A Closer Look At Mantle and EQAA In Civilization

[andybird123]

Pcper conducted some frame variance testing of Mantle SFR vs the competition. In terms of variance and smoothness it was completely one sided in the favour of Mantle. However Mantle produced lower average fps as the focus was on providing the ultimate, smooth gaming experience.

that is the words they use, but one of their graphs shows mantle firmly straddling the 16.6ms cut off for repeated frames at 60hz with vsync, so for most people that seems at odds with the words they write

 

[tommybhoy]

Oh but now we have gsync *runs*

No we don't *pass me the baton*

 

[shankly1985]

Firaxis talks Mantle inside Civilization: Beyond Earth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmSnLIhBwvE

 

[LtMatt]

John Kloetzki, Principal Graphics Programmer for Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth talks about the partnership with AMD and explains how the Firaxis team worked leveraged the Mantle API to push AMD graphics hardware to its fullest extent, enabling great performance for PC gamers.

 

[Silent_Scone]

Letting developers feed the multi GPU queue with their own best optimised data is a nice option to have especially for developers who are producing their game from the ground up. AMD should really have distanced what they are doing there from SFR though as it sounds like they are trying to talk up a very old technique as if its a new discovery when the important bit is the evolution of how the pipeline between the game data and the (multi) GPUs works.

Some of the examples though in that quote are badly best case scenarios that rarely work out that way ingame due to the varied nature of what is on screen.

It's shirking. SFR isn't an option in games that require fluidity, if it were simply a case of we can use this 'lets do it as it reduces latency' then everyone would be doing it.

Totally, and I mean utterly-totally contradicting to their campaign to prove 4k performance is the be all end all when you consider the poor scaling involved.

 

[flopper]

This..
And this is why in the past I have said frame rate isn't everything when comparing Mantle vs DX

Like I have seen people say DX11 70fps avg and Mantle 67fps avg
DX is better etc, etc

There not taking into account what Mantle brings to games in terms of Frame latency and smoothness.

Mantle just offers the gamer much better experience and the sooner people understand that the better.

well I kinda view it like you can buy 2x 290x and save 300 euro vs 2x980 and have a better experience playing Beyond Earth...even have more min fps
so if such a game you spend hundreds of hours on it I surely would go that route with Mantle and 290x and obviously the best multicore I could have.
Problem is that you might need a new measurement for a game if the user gamer experience is different due to for example Mantle.

Once the enough fps is reached, more speed wont do much for my playing experience. For me to buy stuff I check that first not what kind of brand I buy.
Mantle just negate anything Nvidia does for me simple as that and main reason I bought a 290 and not a 780.
Looking forward dragon age inq myself with Mantle.

 

[tommybhoy]

Lol matt, you might want to do a T giveaway to the high posters in this/other Civ thread!

 

[Gregster]

The reason you get long hangups in Civ5 is because of CPU rendering time, Mantle typically improves CPU batching greatly, so should reduce your waiting on the CPU.

Mantle in its self has nothing to do with increasing FPS. that is simply the end result in games that rely heavily on the CPU and its performance being improved through the Mantle API, its a matter of cause and effect, its not a feature.

It depends if rendering and calculation demands are made on the CPU through the API, be that as it may Mantle may help to free up the CPU for AI calculations, which may increase the speed.

We wont know until that is put to the test, that should be fairly simple to so.



I think there is s a video somewhere from the Civ Developers talking about this and how Mantle improves it.

Edit, yes, i remember now. i think its in the AMD GPU 30 event

lol

 

[LtMatt]

Lol matt, you might want to do a T giveaway to the high posters in this/other Civ thread!

I need one of those T-Shirts.

 

[humbug]

Lol matt, you might want to do a T giveaway to the high posters in this/other Civ thread!

Put me down for one

 

[flopper]

I need one of those T-Shirts.

need a tattoo...that says that

 

[Wizzfizz]

...On your forehead

 

[Ayahuasca]

You can almost see the wtf am I doing look in his eyes.

 

[humbug]

Put me down for one

And Greg, he secretly wants one, he told me so....

 

[tommybhoy]

Matt's arms are already Mantle.

 

[Orangey]

Feminists gonna demand it's changed to Myntle

 

[Gregster]

And Greg, he secretly wants one, he told me so....

Do they sell them in pound land? If so, can you send me one next time you are there?

 

[LtMatt]

Civilization Beyond Earth and the Mantle renderer haves received a lot of positive feedback from some of the most respected sites out there and thought I'd share a small sample of those for anyone interested.

We were expecting to see a small performance bump from using Mantle based on the graphs that AMD supplied in its reviewers guide. Much to our surprise though using Mantle doubled and nearly doubled minimum and average frame rates respectively.” – Thomas Ryan, SemiAccurate

"It’s also worth noting that Mantle is drastically more power efficient than DirectX 11. It also has significantly more consistent power draw numbers. Such a pattern could allude to Mantle doing a better job of keeping our R9 290X fed than DirectX 11.” – Thomas Ryan, SemiAccurate

"At the end of the day Civilization: Beyond Earth is a great game and it’s clear that it makes good use of AMD’s Mantle API.” – Thomas Ryan, SemiAccurate

“The bottom line is that if you have an AMD GPU, games like Civilization: Beyond Earth can certainly benefit. Maybe Direct3D 12 will bring similar options to developers next year, but in the meantime, congrats to both AMD and Firaxis for shining the light on the latency subject once again.” – Jarred Walton, AnandTech

“Civilization games can get rather busy once the turn counter starts to number in the hundreds. Maps can cover large distances of space, and zooming out exposes dozens of cities, outposts and units. Things understandably get a little slow. Beyond Earth thankfully, on its highest settings with an R9 290 at 1080p, never dipped below 30 frames per second even in the very busy benchmark that populated nearly every single hex. And it's certainly no slouch in the visual department.” – Christopher Scott, Gameranx

“Mantle does have a much more tangible impact on minimum frame rates, and this is always beneficial, particularly once a game is averaging more than 60FPS. In some cases Mantle was able to improve the minimum frame rates (e.g. on R9 290X) by 40-50%, though that was only at less strenuous settings. Still, even the 5-15% increases in minimum frame rates at higher resolutions are welcome.” – Jarred Walton, AnandTech

“The AMD Radeon R9 290 and 290X video cards performed well at 4K resolutions and most certainly benefited from the Mantle as the API was able to improve the average FPS by a good 4-5 FPS.” – Nate Kirsch, Legit Reviews

“AMD provided us with an explanation of their approach that's worth reading in its entirety..All I can say is: thank goodness. Let's hope we see more of this kind of thing from AMD and major game studios in the coming months and years. Multi-GPU solutions don't have to double their FPS averages in order to achieve smoother animations or improved responsiveness. I'd much rather see a multi-GPU team producing more modest increases that the user can actually feel and experience.” – Scott Wasson, The Tech Report

“In performance testing, the AMD Radeon™ R9 290X GPU with Mantle rendered Sid Meier's Civilization®: Beyond Earth™ at higher frame rates than any other single-GPU graphics card. Gamers looking to secure Mantle's blistering performance for their own empires can do so today with the purchase of an AMD Radeon™ R9 or R7 Series GPU starting at just $99 USD.” – Hilbert Hagedoorn, The Guru of 3D

“Starting at 2560x1440 with the single card configurations, you can see that both the AMD Radeon R9 290X with the Mantle API and the GeForce GTX 980 result in very similar playing experiences including frame rate and smoothness of that frame rate. The R9 290X has an edge of 73 FPS vs 71 FPS on average when using Mantle but with DirectX 11 the R9 290X falls well back into the low 60s. Even better for AMD, the Mantle version has a noticeably higher minimum frame rate.” – Ryan Shrout, PC Perspective

“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.” – Ryan Shrout, PC Perspective

 

[Martini1991]

I can sleep better now.

 

[JediFragger]

Not my kind of game (haven't got the time!) but good on AMD tbh, nice to see Mantle slowly coming to fruition