The AMD Mantle Thread

[imported_Kamus]

Well Again GTX 780TI on top.
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/65789-amd-mantle-battlefield-4-performance-ruminations/

This isn't surprising at all. It's a well known fact that the 780Ti is about 30% faster than a 290x when we are mostly GPU limited. (they are claiming a single player map makes the CPU the bottleneck... they are mostly wrong. For that, they need to do multiplayer tests)
Nvidia didn't price the Ti at a higher MSRP just to price themselves out of the market, they did it because it's the faster card.

But then there is multiplayer BF4, which is what most people that actually play BF4 care about.
And if you've used mantle on multiplayer, you would know just how unbelievable the difference in performance can be.
I run a strobed 120hz Monitor, and both my avarage and minimum FPS are much, much higher now.
Anywhere from as low as (i'm guessing) 20% to as high as 100% on certain areas. Where i would avarage 50-70 FPS i now avarage anywhere from 70 to 100 FPS, sometimes even exceeding 120 FPS (playing with vsync off, no adaptive vsync on mantle, which is a shame)
And on maps like siege of Shanghai, the difference is just tremendous.
Under D3D there used to be areas where my FPS would dip as low as 39 FPS (rare, but it did happen) and under mantle the lowest my FPS ever gets is around 69.

The big gain here, are both the minimum framerates that are now much, much higher. And the fact that the framerates are much more consistent across the board now, MP now looks as smooth as the single player campaign did.

TL;DR: mantle is a game changer for BF4 multiplayer. I still have a hard time believing just how smooth it looks every time i join a 64 session.

 

[el etro]

someone posted this over on battlelog, people also need to remember theres only been one BETA driver released so far that supports mantle its far from finished

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqqkzu9sAe8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

About the numbers: It's ~15% more power consumption for 85% more performance.




The GPU-bound situation(Mantle) are allowing GPU to work more, resulting in more FPS but plus higher power consumption.

Who disagrees, do a test: Use a Kill-o-Watt meter between the AC and the power cord, and calculate power consumption differences between Wtcher 2 NoAA/Full AA + Supersampling, BF4 MP at low/with 200% scaling at ultra or Crysis 3 low/very high with 8xMSAA.

 

[el etro]

Battlefield games most times favored Nvidia cards on Multiplayer. If 780Ti is really stronger than 290x at it, is not surprise for anyone that reads performance reviews for a long time.

 

[Spjut]

I thought this as well, but with the mantle patch, they added a command to show you which api was in use, and on kepler on win 8, there are user reports that it is dx11 and not dx11.1.

Maxwell (750ti) will probably be able to run dx11.1 though.

repi confirmed on his twitter once that the improvements DX11.1 brings for BF4 will work even on a DX11.0 card, because they they were done in software

It's probably similar to how DX10/10.1 cards too got some benefits by using DX11

 

[mikk]

Because all DX11.1 features BF4 is using were optional available on Feature Level 11_0 as well....which is supported by Nvidia. Almost all Feature Level 11.1 things works on Kepler via feature Level 11_0. You can find more infos here: http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3196/~/fermi-and-kepler-directx-api-support

 

[cytg111]

Ignorance might be bliss for you, but for those of us that aren't afraid to use our creative thinking skills, we'll arrive at our own conclusions based on the abundance of evidence from the reviews..

There fixed that for you.

You said "game devs" which implied there was some major industry support behind Mantle, when in reality, it's just a few developers.

No it didnt. But I am sure you're confident with making up a percentage, repeat it enough times and then act like its a fact.
I assume (do note, I do not postulate this to be a fact!) that there was enough backing from devs for something like mantle to make it worth while making it the first place. Still, devs pushed for this, not AMD.. (As far as i know anyway).

Actually, it's not misinformation. PClabs.pl formally uncovered this weakness in a review they did, but this is something which has been known for a long time by PC enthusiasts.

Oh goodie the famous "This is true and known by everybody" rhetoric. Act like everyone else have said it too, enough times, and thus it must be reality.

That, along with the fact that AMD still doesn't support DX11 multithreading, is very telling..

And if you dig into that rumormill you'll find postulates that AMD did try it out but found no gains to be had on their hardware. But you problary allready know that, you just choose not to disclose that particular non-fact cause it doesnt suit your specific awareness campaign.
Alas it is vain cause you cannot have a discussion with someone who doesnt subscribe to the same concept of logic as yourself. So over and out.

 

[Deceneu]

I don t understand one thing since the Mantle came in ,why are so many people hating it.
Why would you hate something that brings more performance and that opens PC gaming more for evolution.
Easier game development means more games for PC users and as it has been shown it also brings more performance for the hardware we pay.

Is it because Mantle disturbs Microsoft ,Nvidia and Intel in same time ?!

Is it because it shows that Direct X is stagnating and stopped evolving ,or because Mantle shows the real performance of AMD cards compared to Nvidia or because expensive Intel CPU-s are not needed any more.

Enjoy Mantle kids ,it brings you more for the money payed.

Direct X 11 games except the tesselation have nothing special.Every time i play Crysis the original i see that games were looking much better prior.
The first Riddick game released in OpenGL also looked better to any other DIrect X game released at that time.
Direct X was always behind it seems and Microsoft pushed it to drive GPU performance where they wanted.
Can anyone explain me why in DIrect X 11 games everything is so unnatural shiny.What happened to the realism that DirectX 9 brought.

 

[Gloomy]

^sour grapes

 

[MrK6]

About the numbers: It's ~15% more power consumption for 85% more performance.

The GPU-bound situation(Mantle) are allowing GPU to work more, resulting in more FPS but plus higher power consumption.

Who disagrees, do a test: Use a Kill-o-Watt meter between the AC and the power cord, and calculate power consumption differences between Wtcher 2 NoAA/Full AA + Supersampling, BF4 MP at low/with 200% scaling at ultra or Crysis 3 low/very high with 8xMSAA.

Hammering out inefficiencies and making the hardware work harder would understandably require more power. Still though, it's nice to see some real world testing, great vid, thanks for posting it. :thumbsup: Mantle is certainly doing some great things, especially on the lower-end.

 

[3DVagabond]

I don t understand one thing since the Mantle came in ,why are so many people hating it.
Why would you hate something that brings more performance and that opens PC gaming more for evolution.
Easier game development means more games for PC users and as it has been shown it also brings more performance for the hardware we pay.

Is it because Mantle disturbs Microsoft ,Nvidia and Intel in same time ?!

Is it because it shows that Direct X is stagnating and stopped evolving ,or because Mantle shows the real performance of AMD cards compared to Nvidia or because expensive Intel CPU-s are not needed any more.

Enjoy Mantle kids ,it brings you more for the money payed.

Direct X 11 games except the tesselation have nothing special.Every time i play Crysis the original i see that games were looking much better prior.
The first Riddick game released in OpenGL also looked better to any other DIrect X game released at that time.
Direct X was always behind it seems and Microsoft pushed it to drive GPU performance where they wanted.
Can anyone explain me why in DIrect X 11 games everything is so unnatural shiny.What happened to the realism that DirectX 9 brought.

You will find most of those hating on Mantle now were predisposed to hate it even before it was released. It's an emotional rather than a logical conclusion for these people. There is some genuine disappointment by some who were hoping for more. If you haven't been following this thread all along those different people might be hard to pick out.

I was a bit disappointed at first, but now that it's out and we've seen a bit more testing done it's pretty obvious what it is and can do. We need to keep in mind that games are "optimized" to be able to run satisfactorily on fairly modest CPU's so they can have an acceptable client base. Now, optimized isn't always better. There's a lot of "dumbing down" going on to optimize games for the LCD (lowest common denominator). Multiple objects being cloned rather than rendering individual objects, AI limitations, game play interactive physics being all but non existent, etc... There's also the promise of reduced GPU overhead compared to DX as well, which apparently hasn't been implemented yet. I'm also waiting to see how the upcoming console ports perform compared to DX.

You are right though that there really isn't much to hate with Mantle. Free extra performance if your hardware supports it.

 

[Deadjester451]

I am curious about something here and correct me if I am wrong for I have no PC background, I just enjoy the games and try to learn from what is written on the forums.

So what I don't understand is why is there so much hate going on about Mantle, much of the talk seems to be from a already decided perspective. From what I gather, Mantle seems to be about better communication between the CPU and the GPU and it seems to be doing just that. But much of the discussions seem to turn to about the Power of the CPU and GPU in various forms to prove points in a fashion that is counter to the purpose of what is going on.
When you take in all the talks, even with powerful CPUs that Intel has that Mantle has less effect on and even if R90X is weaker then Nvidas 780Ti. Isn't the actual point more about the future of gaming and its hardware then the present, and how it will allow Companies to further be able to push the envelope of gaming from both the CPU and GPU perspective and not about any one company in general?
Wouldn't adopting Mantle allow present but more importantly future hardware from all companies involved to do that much more then what they previously could under the previous software? I guess my main point is, isn't it about the software in general being more efficient then a hardware vs hardware discussion? If Intel CPUs and IVIDA cards are so much stronger then AMDs, wouldn't it just allow them in future renditions to do even more now then ever so a win win situation for everyone?

 

[kane15]

all the mantle hate seems to come from people who also own nvidia cards.... wonder why

ive yet to run into anyone who owns a card that the 14.1 beta drivers are optimized for that is disappointed by mantle unless they just cant get past the bugs and have yet to be able to get a stable running game

everyone will run into a CPU bottleneck at some point in their life, unless the upgrade their entire system every time they buy a new GPU...... and that is what mantle was able to do for my PC breath new life into a 5 year old PC for a cost of a single GPU (well i also upgraded the ram from 6 to 12 gigs hehe)

 

[3DVagabond]

all the mantle hate seems to come from people who also own nvidia cards.... wonder why

ive yet to run into anyone who owns a card that the 14.1 beta drivers are optimized for that is disappointed by mantle unless they just cant get past the bugs and have yet to be able to get a stable running game

everyone will run into a CPU bottleneck at some point in their life, unless the upgrade their entire system every time they buy a new GPU...... and that is what mantle was able to do for my PC breath new life into a 5 year old PC for a cost of a single GPU (well i also upgraded the ram from 6 to 12 gigs hehe)

Yes. As has been pointed out GPU performance is increasing faster than CPU performance. It only stands to reason that CPU bottlenecks will continue to get worse than they are now. Mantle directly addresses that. I also believe as we see games developed with Mantle from the beginning, rather than added on in a patch, we'll see more of it's potential brought out.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Anyone else think the lack of any thorough testing / follow up from a lot of sites indicates an imminent release of 14.2 beta addressing some of the issues?

7000 series tweaks, IQ fixes, GPU performance tweaks?

Why else hasn't there been a thorough follow up by an and tech yet?

 

[frozentundra123456]

I have an AMD card, and I have still have a lot of reservations about mantle. Pointing out its limitations is hardly "hating" on it.

As I have said before, mantle is a nice value add for amd cards. But it is a *very* limited benefit. No older games support it, maybe only 2 to 5 games in 2014 will support it, it requires a GCN card, and only shows fairly significant benefits in cpu limited scenarios.

 

[7stars]

an imminent release of 14.2 beta...
7000 series tweaks, IQ fixes, GPU performance tweaks...

I wish...and proper crossfire support! :biggrin:

 

[parvadomus]

Anyone else think the lack of any thorough testing / follow up from a lot of sites indicates an imminent release of 14.2 beta addressing some of the issues?

7000 series tweaks, IQ fixes, GPU performance tweaks?

Why else hasn't there been a thorough follow up by an and tech yet?

I expect Hawaii performance optimizations. I have seen zero so far..

 

[Carfax83]

All of these accusations of Mantle hate are silly, much like all the ridiculous talk of how DirectX is holding back PC gaming.. DirectX has done more for PC gaming than anything I can think of from the top of my head. And with native DirectX 11 games becoming more and more abundant, games are performing and looking better than ever.

There are valid reasons to be against Mantle, many of which have been outlined in this thread. I for one don't even know what Mantle's end game is. It's obviously not a replacement for DirectX, and probably was never intended to be.

But then whats the point of expending all of those resources and making it in the first place? Like I mentioned before, the best case for AMD is that Mantle is eventually subsumed into Direct3D, because developers aren't going to want to code for Mantle forever as long as it remains tied to GCN. And NVidia and Intel show no signs of wanting to adopt it.

If anything, Mantle has put pressure on Microsoft to reduce the overhead of the next version of Direct3D, which is a very good thing.

 

[f1sherman]

I have an AMD card, and I have still have a lot of reservations about mantle. Pointing out its limitations is hardly "hating" on it.

As I have said before, mantle is a nice value add for amd cards. But it is a *very* limited benefit. No older games support it, maybe only 2 to 5 games in 2014 will support it, it requires a GCN card, and only shows fairly significant benefits in cpu limited scenarios.

Add ARMA 2/3 renderer, Stalker's Xrayengine/A-life, one or two Flying sims (DCS) and THEN I'll be a firm believer!

 

[el etro]

I expect Hawaii performance optimizations. I have seen zero so far..

Hawaii is not so much a gaming tune on GPU.... that's why most people call it GCN 1.1 ....

 

[VulgarDisplay]

All of these accusations of Mantle hate are silly, much like all the ridiculous talk of how DirectX is holding back PC gaming.. DirectX has done more for PC gaming than anything I can think of from the top of my head. And with native DirectX 11 games becoming more and more abundant, games are performing and looking better than ever.

There are valid reasons to be against Mantle, many of which have been outlined in this thread. I for one don't even know what Mantle's end game is. It's obviously not a replacement for DirectX, and probably was never intended to be.

But then whats the point of expending all of those resources and making it in the first place? Like I mentioned before, the best case for AMD is that Mantle is eventually subsumed into Direct3D, because developers aren't going to want to code for Mantle forever as long as it remains tied to GCN. And NVidia and Intel show no signs of wanting to adopt it.

If anything, Mantle has put pressure on Microsoft to reduce the overhead of the next version of Direct3D, which is a very good thing.

I don't understand how you can come to the conclusion that intel/nvidia and game developers are not interested in mantle based on alpha software on beta drivers that no one has really been given access to.

There has been no indication at all that AMD is going to withhold their API from other vendors if and when its ready. They have however stated that the only thing keeping other companies from using it is a minimum feature set much akin to that of direct x. Don't ask me to find proof of that because its somewhere in one of the video presentations and I don't feel like finding it.

 

[ASM-coder]

I have an AMD card, and I have still have a lot of reservations about mantle. Pointing out its limitations is hardly "hating" on it.

But you don't play BF4 online, so you still don't have a dog in this fight right now.
And you seem to argue that there won't be any other games, and that seems to be your hope?

 

[Carfax83]

I don't understand how you can come to the conclusion that intel/nvidia and game developers are not interested in mantle based on alpha software on beta drivers that no one has really been given access to.

I never said game developers weren't interested. Many of them are undoubtedly interested, because Mantle purportedly allows them greater control. But in the end, Mantle's technical attributes won't determine it's market success I believe.

Intel has reasons to be against Mantle, and so does NVidia. Intel has made great strides over the years in increasing the IPC of it's x86 processors, to the point where AMD is basically left way behind in that regard.

Why should they sacrifice that massive advantage?

AMD bet heavily on multicore and multithreading with Bulldozer and it's derivatives, but the software evolution on that front has been very slow, and only on the most well threaded apps and games is AMD competitive with Intel. Mantle addresses that a bit, at least for games. It helps Intel processors too, but lower IPC higher core count CPUs look like they gain more from Mantle.

As for NVidia, they don't suffer from the extraordinarily high D3D overhead that AMD seems to suffer from, and they also support DX11 multithreading, something which AMD does not do.

Mantle is superior to Direct3D in terms of CPU overhead and thread management, but adopting it wouldn't bring significant benefits to NVidia judging by the benchmarks.

If I were NVidia's CEO, I wouldn't support Mantle. I would play to my strengths, and try to expose AMD's weaknesses with Direct3D..

There has been no indication at all that AMD is going to withhold their API from other vendors if and when its ready. They have however stated that the only thing keeping other companies from using it is a minimum feature set much akin to that of direct x. Don't ask me to find proof of that because its somewhere in one of the video presentations and I don't feel like finding it.

I don't think AMD would intentionally withold their API from other vendors, but as I said before, I don't think they ever intended Mantle as an actual replacement for DirectX.

It looks like it's just a short term cash cow to help them sell more video cards, and incentivize developers to join their Gaming Evolved program.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

I have an AMD card, and I have still have a lot of reservations about mantle. Pointing out its limitations is hardly "hating" on it.

As I have said before, mantle is a nice value add for amd cards. But it is a *very* limited benefit. No older games support it, maybe only 2 to 5 games in 2014 will support it, it requires a GCN card, and only shows fairly significant benefits in cpu limited scenarios.

For someone like me, with only Battlefield 4 demanding anything from my system, and myself still running a first gen i7, Mantle sounds awesome.

 

[wand3r3r]

If I were NVidia's CEO, I wouldn't support Mantle. I would play to my strengths, and try to expose AMD's weaknesses with Direct3D..

That's a very "interesting" statement. ()