Mantle Comes To Sniper Elite 3!

[Martini1991]

In short, this giving power to the developers hasn't been working out all that well, and no where near how the PR said it would. I couldn't be any less surprised.

 

[D.P.]

Not a game I plan to play, but it's good to see people using Mantle and hopefully it will mean quicker DX12 adoption when that's available (due to developers having experience in such APIs).

Slightly odd selection of resolutions they've picked though. 1080p is surely the most popular and they didn't test it, instead going for 1200p. I realise 1440p/1600p and 4K aren't exactly mainstream, but they included 800*600 and 1280*800 that I can't imagine are running rampant either. Did get some good results at those resolutions though so I'm guessing that's why the chose them, make the graphs look a bit better.

It appears that as the resolution goes up the improvement decreases. From that point of view I'd be interested to see what 1440p/1600p and 4K results looked like. While they're not mainstream you have to think that things are more likely to move i nthat direction than to 800*600 and 1280*800.

Do you know if the Sniper Elite engine is used in any other games? (i.e. could we see Mantle support popping up in other 'related' games any time soon?)

They included 800x600 because that makes mantle look good. You test at higher resolution and any benefits to mantle quickly dwindle because the CPU overhead is no longer the bottleneck.

 

[SkeeterUK]

I know it helps ppl with weaker cpus generally but still just about 3-5% better than dx, with a strong cpu at normal res i.e 1080p or above. Kinda defeats the point for ppl with decent cpus and has no draw for nvidia users.

 

[D.P.]

Out of interest, out of how many developers total?
100 of 200 is a lot, 100 of 4,500 is less impressive.

The real question is how many of those developers are actually actively developing a game/engine with Mantle vs developers that have downloaded the API to have a play with vs how many are playing with mantle as a prelude to DX12?

What comes out of marketing and what is actually happening are rarely particularly aligned.

 

[pgi947]

In short, this giving power to the developers hasn't been working out all that well, and no where near how the PR said it would. I couldn't be any less surprised.

This was one of my big concerns, developers doing to bare minimum to tick a box. At least with vendor drivers we know when something is being added or improved and have the voice and facilities to report errors, we loose these things in the developers hands.

 

[nashathedog]

AMD don't have to bribe developers to use what they have been asking for for years and helped create.

When there's an equivalent that runs with all brands of card available (DX12) that's the only way they'll get developers to add Mantle if it see's no real gains.

 

[nashathedog]

They included 800x600 because that makes mantle look good. You test at higher resolution and any benefits to mantle quickly dwindle because the CPU overhead is no longer the bottleneck.

It's a joke really, There reporting scores for an 800 x 600 res with low settings as if anyone running a 3770k and 290x would ever be running that.

 

[Confused Stu]

Thanks for the info Matt, nice to see another dev actually releasing a Mantle game. Still waiting for the game to come down a little in price so Crossfire support may well be in place by the time I actually play it.

Disappointing to see the anti-red trolling team out in such force in this thread, but it's what I've regrettably come to expect from this sub-forum over the past few months. Always the same people, always the same tired old jibes.

Anyway I'm off to play some Sniper Elite V2 while I await the next Steam sale for SE3 to be under £15. Cheapskate, me? Absolutely!

 

[mmj_uk]

We certainly don't, there's over 100 developers now registered in the beta program.

Can you list them for us? 90 of them could be indies that live in their mums basement for all we know. BTW how many people take part in game betas but then fail to buy the game due to lack of interest? being registered in a beta programme doesn't really mean anything except that they would like to take an early look at it.

PG Tips is correct. Mantle puts full control of almost everything in the hands of the developer. What few optimizations that can be be done at driver level by AMD will have been done.

Like EA with their longstanding BF4 memory leak? they don't care enough about AMD users to fix it so why would AMD want to hand the power over to developers? it's laziness that's all.

 

[mmj_uk]

AMD don't have to bribe developers to use what they have been asking for for years and helped create.

AMD reportedly paid EA $5-8m for their BF4 partnership, that will have no doubt included incentives to add Mantle support.

http://bf4central.com/2013/10/amdamd-paid-ea-5-million-battlefield-4-deal/

Also, why would a developer proactively add Mantle support for free when they can stick to DirectX which holds 99.9% of the market and tell AMD that they will have to pay them if they want Mantle adding? developers/programmers might like to play with Mantle and think that it's a great technology but their publishers aren't going to let them waste 3mths of development time adding Mantle support for no benefit to themselves other than having double the technical support headaches.

 

[D.P.]

It's a joke really, There reporting scores for an 800 x 600 res with low settings as if anyone running a 3770k and 290x would ever be running that.

It is actually very nice to see those numbers as it really helps one understand scalability. Unfortunately it paints quite a bad picture for Mantle because as soon as the graphics actually start to strain at the higher resolution Mantle does little to help.

 

[LtMatt]

Thanks for the info Matt, nice to see another dev actually releasing a Mantle game. Still waiting for the game to come down a little in price so Crossfire support may well be in place by the time I actually play it.

Disappointing to see the anti-red trolling team out in such force in this thread, but it's what I've regrettably come to expect from this sub-forum over the past few months. Always the same people, always the same tired old jibes.

Anyway I'm off to play some Sniper Elite V2 while I await the next Steam sale for SE3 to be under £15. Cheapskate, me? Absolutely!

Sniper Elite V2 was a classic, thoroughly enjoyed that too.

As stated in the blog, Rebellion are investigating multi gpu and crossfire in Mantle so by the time it comes out I'm sure it will offer a nice uplift. In Thief i saw very impressive gains and i expect the same here.

 

[humbug]

AMD reportedly paid EA $5-8m for their BF4 partnership, that will have no doubt included incentives to add Mantle support.

http://bf4central.com/2013/10/amdamd-paid-ea-5-million-battlefield-4-deal/

Also, why would a developer proactively add Mantle support for free when they can stick to DirectX which holds 99.9% of the market and tell AMD that they will have to pay them if they want Mantle adding? developers/programmers might like to play with Mantle and think that it's a great technology but their publishers aren't going to let them waste 3mths of development time adding Mantle support for no benefit to themselves other than having double the technical support headaches.

According to our sources, AMD paid EA up to $8 million for the rights to use Battlefield 4 to promote its hardware products. Other publications reported a more conservative $5 million number. The deal also gives AMD the right to bundle Battlefield 4 with various graphics card products. The deal is exclusive to AMD, which means you won’t be seeing Battlefield 4 bundled with Nvidia or Intel hardware anytime soon.

They paid for an exclusive bundle deal, nothing to do with Mantle.

Part of the deal included AMD giving Battlefield 4 developer DICE early access to the new “Mantle” API technology. The game will support the new tech in an update in December, which is said to bring much better performance to AMD Radeon graphics cards.

Thats actually wrong, John Anderson clarified this rumour, DICE are one of the developers who created Mantle in partnership with AMD from some 2 years earlier.

 

[Nexus18]

Yes mantle is crap, only a minor improvement for "everyone", might as well drop it now AMD....



Battlefield 4 with max settings except no AA at 2560x1080 on my rig as specced in sig, single player:

DX

Mantle

And I am sure that the difference in multiplayer 64 player conquest large would be even larger considering it is more demanding on the CPU.

To put it simply, with DX in MP 64P, the game is not smooth at all, FPS drops galore where as when running mantle, buttery smooth and FPS drops below 80 are VERY rare (I play with everything on low/off except mesh in MP) so much that I now have vsync running for a screen tear free experience.

Best of all I don't need to upgrade my CPU/mobo now since most of my games coming out will have mantle so there is a £250-300 saving.

I also noticed the same performance increase with BF hardline and PVZ and no doubt it will be the same for every other future game which uses the frost bite engine and hopefully the same with every other game engine that implements it.

As for sniper elite 3, I no longer have the game installed to test but I didn't need it anyway since the game ran perfectly fine with max settings (no aa but the super sampling turned up to 2.25x iirc) and vsync turned on.

 

[Sin_Chase]

800x600 benchmark......I hope that is done is absolute jest!

Curiously the first one showing the 19% improvement though!

Nexus - Something seriously wrong with those images?! DX has better Frametimes, Max FPS and Min FPS on the whole and the %ile times reflect better on Mantle. Are you sure those are identical settings in similar testing scenarios?

 

[Rusty0611]

It looks good until you realise that BF4 on Mantle feels the same as BF4 on a nvidia card. Not just me either though I will caveat to say others have noticed a difference though it's possible purchase justification was in play (both ways). I bought my 290 for a new toy and have zero brand loyalty as well. Though my machine is fairly high end so I wasn't expecting Mantle to do much.

Good to see it in another game and an option for those that benefit .

 

[Nexus18]

Nexus - Something seriously wrong with those images?! DX has better Frametimes, Max FPS and Min FPS on the whole and the %ile times reflect better on Mantle. Are you sure those are identical settings in similar testing scenarios?

Exactly the same settings and same level in campaign, test was run for same amount of time, give or take a few minutes.

I also thought that looked a bit odd at first, the main stat that is the most important imo is the time spent above 60FPS, that is what I notice the most when in game between the 2 API's. I see 40 or less FPS when in MP with DX but when using mantle, I very rarely see the FPS dip below 80 (my cap)

It looks good until you realise that BF4 on Mantle feels the same as BF4 on a nvidia card. Not just me either though I will caveat to say others have noticed a difference though it's possible purchase justification was in play. I bought my 290 for a new toy and have zero brand loyalty as well. Though my machine is fairly high end so I wasn't expecting Mantle to do much.

Good to see it in another game and an option for those that benefit .

Can't comment on nvidia GPU's.

Just posting my experience with mantle and DX on my rig and showing that there is more than just 3-5% benefit.

I will try to get around to recording a video showing both mantle and DX play, like I said, it literally is a night and day difference between the 2, the "percentage of time spent above 60FPS" stat pretty much says it all when it comes to my PC and BF 4. If it weren't for mantle, I probably would have uninstalled BF 4 long ago.

For the record, I don't care about DX VS mantle debate, all I care about is which one gives me the best performance, I would much rather use DX when possible though since sweetfx doesn't work with mantle.

 

[Rusty0611]

It'll be because of your CPU.

 

[Ian Evey]

Probably suits your i5 750 tbh mate, You probably would not be able to play bf4 online and enjoy it using dx.

Anyone on an i7 3770k or above won't notice a lot of difference between dx and mantle on amd cards actually playing the game.

^ Damn your 6 words making the same point Rusty0611

 

[Rusty0611]

If I have a look at the FPS number on mine. It's a bit higher. But if I turn it off it feels identical. Though I do drop MSAA to 2x for more FPS so even on DX I'm running a very high frame rate.