AMD Radeon R9 290X with Hawaii GPU pictured, has 512-bit 4GB Memory

etched Chaos · 19 Oct 2013 at 02:04

Suarez7 said:
I know it's not a stretch. I said nice speculation and you got defensive about it straight away trying to label me a nvidia fanboy.

Both companies are actively looking to make PC gaming better it's just a shame you need a card from both sides to get all the benefits.

I took it as a condescending comment, which didn't need saying. How else was I to take it?

As it is, console gaming is key and that will never change unless console gaming collapses and if that happens we're all buggered.

oldestgregg · 19 Oct 2013 at 02:07

etched Chaos said:
I took it as a condescending comment, which didn't need saying. How else was I to take it?

As it is, console gaming is key and that will never change unless console gaming collapses and if that happens we're all buggered.

Maybe not so. Remember the days of doom and quake and the like. The PC can survive by itself it just wouldn't have as much choice games wise. There's always peaks and troughs

Suarez7 · 19 Oct 2013 at 02:09

You could have just took it as I meant it that anything so far about mantle is speculation

We could argue whether features from both sides will work well till we're blue in the face but there's no point as there's no evidence for most of them yet.

etched Chaos · 19 Oct 2013 at 02:11

oldestgregg said:
Maybe not so. Remember the days of doom and quake and the like. The PC can survive by itself it just wouldn't have as much choice games wise. There's always peaks and troughs

We'll be buggered, not completely buggered, but buggered all the same and then as things recover we will see some progress that is PC-only for once. However, consoles are so lucrative that they'll not be collapsing anytime soon. Of course if MS decide that their DRM plans aren't extreme enough and Sony quit the console game, things could easily go ****-up.

oldestgregg · 19 Oct 2013 at 02:19

As long as there is madden and cod they in it for the long haul

etched Chaos · 19 Oct 2013 at 02:21

oldestgregg said:
As long as there is madden and cod they in it for the long haul

America alone will keep those two franchise going on for eternity... Shameless cash-cows with incremental improvements and nothing that even resembles innovation.

oldestgregg · 19 Oct 2013 at 02:27

Hmm kinda like nvidia and AMD then? Lol

etched Chaos · 19 Oct 2013 at 02:28

oldestgregg said:
Hmm kinda like nvidia and AMD then? Lol

Can we throw Intel into the mix too?

Besty · 19 Oct 2013 at 07:16

I think the concerns over mantle are overblown.

Back in the day developers wanted to throw the whole Os out, never mind just the rendering pipeline and write their own libraries. Sure, times have changed but if mantle is an output of the ps4/Xbox work then it is exciting for sure.

The reason why is there is no room for bloat on a console, whatever solution is implemented it must be fast but also efficient. Efficiency is not something the Pc and pc gaming has a history with. Generally, Pc software has always been bloated and in.efficient, with mantle there is an opportunity to force greater efficiency.

Given that this is a console derived tech, all the major engine devs will already be on board, even if they are not public about it.

The performance boost must be significant otherwise it would not be worthwhile. 10% is not going to be marketable. So It must be more like 20%

It won't hurt the pc game industry, it will improve it, nvidia owners will just need to accept lower performance in some circumstances, in the same way Amd owners have to accept compromises with physx titles.

as for sound, well positional audio died with motherboards and lack of investment. As good as asus has been killing off creative they lacked the r&d commitment to move the game on. It has taken a bold move from Amd to kick start a other battle in an area which has stagnated for years. Realtek must have built a fair battlechest through the past 8 years or so, I would be more interested in their response and asus' rather than nvidias.

ICDP · 19 Oct 2013 at 09:03

Suarez7 said:
2 features wow, one of them having nothing to do with graphics. I didn't say they didn't count either, but over the last couple of days nvidia have shown features that I think benefit games and gamers more than some fancy audio and a low level console style API that we know nothing about yet other than it will net you better performance. At least nvidia bothered to explain and show their new technology off during the conference.

We'll have to wait till next year to see which of them or maybe both of them really pulled it off though. Hopefully everything goes well for both sides to drive the industry on and create more competition.

G-Sync has nothing to do with graphics yet you and other Nvidia fans are hailing it as a game changer. I agree it has potential but I wont get overexcited about it.

Mantle to me looks like a potential game changer. Though I won't get excited until I see what it can do and if it becomes more wide-spread. It is going to be in THE biggest PC game release of the year and many EA AAA titles going forward.

If you bothered to read what True Audio does you will see it is way beyond some positional 3D audio effects. Rroff said it very well in this post.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=25142100&postcount=5752

You asked for features that AMD have that Nvidia don't. I gave you two and you are essentially saying "they don't count because I don't like them". You don't think they are good features, fine, I and many others like what they potentially bring as desirable features.

benjii · 19 Oct 2013 at 09:12

Besty said:
I think the concerns over mantle are overblown.

Back in the day developers wanted to throw the whole Os out, never mind just the rendering pipeline and write their own libraries. Sure, times have changed but if mantle is an output of the ps4/Xbox work then it is exciting for sure.

The reason why is there is no room for bloat on a console, whatever solution is implemented it must be fast but also efficient. Efficiency is not something the Pc and pc gaming has a history with. Generally, Pc software has always been bloated and in.efficient, with mantle there is an opportunity to force greater efficiency.

Given that this is a console derived tech, all the major engine devs will already be on board, even if they are not public about it.

The performance boost must be significant otherwise it would not be worthwhile. 10% is not going to be marketable. So It must be more like 20%

It won't hurt the pc game industry, it will improve it, nvidia owners will just need to accept lower performance in some circumstances, in the same way Amd owners have to accept compromises with physx titles.

as for sound, well positional audio died with motherboards and lack of investment. As good as asus has been killing off creative they lacked the r&d commitment to move the game on. It has taken a bold move from Amd to kick start a other battle in an area which has stagnated for years. Realtek must have built a fair battlechest through the past 8 years or so, I would be more interested in their response and asus' rather than nvidias.

I agree with part of that and other parts I think are a bit optimistic. While it might make it easier to port console games to PC for a selection of AMD users, it is still creating extra work. The devs will still have to work with DirectX for Nvidia and the rest of the AMD range. So unless there's incentive to do so, money, it's highly unlikely they're all going to be onboard straight away.

ICDP · 19 Oct 2013 at 09:39

Rroff said:
TrueAudio is something I'll be keeping an eye (uh yeah) on - theres some vague hints from the architecture (sideways memory access to the GPU, etc.) of it that it might go beyond binaural reproduction and actually do environment simulation down the road and not just EAX style this is an underwater environment, this is a cathedral, or whatever but actual realtime calculations based on the angles, positions and material properties of the geometry in the scene - I got to experience an early version of this with A3D and the difference to 2D panned let alone directsound3d, etc. is pretty mind blowing when done properly.

Aureal were far more innovative than Creative in the days before Creative killed them off with a stupid legal fight. Then MS removed hardware audio support from Vista and all of a sudden audio in PC games regressed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A3D

Noxia · 19 Oct 2013 at 09:51

Just a thought, but hows about debating when the specs and benches come out rather than speculating over speculation

Ragnahex · 19 Oct 2013 at 10:05

290x ordered and bt infinity to arrive within a week of each other. Who cares what people say gawd damnit i'm excited!

Noxia · 19 Oct 2013 at 10:07

What you excited about though specifically? Where did you order your card from?

Ragnahex · 19 Oct 2013 at 10:09

from a 6950 and 8meg to 290x to 60meg. Life will be faster. I mean the 290x is pretty much bang on where i thought it would be so far bench wise. Sure it might not be titanesc but hey did they ever say it was going to be? i am pretty sure they have not actually compared it to the titan once. And yes i do care about these 4k benches because i am a minority with eyefinity so the higher res benches mean more to me

Noxia · 19 Oct 2013 at 10:11

Ah ok yeah that's a big upgrade. Still price dependant to me. I'm toying with 780 SLI, waiting for the TI or 290x, I guess I have to remember I'll only have t he card(s) until Maxwell so not sure if it's worth waiting for the 780ti at least.

Ragnahex · 19 Oct 2013 at 10:14

i do a 2 gen upgrade generally and this time can spend some more than usual so might crossfire 290x depending on price. I just prefer eyefinity to surround. Of course then you have the crossfire eyefinity problems that amd will honestly fix sometime in the future...... maybe

Gregster · 19 Oct 2013 at 10:19

ICDP said:
Aureal were far more innovative than Creative in the days before Creative killed them off with a stupid legal fight. Then MS removed hardware audio support from Vista and all of a sudden audio in PC games regressed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A3D

Yep pretty much spot on. We only have creative and as far as progression goes, there hasn't been any. I am a little skeptical about True Audio but the idea of it is very good, the implementation should be quite easy but I do have questions in how many people have the speakers to make use of it.

flopper · 19 Oct 2013 at 10:29

ICDP said:
Mantle to me looks like a potential game changer. Though I won't get excited until I see what it can do and if it becomes more wide-spread. It is going to be in THE biggest PC game release of the year and many EA AAA titles going forward.

If you bothered to read what True Audio does you will see it is way beyond some positional 3D audio effects. Rroff said it very well in this post.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=25142100&postcount=5752

You asked for features that AMD have that Nvidia don't. I gave you two and you are essentially saying "they don't count because I don't like them". You don't think they are good features, fine, I and many others like what they potentially bring as desirable features.

Mantle already changed the gaming landscape.
Console for GCN and amd is here for 7 or so years.
Games are made to console for many developers first and then ported over.
Mantle support to the gameengines and the developer dont need to do much due to the gameengine developer like dice handles that.
Mantle is a big thing, much more than people realize.

Trueaudio is superb, how much support for it to be is another matter.
BF4 wont use it but maybe BF5.
I for one seek better sound due to gaming immersion really goes off with it but trueaudio isnt a big gamechanger, Mantle is.

Mantle is an api it tells the software how it should run on the card, if the software has less aka fewer instructions to make things run it runs faster and put more work to the gpu and if its coded to the gpu tech like GCN, cpu overhead goes away and the bottlenecks happens elsewhere.
This IMO is done to even the gaming playfield for AMD vs Intel not Nvidia as AMD already is crushing Nvidia in every segment of value with price/performance with the new/rebranded R series.

AMD sells both cpu and gpu, and imagine if Mantle allows a 8core 8350 to run as good or better than intels 4930k then you have a great choice what to buy, buy amd cpu and gpu for a better gaming experience. IMO it what AMD is trying to do and if they succeed we will find out.
I believe someone at amd thought about who buys things in a family and making software to even the playfield with Mantle is a good one especially since the gamedevelopers like Johan Andersson at dice asked for it.