An AMD Mantle users Testing BF4.

[ASM-coder]

It's not 14.1 that was the problem it was BF4, but it has been patched a bit ago which fixed that problem.

Oops you are right, that was fixed in a BF4 patch. But it's still old.

 

[CropDuster]

Is the bug with terrain decoration still present? It changed the quality every time you started the game despite the setting remaining the same...

This hasn't been fixed after some quick reading on battlelog.

 

[Phynaz]

I'm saying Mantle is not identical to DX as far as IQ. It is up to the end user as far as the differences.

I'm not sure that is the fault of Mantle and not the fault of the developer. Remember Mantle puts a LOT more of the rendering work in the game engine.

 

[UaVaj]

I'm saying Mantle is not identical to DX as far as IQ. It is up to the end user as far as the differences.

http://forum.hardwarepal.com/battlefield-4-mantle-vs-directx-image-quality-comparison/

thanks for that side by side comparison. that slider is great.
picture does say a thousands words.
less viewing distance, less texture filtering, less lighting, less terrain decoration, less ambient occlusion.


mantle is clearly NOT rendering the same level of eye candy.

 

[3DVagabond]

That comparison is pre 14.2B

 

[krumme]

That comparison is pre 14.2B

They both know

 

[Gloomy]

Mantle:

DX:

 

[OCGuy]

Kyle at [H] certainly changed his tune.

Screenshots should be like the others...of dynamic images that are close enough to see detail. Most of yours is just background.

When I get home I plan on going to Shanghai with a AMD card and looking at that same view from earlier in the thread to see if the stoplights/trees/fog match up with DX if nobody else does.

 

[HWfreak]

Mantle, same settings (medium). fresh server. all objects in place. no dust cover on the railings.

I hope this clears it up?

 

[OCGuy]

Earlier you said Ultra? I have a feeling there are some in-depth reviews coming on this from more than one place. We will also get to see Thief tomorrow as well.

Edit: I just did medium settings like you, and there are obvious differences in the screen shots. Edit 2: it is pretty useless to not look at both originating back to back on a re-join, since sunlight changes are drastic.

 

[Gloomy]

Mantle:

DX:

 

[HWfreak]

Earlier you said Ultra? I have a feeling there are some in-depth reviews coming on this from more than one place. We will also get to see Thief tomorrow as well.

The one in the opening post i did on Medium as with a 7870XT i don't have the GPU grunt to be GPU bound on Ultra in Mantle.

The other was done by a friend on Ultra with an i7 @ 4.8Ghz and xFire 290., he does have the GPU power to be GPU bound in Mantle.

 

[Silverforce11]

Gloomy, Mantle has an APE on that billboard while DX has a WOLF!

Clearly the WOLF is a more dangerous animal, so Mantle is weak!..

/sarc

Thanks for the screens, seems to be the usual case of looking too hard for a fault when Mantle gives double the minimum FPS during intense scenes. Seems very strange some users aren't happy BF4 is now devoid of those terrible fps chokes.

 

[chimaxi83]

Gloomy, Mantle has an APE on that billboard while DX has a WOLF!

Clearly the WOLF is a more dangerous animal, so Mantle is weak!..

/sarc

Thanks for the screens, seems to be the usual case of looking too hard for a fault when Mantle gives double the minimum FPS during intense scenes. Seems very strange some users aren't happy BF4 is now devoid of those terrible fps chokes.

Hey, you should know better than to expect any different around here.

 

[HWfreak]

@ OCGuy, i could add an Oxide Star Swarm test to the OP if you like?

 

[UaVaj]

3DVagabond

less viewing distance = far out mountain range are missing
less texture filtering = the leaves on the ground is a blended mess
less lighting = missing tree shadows
less terrain decoration = missing a whole lot of grass
less ambient occlusion = missing that glow where light bounces off object

did 14.2B fix all this? if so - good for amd.



Glommy

both are those comparison are near identical. too bad you did not engage (1) perfoverlay.drawfps and (2) perfoverlay.drawgraph and (3) render.drawscreeninfo.



OC Guy

can you also do a comparison on caspain border 2014 (that is the harshest map) with ultra setting.

 

[HWfreak]

3DVagabond

less viewing distance = far out mountain range are missing
less texture filtering = the leaves on the ground is a blended mess
less lighting = missing tree shadows
less terrain decoration = missing a whole lot of grass
less ambient occlusion = missing that glow where light bounces off object

did 14.2B fix all this? if so - good for amd.



Glommy

both are those comparison are near identical. too bad you did not engage (1) perfoverlay.drawfps and (2) perfoverlay.drawgraph and (3) render.drawscreeninfo.



OC Guy

can you also do a comparison on caspain border 2014 (that is the harshest map) with ultra setting.

Actually it was DICE who fixed all that with a BF4 patch for Mantle

 

[Gloomy]

I know someone is going to do something offensive next like suggest I just took two screenshots without changing the API. Going to curtail that right now: I logged in and out to change the API for both screenshots. There is no visual difference in-game. In the screenshots, it seems like the DX shot has some details missing esp. in the awning that is in front of the skyscraper. That's just dust and smoke getting in the way.

@UaVaj

I'll redo it later. Don't feel like it right now. I understand some people may want proof. I think it's offensive that you think I'm lying when there are a number of people here who can test it independently, but I understand being unable to test it yourself.

 

[Grooveriding]

I know someone is going to do something offensive next like suggest I just took two screenshots without changing the API. Going to curtail that right now: I logged in and out to change the API for both screenshots. There is no visual difference in-game. In the screenshots, it seems like the DX shot has some details missing esp. in the awning that is in front of the skyscraper. That's just dust and smoke getting in the way.

@UaVaj

I'll redo it later. Don't feel like it right now. I understand some people may want proof. I think it's offensive that you think I'm lying when there are a number of people here who can test it independently, but I understand being unable to test it yourself.

If you do redo them again you can use the console command 'Render.DrawScreenInfo True' It will display the render path as well as visual settings used.

Not that I doubt your screenshots, but it would be effective troll repellent.

 

[Carfax83]

Some large performance increases being reported in this thread, much higher than what the reviews stated..

This one in particular made me

At low settings for high fps/120hz gaming my 7970 at 1050mhz had over 50fps higher minimums than my gtx780 at 1176mhz. I had a frame cap at 120 so I don't know exactly how much faster. Mantle never dropped below 120fps.

I would definitely need evidence to believe that. It's not like he was using a slow CPU either..

 

[Obsoleet]

There are lots of Mantle Reviews on the net but none of them quite seem to reflect the point of Mantle and what it does.

My experience of those reviews seems typical in that they have a tendancy to use the best 12 thread Intel CPU's overclocked and then set very high in game settings, often also only testing in Campaign mode which has far less CPU implications.

What this does is make the Game completely GPU bound.

Mantle removes or betters CPU bottlenecking, so.
Anyone worth their knowledge knows the way you test for CPU bettlenecks is to run very low GFX setting, this moves the workload away from the GPU onto the CPU, this is what i have seen Anand do many times, and its right.

So with that principle in mind i have done some testing of my own, little of it, but didn't need to to show its effects right away.

So, here we go.

System used:

Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth 990FX, Rev-1.01, BIOS 1503.
CPU: AMD Phenom II x6 1090T @ 4.2Ghz
GPU: Radeon 7870XT (Tahiti LE) @ 1150 / 1575
RAM: Corsair XMS3 4x2GB @ 1600Mhz
SSD Samsung 830
PSU: XFX 750 Watt Pro Edition
Case: CM HAF 912+

Op: Shanghai:
I chose this map immediately as it has a well known CPU bottleneck; all the way down the main dual bridge road. Standing at the very top of the road my results are as follows.

48 Player server, with 40+ players active. (GFX setting = Medium preset @ 1080P)

In Direct X: 57 FPS.



In Mantle: 123 FPS



The performance difference in Mantle is +110% in that scenario.

This does not mean there is a FPS boost everywhere all the time, thats not the case at all.

I play BF4 all the time, since Mantle became available in BF4 i have switched to it and never looked back.
In Direct X my FPS get dragged down by a half regularly, often less than what you see in that screenshot.
With Mantle i'm constantly running roughly around 100 FPS Minimum on all High Settings 1080P. its like night and day.

I have made a couple of Youtube vids to show it in action, keep in mind that what i used to record it, Mirillis Action, reduces the performance by a good 20%.

Direct X

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WFqX5k_GgA

Mantle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcEEuIvN8FI

4.8Ghz Sandy Bridge i7 and R9 290 xFire x2 test in this post. http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36169582&postcount=40

This is awesome. Sounds like if my 5870 starts giving me trouble a GCN card is the hands down way to go. Especially since I'm using a Q9450 still.

 

[Midwayman]

A 14.3 beta got posted 3/17. Wonder if there are more mantle improvements?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Some large performance increases being reported in this thread, much higher than what the reviews stated..

This one in particular made me



I would definitely need evidence to believe that. It's not like he was using a slow CPU either..

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36066461&postcount=16

This was all with my 7970, but I still see FPS in the 70's on siege of shanghai with my new gtx780. The map is purely cpu bottlenecked in places on dx11.

 

[Arkaign]

Mantle would impress me if if didn't require specific game support (or if support was widespread).

With the early problems (Dice's fault?) and extremely limited GPU support + extensive effort to make it work (see Thief's delayed Mantle implementation), I can't see this being relevant outside of rare instances over the next 12-18 months.

This kind of stuff is always really irritating in terms of fragmentation. Glide, Physx, S3 Metal, Redline, TressFX, it's all a bunch of bullcrap if you ask me. I wish the world revolved around OpenGL, or if need be, OpenGL and D3D. God help us if nVidia does something similar (and I wouldn't put it past them honestly). Then to make a PC game it would be just like the bad old days when you had to get the right version, right patch for this and that, right driver, oh your card is a different revision and isn't supported, yadda yadda.

All relevant : http://techreport.com/news/25651/ma...ite-games-dice-calls-for-multi-vendor-support

Somebody please settle this crap. I put a lot of this at the feet of Microsoft for letting DirectX sit around for freaking ages, and I blame Xbox for that. They screwed PC gamers, tried to force them to go with their cash-cow closed-market console by buying up exclusives, limiting PC versions, delaying PC versions, and just generally being bad for gaming overall. In that way, maybe Mantle will at least light a fire under their wannabe monopolistic asses. But give us a Mantle that will work with 95% of PCs and games, and not something only relevant for a few.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Mantle would impress me if if didn't require specific game support (or if support was widespread).

With the early problems (Dice's fault?) and extremely limited GPU support + extensive effort to make it work (see Thief's delayed Mantle implementation), I can't see this being relevant outside of rare instances over the next 12-18 months.

This kind of stuff is always really irritating in terms of fragmentation. Glide, Physx, S3 Metal, Redline, TressFX, it's all a bunch of bullcrap if you ask me. I wish the world revolved around OpenGL, or if need be, OpenGL and D3D. God help us if nVidia does something similar (and I wouldn't put it past them honestly). Then to make a PC game it would be just like the bad old days when you had to get the right version, right patch for this and that, right driver, oh your card is a different revision and isn't supported, yadda yadda.

All relevant : http://techreport.com/news/25651/ma...ite-games-dice-calls-for-multi-vendor-support

Somebody please settle this crap. I put a lot of this at the feet of Microsoft for letting DirectX sit around for freaking ages, and I blame Xbox for that. They screwed PC gamers, tried to force them to go with their cash-cow closed-market console by buying up exclusives, limiting PC versions, delaying PC versions, and just generally being bad for gaming overall. In that way, maybe Mantle will at least light a fire under their wannabe monopolistic asses. But give us a Mantle that will work with 95% of PCs and games, and not something only relevant for a few.

What happens when a new version of direct x is released?

Only specific games support it, and all your old hardware is now useless. Direct X and mantle are the same. The problem here is that mantle hasn't had time to get off the ground yet. It's still in beta.