Wolfenstein II the New Colossus will support DX12 and Vulkan

[Muhammed]

So for those thinking they were going to see "Doom like" performance in this game due to it being on the same engine and Vulkan API, are probably going to be in for a rude awakening.

It runs @ a 100fps or more on a Vega 56 @1440p according to AMD, that's exactly what I call a "Doom" like performance!

https://twitter.com/idSoftwareTiago/status/913947204146073601

Now , Do they care about Nvidia ?

It will still have a fallback OpenGL path, just like Doom, the game will run on high fps anyway whether on OGL or Vulkan.

Now this is really not that simple. In a multi-platform game we generally make multi-platform decisions. So we don't really care about the PC itself. We care about the PC, and the Xbox, and the PS market. So the PC-only market share is only matter in the very end of the developement.

Actually a lot of developers and publishers take good care of the PC version of their games, hencewhy they care who has the most marketshare, and deliver optimizations accordingly, we've seen this in the FuryX vs 980Ti comparisons, where the 980Ti was beating the FuryX by a wide margin, in AAA titles and indie games a like.

 

[Carfax83]

I highly doubt it that it will support DX12. That is just a marketing slide with a Wolf 2 picture.

I thought DX12 and Vulkan were supposed to be similar enough to make porting easy?

Vulkan support multi-engine, but not how D3D12 does. The difference is that this feature is integrated in D3D12, so even if the hardware don't support asynchronous compute, the OS will manage everything to execute the code efficiently, without any direct support from the driver. On Vulkan this is not possible, so the driver will fully manage the execution. Technically the asynchronous compute is an OS level feature in D3D12, and a driver level feature in Vulkan.

NVIDIA support asynchronous compute in Vulkan. Check the queue section of the Vulkan database:
Pascal: https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/displayreport.php?id=1991
GCN(3): https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/displayreport.php?id=1995

You need to have three "Queue family". One with all the four flags (this will be the main engine), and two others. One with COMPUTE_BIT and one with TRANSFER_BIT. It doesn't matter if there are other flags in there. These will just allow better control.

Thanks for confirming this for me. I've been looking for something like that for ages! Do you know if this is a recent change, or did this occur within the last year or so? I remember Doom didn't support asynchronous compute on NVidia hardware when it first launched, but Bethesda said they were working with NVidia to get it working on Pascal. Never heard anything from them after that, so I assumed they never got it done.

 

[Carfax83]

It runs @ a 100fps or more on a Vega 56 @1440p according to AMD, that's exactly what I call a "Doom" like performance!

Where did AMD say this?

 

[Muhammed]

Where did AMD say this?

Footnotes, even the RX 580 is scoring 77fps @1440p Ultra:

Testing conducted by AMD Performance Labs as of October 20th, 2017 on the 8GB Radeon RX Vega56, on a test system comprising of Intel i7 7700X CPU (4.2 GHz), 16GB DDR4-3000 Mhz system memory, and Windows 10 x64 using the game Wolfenstein II on the ultra nightmare preset. PC manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results. At 2560x1440, the Radeon RX Vega56 scored 102.8 FPS with Radeon Software 17.10.1 whereas the Radeon RX Vega56 scored 110.7 FPS with Radeon Software 17.10.2. Performance may vary based on use of latest drivers. RS-188

Testing conducted by AMD Performance Labs as of October 20th, 2017 on the 8GB Radeon RX 580, on a test system comprising of Intel i7 7700X CPU (4.2 GHz), 16GB DDR4-3000 Mhz system memory, and Windows 10 x64 using the game Wolfenstein II on the ultra nightmare preset. PC manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results. At 2560x1440, the Radeon RX 580 scored 74 FPS with Radeon Software 17.10.1 whereas the Radeon RX 580 scored 77.3 FPS with Radeon Software 17.10.2. Performance may vary based on use of latest drivers. RS-189

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-art...son-ReLive-Edition-17.10.2-Release-Notes.aspx

 

[zlatan]

I thought DX12 and Vulkan were supposed to be similar enough to make porting easy?

Porting the renderer is pretty easy. Probably id tech6 already has a D3D12 backend. It is useful to support a lot of APIs, because it will allow more efficient testing during the early development period. But it is not useful to release a port for two explicit APIs. The shading languanges will be problematic, because you have to port a lot of code, nearly 150-200k line-of-code just for an extra API. It's too expensive for too little gain. This will be much more simple in the future with SPIR-V Codegen, but it is still under development.

Thanks for confirming this for me. I've been looking for something like that for ages! Do you know if this is a recent change, or did this occur within the last year or so? I remember Doom didn't support asynchronous compute on NVidia hardware when it first launched, but Bethesda said they were working with NVidia to get it working on Pascal. Never heard anything from them after that, so I assumed they never got it done.

Async was enabled a ~year ago. So this is not a new thing.
Even if they enabled it, the performance probably won't changed. The actual async solution is not good in an API/OS/driver level. There are some very limited scenarios where an async code may allow a vendor independent performance boost. 3Dmark for example, but most games are designed to use some very GCN-friendly scenarios, and there is no matter if the Geforce hardwares are allowed to run the code asynchronously or not.

 

[Yakk]

Footnotes, even the RX 580 is scoring 77fps @1440p Ultra:




http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-art...son-ReLive-Edition-17.10.2-Release-Notes.aspx

Well DAMN! You go 580!

 

[LTC8K6]

Well DAMN! You go 580!

You'd think AMD could test with Ryzen instead of Kaby Lake though.

 

[Madpacket]

I'm excited to play a game that looks to be very optimized for Vega. It'll be interesting to see how Nvidia responds as they're often able to optimize their drivers in quick fashion to close performance gaps, but this time it may be a little harder as there are fundamental hardware differences to overcome (rapid packed math etc.).

Also, who writes these system requirements? The difference in hardware requirements between 720P Low and 1080P High is kind of hilarious, at least when comparing the CPUs and AMD GPU's. An 8350 is what, 5 - 10% slower than a 9370? How much faster is a 4770 over a 3770? And how much faster is a Radeon 470 over a Radeon 290? The difference in requirements between 720P low and 1080P high is usually pretty gigantic so these system requirements make little sense to me.

 

[Spjut]

The official minimum requirements actually got changed, they're now listing Ivy Bridge i5 and Ryzen R5 as well.
https://bethesda.net/en/article/3sa...ein-ii-the-new-colossus-pc-specs-and-features

Official system requirements tend to be unreliable, but I'm curious if the RX 470 recommendation over the R9 290 could have to do with Polaris optimizations. It's going to be interesting to see how much Vega improves over the older GCN generations.

 

[Krteq]

https://bethesda.net/en/article/3sa...ein-ii-the-new-colossus-pc-specs-and-features

Advanced Visual Settings

• Lights
• Shadows
• Directional Occlusion
• Reflections
• Decals
• Motion Blur
• Image Streaming
• Volumetric Quality
• Decal Filtering
• Deferred Rendering
• Chromatic Aberration
• Depth of Field
• Resolution Scaling

Hmm, I'm pretty curious about this. Vega should be quite good in deferred rendering.

Some info from Tiago Souza

Nice to see some oficial bits: among 1 billion updates, we switched to new streaming solution and idTech now also supports optional Deferred Rendering path, from our tests, most GPUs run faster forward, but not all hence the option, we want all users to get best exp. on their hw)

Tiago Souza's Twitter 1 / Twitter 2

//Huh, I almost missed this one from that Bethesda's "PC Specs and Features" site

Vulkan

When we started development of Wolfenstein II, the choice of graphics API for PC was a simple one. DOOM had already set the stage for what could be done with Vulkan and we wanted to take it to the next level.

Using Vulkan when developing has allowed us to utilize the power of AMD's VEGA graphics chips in ways that were not possible before, giving us fine grained control over the performance and feature set of the GPU without having to sacrifice artistic intent. Combined with the flexibility of AMD's hardware, Vulkan gives us the artistic freedom to deliver Wolfenstein without compromise.

So, is that really optimized for Vega?

 

[Muhammed]

The game won't support DX12, at least at launch, maybe ever.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

Just mentioning the game thankfully isn't capped at 60 FPS like its predecessor. Playing the first few levels (got an early press code) and it seems to be well optimized.

 

[Carfax83]

Async was enabled a ~year ago. So this is not a new thing.
Even if they enabled it, the performance probably won't changed. The actual async solution is not good in an API/OS/driver level. There are some very limited scenarios where an async code may allow a vendor independent performance boost. 3Dmark for example, but most games are designed to use some very GCN-friendly scenarios, and there is no matter if the Geforce hardwares are allowed to run the code asynchronously or not.

Well, I have no idea what the performance impact of Pascal's asynchronous compute is in Doom, whether positive or negative. But what I do know is that NVidia's performance in Doom is superlative, even without the benefit of custom shaders like what AMD has. And I do recall a patch last year that noticeably increased performance for me in Doom, but the developer never specifically mentioned whether asynchronous compute had been enabled for Pascal.

 

[Carfax83]

You guys missed my point in the response. It's not about DX11 offering better performance, it's that AMD offers better DX12 performance compared to Nvidia relative to DX11 and that developers don't need any extra incentive to continue supporting DX12 when a permanent change to the engine will suffice ...

Yeah, but you have to admit that "DX12 performance" is heavily contingent on the developer's skill and knowledge, far more than with DX11 where the driver handled a lot of things that must now be done manually, ie memory management.

What's more is that DX12/Vulkan will be the future of AAA PC gaming where the clear trend is a shift in performance in AMD's favour. In the not too distant future there will be no DX11 backend for AAA PC games so that change also becomes permanent as well ...

In the few games that are DX12 only, ie the Forza series or Halo Wars 2, NVidia competes very favorably, and manages to outperform the competition more often than not. And games like Forza H3 or Forza MS7 both use DX12's resource binding tier 2.

Not saying they won't but the features exposed so far would seem to indicate that the new DXIL shader bytecode is also skewed in favour of AMD GPUs ...

I have a hard time believing that NVidia, who had a hand in developing SM6 along with the other IHVs would willingly allow the new DXIL shader bytecode to favor their competition's hardware.

 

[Carfax83]

Just mentioning the game thankfully isn't capped at 60 FPS like its predecessor. Playing the first few levels (got an early press code) and it seems to be well optimized.

That's good to hear. I will start the pre-load when I go home. First review also hit the deck, and it scored a 9/10. The reviewer also said that it's about 15 hours long, which is a solid length for a first person shooter single player campaign.

 

[urvile]

Well. I have preloaded this game and it is ready to go tomorrow. I am hoping my graphics cards can handle it*. I was a serious amd fanboy. My last two iterations of cards were amd but when I saw the vega64 performance metrics. I just thought screw it I am buying 2 high end gtx1080tis and that's it. Because I game at higher resolutions. Hopefully I didn't make the wrong decision. Hopefully microsoft supporting DXxx over vulkan will win the day for me.

God willing.

*graphics card but you know where I am coming from right? Would I be going to far in saying this is a holy war?

 

[Muhammed]

I am hoping my graphics cards can handle it

here is someone with your GPU running the game very well on 1440p:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj02CjNdwQQ&t=1540s

 

[Muhammed]

The game on a 1070 @1440p:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=950KS0X_H6s

And @1080p:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyBWxP8sM-8

It works very well over all, interesting settings include an option for Async Compute (which is on for NVIDIA by the way), an option for Deferred Rendering and another one for GPU Culling (likely for Primitive Shaders as it's recommended only for AMD GPUs).

 

[stahlhart]

Thread cleaned, two members are getting time off. The rest of you will keep it on topic, or you'll be joining them.
-- stahlhart

 

[dogen1]

for GPU Culling (likely for Primitive Shaders as it's recommended only for AMD GPUs).

GPU culling is probably similar to what ubisoft and dice (check out their "optimizing the graphics pipeline with compute" presentation) and other teams are doing. Spending some ALU to perform additional culling to avoid choking the geometry engines, and to increase overall GPU utilization.

Effectiveness depends how big of a bottleneck the geometry engines are in the first place (geo engine:compute unit ratio) and other factors like how effective the GPU already is at culling unnecessary geometry . So, it's recommended for AMD because they tend to be more geometry bottlenecked, and it'll help older GCN versions a lot more than newer ones.

 

[Deivs]

System requirements for Wolfenstein II The New Colossus, finally released. Looks like the game will be quite intensive, as the requirements are much higher than they were for Doom. So for those thinking they were going to see "Doom like" performance in this game due to it being on the same engine and Vulkan API, are probably going to be in for a rude awakening.

I already have the game preordered, and I'm eagerly awaiting its release. The benchmarks for this game are going to be SUPER interesting to say the least, though it being a AMD sponsored game means that NVidia won't have launch day drivers ready on the day it releases.

I'm expecting it to run better on AMD hardware when it launches, though we'll see for how long.

It works about 100 fps on FHD on 3570k(default, not OC) 16 GB ram DDR3, RX480 8GB Z77 chipset and graphics settings Uber (premax)...so I think it is very good optimized game for AMD. CPU wont need to be OC, i5 works flawlessy. System requirements for these game is not correct.

 

[moonbogg]

Played last night. Wow, its nice. I did have two crashes, but no biggie. Don't know if its the game or my rig, but I didn't let it ruin the fun. The game is good. Here's the thing I find strange as heck though. I was totally blown away by the U boat, the little home you have there. The quarters and whole thing is so detailed I couldn't believe it. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I was just amazed at the detail and that people took the time to create all of it. I just walked around and stared at stuff, like the piping. Geez, the piping. They modeled the WELD BEADS around the slip joints and the gaskets between the flanges. Ridiculous. When I was younger I think I would have just ran past all that stuff and blew right by it, but I really appreciate all the detail in that sub. The game looks amazing. Also, the doors at the personal quarters...they look like real iron sub doors. Detailed all the way down to the dirt accumulating on top facing surfaces and in the radii of the rolled steel/iron.
The control panels and stuff are also above and beyond what I ever recall having seen in a game. The guns look DISGUSTING as heck. So awesome. And the game is just fun. The story is engaging and interesting. Funny too. Runs perfect so far locked at 100fps with a few drops to the 80's-90's when outside. I'm still early in the game though and just got dropped off in New York by my team. So far worth the buy and worth the $60 asking price. Juts a darn good linear game without any stupid gambling, loot box garbage that every game get ruined with these days. Its an old school shooter brought up to 2017 quality standards. Awesome. Will play more tonight.

 

[Spjut]

The game just got a Beta patch
https://steamcommunity.com/app/612880/discussions/0/1479856439035331007/

Says it re-enables Async compute on AMD, and disables Async compute on 1080 Ti until Nvidia has fixed its driver.

 

[moonbogg]

Everyone on that STEAM page is complaining about stuff. I don't know what the problem is. I don't have any of those issues. "Full screen issue"? What full screen issue? They say Gsync not working and stuff. No idea what they are talking about. Seems to work for me I duno.

 

[caswow]

The game just got a Beta patch
https://steamcommunity.com/app/612880/discussions/0/1479856439035331007/

Says it re-enables Async compute on AMD, and disables Async compute on 1080 Ti until Nvidia has fixed its driver.

So there was no async for amd the whole time?