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Anandtech: Benchmarked – Civilization: Beyond Earth

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ltron said:
I am very surpised that anandtech didn't show minimum fps numbers. I would have thought that mantle would help a lot in this case and provide a much more consistent experience. The developer even said that this is what they had achieved in a video (It was from the AMD 30 live event: http://www.amd.com/en-us/who-we-are/corporate-information/events/amd-30-live). I wonder if Mantle helps reduce the time to process a turn, unfortunately anandtech didn't test this.

Also, they show that the SFR solution did not scale with multiple GPUs. It would be great if Firaxis and AMD had spelled out what the advantages are of this solution and why they implemented it There are ways to use multiple GPUs to improve the experience beyond pure performance, maybe they did something like that in this case.

I am a big fan of the concept of Mantle. However, as I understand it, games are still being developed around the limitations of d3d 9-11.

If the draw call count were increased to a level where d3d would struggle, then I would imagine that there would be much more impressive gains from using Mantle even on very high end CPUs. However, it would be commercial suicide for a developer to do this when most customers cannot benefit or even run the game acceptably if this were the case, so I understand why they do not at the moment.

I find it frustrating that reviewers use very high end overclocked CPUs to test games that are built around the aforementioned limitations, thereby nullifying most of the gains that Mantle would have in these games where there aren't many draw calls anyway.
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Hi ltron,

You make some very good points.

We will put up a blog soon and explain more about the benefits of SFR, as well as the Mantle implementation and EQAA. I think you will find it very enlightening. Certainly there is a lot more to it than average fps. However it should be noted that currently multi gpu is not working correctly. (regardless of API) I'm under the impression that a patch is due imminently to address such issues.
 
SFR in Mantle allows for asynchronous crossfire, the fact there is no scaling would suggest they've spent a lot of time implementing it. Very little latency when using different cards so you could potentially use one of those 8GB 290x along with a 290 if you so wished
 
WAit... the 970 is slower than the 290x even with mantle off? You nvidia guys have lied to me! Why???

Edit: And i was about to go quad 970 because of the superior drivers and performance :^/
 
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Rangerjr1 said:
WAit... the 970 is slower than the 290x even with mantle off? You nvidia guys have lied to me! Why???
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In a turn based strategy game I'm sure a few fps will make poeple regret their purchase, however others are probably playing things like Borderlands The Pre Sequel where fps actually matters :D and enjoying things like PhysX which you can actually see instead of claiming some form of AA is better when everyone knows it won't even be noticeable over 8xMSAA

I like how a few people in this thread are claiming victory for AMD overall because of one graph :D

You Norwegians might get good at trolling one day :)
 
AMDMatt said:
Hi ltron,

You make some very good points.

We will put up a blog soon and explain more about the benefits of SFR, as well as the Mantle implementation and EQAA. I think you will find it very enlightening. Certainly there is a lot more to it than average fps. However it should be noted that currently multi gpu is not working correctly. (regardless of API) I'm under the impression that a patch is due imminently to address such issues.
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Thanks AMDMatt, that sounds like an interesting read and it's good news that multi gpu is being fixed.
 
Rangerjr1 said:
WAit... the 970 is slower than the 290x even with mantle off? You nvidia guys have lied to me! Why???

Edit: And i was about to go quad 970 because of the superior drivers and performance :^/
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You only get the superior performance with a 980, a 970 is in the middle of a 780 and 780ti performance.
 
Game is broken with the ROG Swift. No 2560x1440 at 144hz in fullscreen. According to the forums it's a 144hz problem. The highest full screen resolution people with 144hz monitors can select is 1280x1024. Playing in windowed mode lets me select 1440p. Hope they get this sorted soon.
 
Good find Alataar. Radeon leading the way as usual at high resolution and at maximum image quality settings. :cool:

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Source
http://www.computerbase.de/2014-10/civilization-beyond-earth-benchmarks-grafikkarten-mantle/
 
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Funny how the 290X has a bigger fall off when going from 4x to 8x AA at 1080p though

Seeing as the vast majority of people game at 1080p i would imagine that would be why the CEO of AMD is not expecting to sell many cards this christmas
 
Civ: Beyond Earth with Mantle aims to end multi-GPU microstuttering

Well worth a read this for anyone interested in Mantle and SFR.

Civ: Beyond Earth with Mantle aims to end multi-GPU microstuttering

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.
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Mantle gives developers more power, this is why they love it.

Source
http://techreport.com/blog/27258/civ-beyond-earth-with-mantle-aims-to-end-multi-gpu-microstuttering
 
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Silent_Scone said:
And keeping to that way of life...nobody uses 8xMSAA at 4k lol.
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You do sometimes when you have four 290X cards, if the vram usage will allow it. Sometimes i use 24X EQAA at 4K, though that's typically in less demanding games like Fifa or Left 4 Dead 2 etc.
 
Nice read matt. This bit stud out, hopefully other Mantle games can start supporting this.
Let me provide an example. Let's say a frame takes 60 milliseconds to render, and you have an AFR queue depth of two frames. That means the user will experience 120ms of lag between the time they move the map and that movement is reflected on-screen. Firaxis' decision to use SFR halves the queue down to one frame, reducing the input latency to 60ms. And because each GPU is working on half the frame, the queue is reduced by half again to just 30ms.
 
I can use 8X MSAA in Descent 2 at 4K.

Not to fling too many numbers here, but not many people have three or four cards, and nine times out of ten the frame rate still won't allow it anyway regardless of frame buffer.

Take a look at the people who comment on your twitter Matt, hardly any if any have more than two way GPU setups. They think your system is something out of a science fiction novel, when it's novel at best :p
 
shankly1985 said:
Nice read matt. This bit stud out, hopefully other Mantle games can start supporting this.
Let me provide an example. Let's say a frame takes 60 milliseconds to render, and you have an AFR queue depth of two frames. That means the user will experience 120ms of lag between the time they move the map and that movement is reflected on-screen. Firaxis' decision to use SFR halves the queue down to one frame, reducing the input latency to 60ms. And because each GPU is working on half the frame, the queue is reduced by half again to just 30ms.
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Absolutely. Exciting times ahead for sure and nice to see a move away from the conventional AFR method. Smoother performance and massively reduced input latency is always welcomed and Mantle has clearly shown it's more than capable of doing that compared to the alternatives.
 
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