has put in specific fixes for the more popular games.

What worries me more than anything is that AMD's drivers by default seem to need work for a game. If I go and play an old obscure game on the 680 it just works, but that wasn't the case on the 7970, I regularly had major problems with IQ or performance. They seem to need to tweak the drivers a lot for a game and games released before the card or less popular games seem to have a variety of odd problems.

AMD (at least by the specifications and raw numbers) has the better hardware, but in practice it seems to need a lot of software tweaks to make it function well. I don't understand why this is the case.

The frame metering fix is a good thing, it will reduce the average input latency for crossfire users and actually make the reported frame rate more like the actual user experience of the frames seen. We should expect it to perform worse than NVidia's solution partly because its software and not in the hardware but also because its AMDs first go and this technology and its likely to be less than perfect on release.

It's been specifically stated that the crossfire fix will only be for specific games.

 

[Rvenger]

Event the single card users had issues with them until late January this year. Maybe not as bad as the crossfire issue, but Techreport caught problems with single cards too that AMD addressed early this year.

No, the issue started with the Never Settle 12.11 release and continued to 13.1.

 

[Leadbox]

It's been specifically stated that the crossfire fix will only be for specific games.

Where has it been stated? The idea is to slow down the fast frames (think I read that on pcper) but its obviously going to need game engine specific fine tuning, just like nvidia's solution

 

[BrightCandle]

It's been specifically stated that the crossfire fix will only be for specific games.

Where? As far as I know the fix is a frame metering solution that should apply to every game. Whether it will do a good job in all games remains to be seen, but it is meant to be a generic solution to fix the problem seen in the grand majority of games with crossfire.

 

[3DVagabond]

What a slap in the face. lol Can't believe Nvidia would just post on AMD's message. Somewhat unprofessional IMO. But a little funny because it should put some fire under AMD's arse.

Somewhat unprofessional? Doesn't surprise me, though. There are trolls in every thread that says anything positive about or for AMD.

There are trolls on both sides of the aisle. If you see problems, report them, and they will be addressed.
-- stahlhart

 

[Makaveli]

Question

Is this driver only to help with crossfire setups or do single cards setup benefit also anyone know?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Only CF as far as I know.

Hopefully we get this, and a memory rewrite prior to them releasing their next cards.

 

[Elfear]

Only CF as far as I know.

Hopefully we get this, and a memory rewrite prior to them releasing their next cards.

Ya I was hoping for the memory re-write sooner than July 31st but at least we have a firm date now.

 

[BrightCandle]

Frame metering can help in a single card scenario as well however, it isn't in theory limited to crossfire. If you have a game for whatever reason has alternate frames that are taking different amounts of time to process then frame metering could very well improve the situation. I suspect its extremely rare that this ever happens, if ever, but there is no reason to turn frame metering off when only using a single card, it will simply do nothing and have a minimal performance impact.

 

[bystander36]

Frame metering can help in a single card scenario as well however, it isn't in theory limited to crossfire. If you have a game for whatever reason has alternate frames that are taking different amounts of time to process then frame metering could very well improve the situation. I suspect its extremely rare that this ever happens, if ever, but there is no reason to turn frame metering off when only using a single card, it will simply do nothing and have a minimal performance impact.

It isn't likely the drivers even attempt frame metering with a single card. While possible they do, it is added overhead they probably don't included except in CrossfireX.