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Anandtech: Benchmarked – Civilization: Beyond Earth

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Rangerjr1 said:
you're arguing about AA? lol

Everyone knows FXAA = squinting your eyes. So why you fighting?
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Nobody is arguing about it and Matt made a statement that EQAA is better than MSAA, which I asked why and didn't get an answer, so did my own research on EQAA and MSAA comparisons. I put it there for anyone else interested :)

As for the game, all this chit chat about AAs and benches but is it any good and worth me getting a ticking off for spending more money on another game from her indoors? :D
 
Gregster said:
Nobody is arguing about it and Matt made a statement that EQAA is better than MSAA, which I asked why and didn't get an answer, so did my own research on EQAA and MSAA comparisons. I put it there for anyone else interested :)

As for the game, all this chit chat about AAs and benches but is it any good and worth me getting a ticking off for spending more money on another game from her indoors? :D
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What?
 
He means his Wife will tell him off for spending more money on games he doesn't play :)

So he wants to know if the game itself is good and worth the hassle
 
I do find eqaa to offer better image quality over msaa. But I also don't like the performance hit from either so I run most my games with ultra smaa.
Only game I use 4xmsaa is bf4
 
Ouch! Nvidia frame latency strikes again.... AMD smoothFM Very big differences here

Why does this come up in this story though? Because the AMD Radeon R9 290X DX11 results do not show any of that performance data difference:

With the R9 290X, all three sets of results are essentially the same, or at least differ in the ways I would expect. Notice that the Frame Rating / FCAT results are still showing a smoother, more well paced experience than the FRAPS or in-game results between 0-19s and from 37s to the end. That 18s to 38s window has some more frame time variance than the rest of the Beyond Earth test run, but the results are consistent across the three frame time sets we recorded.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...mance-Maxwell-vs-Hawaii-DX11-vs-Mantle/3-Diff
 
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Should probably read the article again and look at the graphs again.

PCPer's own testing methods (hint: the grey line) do not show any frame time problems and Ryan says that he cannot see anything during the test that would point to varying frame times.

So PCPer's methods and Ryan's eyes are telling him that nothing is wrong with NV frame times in CIV. it's just fraps and civ frame time monitoring (which measure the frame times from the same place) that are showing something weird.

But of course, the test method that actually measures the stuff shown on the screen is clearly wrong.
 
_Alatar_ said:
Should probably read the article again and look at the graphs again.

PCPer's own testing methods (hint: the grey line) do not show any frame time problems and Ryan says that he cannot see anything during the test that would point to varying frame times.

So PCPer's methods and Ryan's eyes are telling him that nothing is wrong with NV frame times in CIV. it's just fraps and civ frame time monitoring (which measure the frame times from the same place) that are showing something weird.

But of course, the test method that actually measures the stuff shown on the screen is clearly wrong.
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Such a dumb ** State your opinion with a civil response ** argument. Some people claim that you cant see over 30fps like many people like me notice changes up to 120 atleast.

Its not fact. Quote the part where you picked up on the "flaw" in their testing.

You're taking his word as fact and trying to use it as a point of argument. Ideal situation would be if you got quad 980s or whatever (Which im sure you can get pretty cheap if you ask nicely dont you think?) and test it out for yourself.
 
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No you read the article and what they're saying. (and my post for that matter, this is not about perception)

The Frame Rating / FCAT results look very different though - the grey line shows a very smooth and consistent set of frame times through that exact same time span. The rest of the benchmark run matches up pretty well (pre-18s and post-38s) with the normal differences expected between FRAPS and capture-based performance testing.
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FCAT describes exactly what you see on the screen during game. FCAT is what PCPer uses for their frame time measurements because it most accurately describes the gaming experience (obviously since it represents exactly what you see on the screen and when).

And Ryan seems to trust his FCAT system more as what it's reporting matches what he's seeing:

I will also note that while the animation and movement is slow in that 18-38s time frame, my experiences watching the game with my own two eyeballs does not appear to be indicative of a gaming environment with large, alternating swings between 12ms and 25ms frame times. In my years of testing GPU hardware with an eye towards frame rate consistency, I believe that would stand out dramatically and immediately.
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Which is why the rest of the article goes on using FCAT for the frame times for the rest of the graphs.


TL;DR

fraps measurement style doesn't represent what appears on the screen, reviewer says reality matches up with the FCAT results.

And of course once you measure what the user sees on the screen you get results like these:

http://www.pcper.com/files/imagecache/article_max_width/review/2014-10-23/be-25.png

http://www.pcper.com/files/imagecache/article_max_width/review/2014-10-23/be-4k.png
 
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LambChop said:
Yeah but what Matt and AMD fail to tell you that say X4 EQAA granted will give you better performance, is not as nice as x4 MSAA, but they run it in Mantles benchmarks with a quality hit to get higher numbers.
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EQAA is nicer than MSAA and EQAA costs more performance than MSAA not less because its MSAA plus more processes.
So you are wrong on both counts, which is amazing because seeing as what i have said has already been said by someone else before you made that comment.
 
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It should not be surprising that NVs new top end card 980 is beating AMDs old card, there is nothing to get worked up about but the 290 range is beating everything else.
 
Final8y said:
It should not be surprising that NVs new top end card 980 is beating AMDs old card, there is nothing to get worked up about but the 290 range is beating everything else.
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I dont know who and why anyone would give a crap that the 980 is faster, its the frame times its about for me
 
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shankly1985 said:
Ouch! Nvidia frame latency strikes again.... AMD smoothFM Very big differences here

Why does this come up in this story though? Because the AMD Radeon R9 290X DX11 results do not show any of that performance data difference:

With the R9 290X, all three sets of results are essentially the same, or at least differ in the ways I would expect. Notice that the Frame Rating / FCAT results are still showing a smoother, more well paced experience than the FRAPS or in-game results between 0-19s and from 37s to the end. That 18s to 38s window has some more frame time variance than the rest of the Beyond Earth test run, but the results are consistent across the three frame time sets we recorded.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...mance-Maxwell-vs-Hawaii-DX11-vs-Mantle/3-Diff
Click to expand...

Rangerjr1 said:
I dont know who and why anyone would give a **** that the 980 is faster, its the frame times its about for me
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If you think that's bad, wait until you see multi gpu. Once the patch is out and multi gpu is working (for all API's) it could be a rude awakening. SFR and Mantle should provide the same variance and latency as one, single powerful gpu. I will allow that time to digest.

Final8y said:
EQAA is nicer than MSAA and EQAA costs more performance than MSAA not less because because its MSAA plus more processes.
So you are wrong on both counts, which is amazing because seeing as what i have said has already been said by someone else before you made that comment.
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I've explained that on page two, and again later in the thread. Only so many times you can say it.
 
And a quick side note, the 3x290s are noticeably smoother than my 3x7950s in BF4 and i have not even tried Mantle yet :)
 
Final8y said:
And a quick side note, the 3x290s are noticeably smoother than my 3x7950s in BF4 and i have not even tried Mantle yet :)
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Hawaii xfire is ridiculously smooth, though i only tried 2 games with it.

BF4 ran super smooth with Mantle AND DirectX, didnt do any frame time measurements but i couldnt feel a difference so if there is one its small. The FPS was capped at 180-200 at all times on ultra and i was surprised to be honest at the performance and quality of Crossfire. Easy to set up, no hiccups no nothing. I dont even know how some people manage to mess it up.

Other game i played was Borderlands 2, everything cranked up. So damn smooth.

Mind you this was 2 way, im sure 3 way and quad is just as good. And this was just after mantle release and its bound to be better now.

All in all, very impressed with AMDs Xfire. Not to mention scaling, i have yet to see quad nvidias scale as well as quad xfire.
 
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Pcper has done a good review of the tech and provided some interesting benchmark numbers, as well as frame variance testing.

First lets look at their single card results.

knx2cr8.png


hsGziW2.png


What i found most interesting was their Multi Gpu results. This is why i wanted to start a separate thread to explain to everyone what SFR offers. It will not offer you the brute force average fps of AFR in DirectX. What it will offer you is an incredible smooth, superior gaming experience. As pcper confirm Mantle offers over DirectX in multi gpu.

Things get a bit more interesting in the world of SLI and CrossFire. At 2560x1440, the pair of GTX 980 cards has a much higher average frame rate than the R9 290X cards in either DX11 or Mantle. In fact, NVIDIA has a 47% lead in that area. But it's not just about average frame rates: look at the minimum frame rate and the smoothness of the frame times in the first graph. The orange line of the Mantle multi-GPU result is very smooth, much better than either DX11 result and shows the promise of split-frame rendering when done correctly.

It's a very interesting discussion - would you rather have the much higher frame rate of the pair of GTX 980s or the smoother frame rate of the R9 290X cards running under Mantle? Even though the Mantle score is the lowest result in average FPS of the three, I actually think I would prefer that option!
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uxMAlY8.png


RM94ivl.png

AMD has the advantage with Firaxis decision to implement a Mantle code path for Beyond Earth and the result is a very solid product; maybe more complete than any other Mantle game to date. In single GPU testing, Mantle is able to bring the R9 290X on to the same performance level as the GTX 980 and in the case of our 4K testing, slightly edge ahead of it. In our CrossFire vs. SLI testing its a more complex story; Mantle-based multi-GPU results are smoother but run at lower overall frame rates. The ability for Firaxis to bring back split-frame rendering is interesting even from a educational level but it appears to have some benefits as well in smoothness. And input latency as well. (Just don't forget that INI file setting for Mantle multi-GPU users!)
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It's fair to say that Mantle is getting better as it ages and the Firaxis implementation in Civilization: Beyond Earth is the most complete at time of launch we have seen. That's great news for AMD! But I can't help but wonder why the DX11 results for AMD in this game falter in the way they do. You could argue that no Radeon R9 290X user would choose to run in DX11 when they could run in Mantle so it doesn't really matter, and that's probably fair, but AMD needs to be sure it is keeping the DirectX side of things moving onward and upward in order to stay competitive on those fall/winter PC titles that will not have Mantle integration.

NVIDIA's results seems to be in-line with expectations (after going through the hassle of the in-game vs. FRAPS vs. Frame Rating debacle on the second page) and the GTX 980 is a strong performer in Beyond Earth. It runs well past the R9 290X under DX11 and is able to come close to the performance levels of the game when competing against the same card running AMD's proprietary API. It might be time to worry a little bit about Mantle's success in recent weeks (Sniper Elite 3 being another) with several upcoming titles having support too (Star Citizen, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mirror's Edge 2).
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Source
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...mance-Maxwell-vs-Hawaii-DX11-vs-Mantle/2560x1
 
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