[Guru3d] Hitman (2016) DirectX 12 updated benchmarks review

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

Its a trend? I must have missed it.

Yeah, tech never matures, implementations never get better, content production pipelines are set in stone and never adjusted.

That's why we're still using DOS.

 

[kraatus77]

Like what?

The economics tells us that with DX12 & win10 you can use your decade old CPU & nearly half a decade old GPU to play the latest games, albeit low settings, without much of a stutter fest & btw did I mention that win10 was free of charge

I'm sure you don't exist in that world, you're like the satan for that Utopia D:

His tone will change once nvidia praises Dx12 with pascal.(gcn copy paste) lol

 

[96Firebird]

I've been keeping a close eye on DX12, and in almost every case it's a failure (just like Mantle). DX11 often runs faster with both vendors (more-so with nVidia) and without serious problems.

But... But, DX12 was supposed to save PC gaming! It was supposed to kill off that nasty old DX11 and "Make Gaming Great Again!" (tm)...

This is what happens when developers have control of more than they know what to do with. We haven't even seen yet how they react to new cards. D:

 

[Head1985]

290x is 84% faster than GTX780TI..

 

[BFG10K]

Personally, I have witnessed higher minimum framerate with DX12 in the Tomb Raider game, so for me, DX12 is working as expected.

A minimum is a meaningless metric - a single point in time that can be affected by just about anything. Where are your frametimes or statistical variations?

Going off your reasoning, we can claim silly things like DX12 being ~4 times slower than DX11 on a 980: http://techbuyersguru.com/first-look-dx12-performance-rise-tomb-raider?page=1

In the absence of such, an average is a far more useful metric than a minimum. And repeated testing shows DX12 is slower than DX11 for both vendors in Tomb Raider: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/03/28/rise_tomb_raider_dx11_vs_dx12_review/6#.VySxrHlJmHs

DX11 is essentially dead for AAA games, come 2017.

LOL.

Microsoft is behind that standard. Feel the difference.

That's very true, but it's still a low level API. That means it needs constant patches from game devs as new hardware arrives, otherwise performance drops below that of driver-side optimized DX11 paths.

 

[sweetusernames]

I don't understand the DX12 hate. Sure a lot of devs seem to be messing around and having worse performance in DX12 than DX11, but they're closing the performance delta every update. It's only a matter of time before we reach the tipping point. And we can't ignore the major benefits for DX12 on the CPU side already. It's literally bringing CPUs back from the dead.

And I think it will follow AMD's initiative of heavier collaboration between game engine devs and hardware vendors. Stardock was very close to AMD with Mantle, and pursued an open door policy with their code with AMD and nV. Once the large game engines like Unreal and Unity become better DX12 optimized, I think everything should go fine. Hopefully the proprietary engines like Frostbite/Horizon/Snowdrop/whatever Hitman is using aswell, but there are so many I doubt each studio can make it happen, which is why I think we're gonna see more and more studios license the big game engines, because it's too much of a hassle to optimize their own for DX12. This seems to be a win-win scenario overall for me.

And, mother of god, that 290x. It's going full Attack on Titan mode. It's killed the OG Titan, the Titan Black, the Titan Z (in form of the 295X2) and it's going for the Titan X's throat.

 

[AtenRa]

I've been keeping a close eye on DX12, and in almost every case it's a failure (just like Mantle). DX11 often runs faster with both vendors (more-so with nVidia) and without serious problems.

Until you start using lower than Core i7 4.6GHz CPUs

Mantle and DX-12 is the best PC Gamers have seen in a long time, you dont need $400-500+ CPUs to drive high-end dGPUs anymore.
You also get more consistent framerate and much better frametimes than DX-11 with slower CPUs.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Yeah, tech never matures, implementations never get better, content production pipelines are set in stone and never adjusted.

That's why we're still using DOS.

A lot of cost is added to the developers with DX12. You not only need to make paths and optimize down to SKU level. You also have to keep patching for newer cards and IGP in the future. Plus there is the extended requirement of development time and manpower.

But its quite simple, unless you find a way to reduce not only the workload, but also the developerment time with DX12. The rule of economics will make it worse than DX11. because those paying for the development isn't going to think its funny to fork out more money for a DX12 path with very little benefit. Or even regression.

 

[Erenhardt]

And, mother of god, that 290x. It's going full Attack on Titan mode. It's killed the OG Titan, the Titan Black, the Titan Z (in form of the 295X2) and it's going for the Titan X's throat.

One guy on this forum once said Hawaii will riddicule Titan, and be as fast as Titan SLI. He got a lot of flak for this. Looking at those graphs...

shame he doesn't post here anymore.

 

[Adored]

As mentioned earlier, one of the main bonuses for devs using DX12 is playable performance on slower (cheaper) CPUs. That alone is a massive benefit to their economics. Perhaps some middleware will be needed in the interim, especially for memory. I'm quite sure Nvidia is hard at work on DX12 GameWorks too, and AMD on GPUOpen.

There's no halting progress. They will move over to DX12.

 

[ShintaiDK]

One guy on this forum once said Hawaii will riddicule Titan, and be as fast as Titan SLI. He got a lot of flak for this. Looking at those graphs...

Its about equal to saying a FX chip beating an i7 if you cherry pick enough

 

[ShintaiDK]

As mentioned earlier, one of the main bonuses for devs using DX12 is playable performance on slower (cheaper) CPUs. That alone is a massive benefit to their economics. Perhaps some middleware will be needed in the interim, especially for memory. I'm quite sure Nvidia is hard at work on DX12 GameWorks too, and AMD on GPUOpen.

There's no halting progress. The will move over.

Developers dont gain money by having games run on slower CPUs with faster graphics cards due to DX12.

DX12 however is a money and timesink for developers. And its no surprise unless you are naive.

 

[kraatus77]

Developers dont gain money by having games run on slower CPUs with faster graphics cards due to DX12.

DX12 however is a money and timesink for developers. And its no surprise unless you are naive.

They do, because that way people with slower cpus also buy the game. anyway can't wait to see you changing your tone on dx12 once pascal performs better on it.

 

[Magic Carpet]

The rule of economics will make it worse than DX11.

And I agree, that the devs should get paid more and/or have more manpower hours spent on necessarily optimizations. But this shouldn't be an issue for AAA games with mammoth budgets. Besides, thanks to the always-updated, better protection mechanisms introduced last year; the majority of newer games are currently still, "uncracked", so "extra" income is guaranteed. What's not to like?

This will be a non-issue in a couple of years, I say. The moments of transit have always been bumpy. Eventually, they will adapt, and so all the nay-sayers in this thread.

A minimum is a meaningless metric

Maybe, but when the gameplay feels actually smoother in DX12? Would you still choose DX11? I am not making this up. Again, I can only say for this particular game. Elsewhere, I have no clue and I refrain from comment.

 

[AtenRa]

Developers dont gain money by having games run on slower CPUs with faster graphics cards due to DX12.

DX12 however is a money and timesink for developers. And its no surprise unless you are naive.

Example,

GAME A (DX-12)

TAM = 10M
Cost of development = 10M

GAME B (DX-11)

TAM = 3M
Cost Of development = 7M

I believe everyone would go and develop Game A. Dont you think ??

 

[ShintaiDK]

They do, because that way people with slower cpus also buy the game. anyway can't wait to see you changing your tone on dx12 once pascal performs better on it.

I have to disappoint you, because my tone wont change.

I am not blind to the economics and impact behind as others are.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Example,

GAME A (DX-12)

TAM = 10M
Cost of development = 10M

GAME B (DX-11)

TAM = 3M
Cost Of development = 7M

I believe everyone would go and develop Game A. Dont you thing ??

With made up numbers you can make anything look good.

 

[sweetusernames]

But its quite simple, unless you find a way to reduce not only the workload, but also the developerment time with DX12. The rule of economics will make it worse than DX11. because those paying for the development isn't going to think its funny to fork out more money for a DX12 path with very little benefit. Or even regression.

As I said you reduce development time by licensing another engine and letting those engine devs deal with it... for example if I made a huge RTS why would I spend time making my own DX12 engine when I could just ask Oxide and license their Nitrous engine and I would be guaranteed my game would have sick DX12 performance.

 

[AtenRa]

With made up numbers you can make anything look good.

OK, where are the numbers to buckup what you just said above ??
??

Developers dont gain money by having games run on slower CPUs with faster graphics cards due to DX12.

DX12 however is a money and timesink for developers. And its no surprise unless you are naive.

 

[ShintaiDK]

OK, where are the numbers to buckup what you just said above ??
??

Unless you forgot all the slides and info about DX12. You would know it requires more time and more development resources. And optimization down to SKU level. Its not for fun they all say that DX12 is not for everyone.

Take your favoured underselling AOTS, can it even run in DX12 mode on Intel IGP? Or is it still missing that path?

Funny enough, all DX12 games so far have ended up as utter turds sales wise.

 

[AtenRa]

Unless you forgot all the slides and info about DX12. You would know it requires more time and more development resources. And optimization down to SKU level. Its not for fun they all say that DX12 is not for everyone.

Take your favoured underselling AOTS, can it even run in DX12 mode on Intel IGP? Or is it still missing that path?

Nice way to invade the question,

According to AMD

http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2016/04/amd-focusing-on-vr-mid-range-polaris/

"If you look at the total install base of a Radeon 290, or a GTX 970 or above [the minimum specs required for VR], it's around 7.5 million units," explained Taylor. "But the issue is that if a publisher wants to sell a £40/$50 VR game, there's not a big enough market to justify that yet. We've got to prime the pumps, which means somebody has got to start writing cheques to big games publishers. Or we've got to increase the install TAM [total addressable market].

"The reason Polaris is a big deal," continued Taylor, "is because I believe we will be able to grow that TAM significantly. I don't think Nvidia is going to do anything to increase the TAM, because according to everything we've seen around Pascal, it's a high-end part. I don't know what the price is gonna be, but let's say it's as low as £500/$600 and as high as £800/$1000. That price range is not going to expand the TAM for VR. We're going on the record right now to say Polaris will expand the TAM. Full stop."

OXIDE and AoTS

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...de_Games_Ashes_of_the_Singularity.php#tophead

4. The hardware requirements had a significant impact on our sales reach

Our hardware requirements include a 2GB GDDR 5 video card and a CPU with at least 4 cores. Those requirements cut off about half the user base. We knew this going in and it was a price we were willing to pay to make sure we could create a future-proof game.
What we didn’t realize is just how rough that would be for us both in terms of Steam reviews (people buying the game with marginal hardware) and game reviews. It was striking how many game sites struggled to find a reviewer who met the system requirements to review the game. This meant that our game didn’t necessarily go out to strategy game experts but whoever could run the game.

So, creating a DX-11 game with lower development cost that will have a very small TAM (users with high-end Hardware only) vs a more expensive (Development) DX-12 Game that will have significantly higher TAM is better.

 

[sweetusernames]

Unless you forgot all the slides and info about DX12. You would know it requires more time and more development resources. And optimization down to SKU level. Its not for fun they all say that DX12 is not for everyone.

Take your favoured underselling AOTS, can it even run in DX12 mode on Intel IGP? Or is it still missing that path?

Funny enough, all DX12 games so far have ended up as utter turds sales wise.

AFAIK the only SKU level optimization Stardock did was disabling Async on Maxwell.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Its embarrassing when AMD cant even get the install base right, yet alone TAM

They should ask Steam instead as to what their base is.

 

[kraatus77]

I have to disappoint you, because my tone wont change.

I am not blind to the economics and impact behind as others are.

Will remind Soon™

 

[rainy]

I have to disappoint you, because my tone wont change.

I am not blind to the economics and impact behind as others are.

We'll wait, for sure it will be interesting to watch.

Btw, weren't you the guy who said that Windows 10 is a 'free lunch'?