The Next Generation of Graphics APIs

[humbug]

When the 290X launched they went out of their way to bill it as a 4K card. They also made a big thing out of Mantle at the same time and bundled the cards with BF4.

How embarrassing that on a highend setup that DX11 out performs Mantle in every way (mins, maxs, avg and VRAM usage) using 4K settings (I need to do more testing with a proper 4K monitor though).

I know this is missing the point of Mantle but on a highend system with a single 290X DX11 also performs slightly faster on thief.

I think AMD have been guilty of not managing expectations with Mantle and also not really targeting it at situations where it does make a considerable difference (low and mid range systems).

Mantle is very good but it is not all things to all people. The above example being a good one - running out of VRAM @4K on a 290X multi GPU setup.

Really?

Avenged7Fold: 290X @ 1300/1600, 4770K @4.5 - Mantle FPS: Min 71.4
Gregster: GTXTitan @ 1306/1881, 3930K @ 5Ghz - DirectX FPS: Min 60.5

Humbug: 290P @ 1150/1400, P-II x6 @ 4Ghz - Mantle FPS: Min 58.3

Avenged 4.5Ghz 4770K destroyed Gregsters 5Ghz 3930K because he's using Mantle

But here is the really amusing bit, My 4Ghz AMD Phenom II x6 is less than 5% Slower than Gregsters 5Ghz 3930K, again because i'm using Mantle.

DirectX is embarrassing compared to Mantle.

 

[Kaapstad]

Kaap's lost the plot.

I don't think so.

I let DM address his post.

A wall of text is just that, volume does not equal quality.

I will say this, Mantle has never been pushed for 4K that im aware of and i don't miss much AMD related. They pushed the 290X for 4K, but that runs BF4 fine in DX. When the 290X was being pushed for 4K, mantle was not even announced yet. (i think)

Mantle was announced at the same time as the 290X iirc. Also if you check the launch slides for the 290X, 4K was a very big thing.

I also remember you and others telling me how better I would be off with quadfire as Mantle would not be so demanding on err VRAM lol.

I also need to point out that in 12 months or 2 years whatever I am using now will barely qualify as entry level but Mantle will still have to work with it. Mantle has to improve a lot or it is going to get left behind.

I also think people when they discuss this sort of topic should try not to be bound by brand loyalty, I suspect that DMs views are in part influenced by using an AMD setup.

 

[Kaapstad]

Really?

Avenged 4.5Ghz 4770K destroyed Gregsters 5Ghz 3930K because he's using Mantle

But here is the really funny bit, My 4Ghz AMD Phenom II x6 is less than 5% Slower than Gregsters 5Ghz 3930K, again because i'm using Mantle.

DirectX is embarrassing compared to Mantle.

What is embarrassing is my 4930k is a lot faster running BF4 and quadfire with DX11 @4.0 than it is using Mantle @4.8 lol.

Mantle is not all things to all people.

Was Mantle supposed to sort out those nasty CPU spikes, yes it was.

I don't get no nasty spikes with DX11 at high resolutions.

Humbug could you help me and a few others out, could you list the next 5 top notch games and their up coming launch dates that will use Mantle or will DX12 beat you to it ?

 

[humbug]

I don't think so.



A wall of text is just that, volume does not equal quality.



Mantle was announced at the same time as the 290X iirc. Also if you check the launch slides for the 290X, 4K was a very big thing.

I also remember you and others telling me how better I would be off with quadfire as Mantle would not be so demanding on err VRAM lol.

I also need to point out that in 12 months or 2 years whatever I am using now will barely qualify as entry level but Mantle will still have to work with it. Mantle has to improve a lot or it is going to get left behind.

I also think people when they discuss this sort of topic should try not to be bound by brand loyalty, I suspect that DMs views are in part influenced by using an AMD setup.

I think you have lost the plot, Mantle more than doubles my performance, using an old AMD CPU i can keep up with one of Intel's £500 finest, thats right now, not in 2 years.

Hows that anything but a good thing?

 

[LtMatt]

Show me a launch slide where Mantle was specifically pushed for 4K Kaap? I don't recall seeing one but am happy to be proved wrong on this. I expect all you'll have is a 290X being pushed for 4k, which it can cope with perfectly fine in DX which is very mature now.

We speculated (i think) that mantle might use less vram. It does not in BF4, but that appears to be an extreme case judging Thief and Starswarm which have no such issues. Did you conveniently forget those? At the end of the day its up to the game developers to manage the memory usage i believe though, so just because under BF4 it uses more vram does not necessarily mean its the case for every game.

For most of us Kaap Mantle is so much better than DX, however in your scenario its not. Thankfully a tiny fraction use a quad fire setup, Mantle and 200% resolution scaling or whatever setting you used. The important thing is at 4k a 290X has enough vram on DX and according to HardOCP it does on Mantle as well. This is using a proper 4K screen and not using in game resolution scaling which is very harsh on the video memory, particularly on Mantle.

You might think and want Mantle to fail Kaap, but it already has more games (20+) in development than DX11 did in its first year. This was before Mantle became a private beta and 40 more development studios signed up. Its likely this number is going to grow even more over the coming months and expect more announcements about it.

Hardly the sign of an API getting left behind, no?

 

[pgi947]

http://www.dailytech.com/AMD+Soft+L...Programmable+Audio+in+Hawaii/article33449.htm

It was all in the same presentation (mantle and uhd) but not directly affiliated, though one would presume showing a 4k/eyefinity slide straight after bigging up mantle would suggest it helps at mad resolutions.

 

[LtMatt]

http://www.dailytech.com/AMD+Soft+L...Programmable+Audio+in+Hawaii/article33449.htm

It was all in the same presentation (mantle and uhd) but not directly affiliated, though one would presume showing a 4k/eyefinity slide straight after bigging up mantle would suggest it helps at mad resolutions.

Thought as much.

Just seems using high levels of resolution scaling in BF4 is too much for it under Mantle.

Worth noting i posted some decent results using 140%-50% resolution scaling at 1440P - 4k Res. I was very close to exceeding the vram limit, but i did not exceed it and there were no spikes at all.

1440P Ultra Preset +x4 MSAA - Mantle API
140% Resolution Scaling = 3584x2016

Spoiler

Spoiler

1440P Ultra Preset +x2 MSAA - Mantle API
150% Resolution Scaling = 3840x2160

Spoiler

Spoiler

Next up, x4MSAA @4K.

1440P Ultra Preset +x4 MSAA - Mantle API
150% Resolution Scaling = 3840x2160

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[humbug]

3.5GB vRam in Mantle @ 4K ^^^ whats the problem?

http://www.dailytech.com/AMD+Soft+L...Programmable+Audio+in+Hawaii/article33449.htm

It was all in the same presentation (mantle and uhd) but not directly affiliated, though one would presume showing a 4k/eyefinity slide straight after bigging up mantle would suggest it helps at mad resolutions.

Thats pretty thin Pg, there is no "mantle and uhd" just 4k/eyefinity. no connection with Mantle.

AMD also highlighted its multi-monitor and ultra high-definition (UHD) gaming (aka 4K gaming) efforts. Mr. Skinner says this technology "makes gamers more competitive", adding, "AMD pioneered multiscreen gaming with our Eyefinity technology."

 

[ubersonic]

Have a look at the Thief benchmark thread. Big gains for most people on that vs DX.

I am not trying to start anything here, but looking at those numbers and comparing the 290X to the Titan it looks more like DX is dogging on AMD cards in Thief rather than Mantle is pumping on them :S

 

[LtMatt]

I am not trying to start anything here, but looking at those numbers and comparing the 290X to the Titan it looks more like DX is dogging on AMD cards in Thief rather than Mantle is pumping on them :S

Well the only one with a similar cpu to Greg is Kaap and his score is four fps behind on an engine that favours Nvidia massively. Unreal Engine always has, just look at my Bioshock thread. Kaap's scores also look a little low. Tommy is beating him with much lower gpu clocks. Will be interesting to see if Mantle can tip that balance though. Crossfire support is coming soon ive just heard.

 

[pgi947]

3.5GB vRam in Mantle @ 4K ^^^ whats the problem?



Thats pretty thin Pg, there is no "mantle and uhd" just 4k/eyefinity. no connection with Mantle.

At which point did I suggest there was a direct link between 4k and mantle on those slides

I quite clearly said there was no direct affiliation on the slides between the two of them.

Or are you needlessly jumping down someone's throat for the sake of it again?

 

[LtMatt]

At which point did I suggest there was a direct link between 4k and mantle on those slides

I quite clearly said there was no direct affiliation on the slides between the two of them.

Or are you needlessly jumping down someone's throat for the sake of it again?

I think you might be overreacting a bit there old boy. I think the first part is he's referring to my post and the second part well, there's nothing nasty written there.

 

[tommybhoy]

@pgi,

To be fair to humbug, while you said there wasn't a direct affiliation, it reads that you thought it was connected.

To clear it up it wasn't connected at all, 4K wasn't mentioned after Mantle, 4K was about midway and Mantle at the very end of the announcement:

http://videocardz.com/45906/amd-hawaii-annoucement-live-coverage

^
Also has about the funniest AMD>Nvidia gif ever:



Matt what were you thinking???

 

[humbug]

I am not trying to start anything here, but looking at those numbers and comparing the 290X to the Titan it looks more like DX is dogging on AMD cards in Thief rather than Mantle is pumping on them :S

Kaap's 290X Min FPS in DirectX @ 61.9 are higher than Gregsters GTX Titan @ 60.5 FPS.

They are using similar CPU's.

So no, if anything The 290X is a little ahead of the GTX Titan in DirectX

 

[Kaapstad]

I don't know what all the fuss is about.

I have said that Mantle + BF4 + extreme settings + Multi GPUs is rubbish - this is true.

I have also said that Mantle in other situations works very well - this is also true.

The real problem for some people is I have pointed out that Mantle is rubbish under some conditions, even HardOCP had problems with Mantle compared to DX11.

Mantle has got weaknesses and faults - people have got to accept and live with it.

 

[PhysicsMan94]

DirectX is embarrassing compared to Mantle.

You keep believing that if you want, but it has been explained to you many times that the very reason that Mantle is bound to have performance improvements over DX is because it is an architecture specific API whereas DirectX is not (if it was it would be pretty useless).

Does this mean we should go down the route of separate vendor APIs? Absolutely not, that would just lead to huge fragmentation of the PC gaming market and it is sad that AMD has dangerously started us down this path, I just hope DX12 will veer us away and get us back on track.

 

[TheRealDeal]

I don't know what all the fuss is about.

I have said that Mantle + BF4 + extreme settings + Multi GPUs is rubbish - this is true.

I have also said that Mantle in other situations works very well - this is also true.

The real problem for some people is I have pointed out that Mantle is rubbish under some conditions, even HardOCP had problems with Mantle compared to DX11.

Mantle has got weaknesses and faults - people have got to accept and live with it.

It's to early to say that Mantle has faults and weaknesses. It was patched into BF4 as an after thought. It would also seem that the only weakness Mantle really has are the people coding games for it. Lets wait to see some games that were made with mantle in mind before pulling it up on it's faults and weaknesses. While not faultless Thief seems to have less problems than bf4 apart from no x-fire support.

 

[humbug]

I don't know what all the fuss is about.

I have said that Mantle + BF4 + extreme settings + Multi GPUs is rubbish - this is true.

I have also said that Mantle in other situations works very well - this is also true.

The real problem for some people is I have pointed out that Mantle is rubbish under some conditions, even HardOCP had problems with Mantle compared to DX11.

Mantle has got weaknesses and faults - people have got to accept and live with it.

Well for me my problem is with what you said here...

I think AMD have been guilty of not managing expectations with Mantle and also not really targeting it at situations where it does make a considerable difference (low and mid range systems)

AMD have always said Mantle reduces the CPU overhead, that you will get much better performance from the CPU.

I will say it again.

With an old AMD CPU, using Mantle i can keep up with Intel's best, i can keep up with a CPU faster than mine by a measure of multitudes.

Mantle is doing exactly what it says on the Tin. its turning an old CPU with pretty average performance into one of the fastest CPU's on the market.

 

[Kaapstad]

Well for me my problem is with what you said here...

AMD have always said Mantle reduces the CPU overhead, that you will get much better performance from the CPU.

I will say it again.

With an old AMD CPU, using Mantle i can keep up with Intel's best, i can keep up with a CPU faster than mine by a measure of multitudes.

Mantle is doing exactly what it says on the Tin. its turning an old CPU with pretty average performance into one of the fastest CPU's on the market.

Read again what I put in that last post of mine you quoted, it agrees with what you have just posted.

I think AMD have been guilty of not managing expectations with Mantle and also not really targeting it at situations where it does make a considerable difference (low and mid range systems)

 

[LtMatt]

I don't know what all the fuss is about.

I have said that Mantle + BF4 + extreme settings + Multi GPUs is rubbish - this is true.

I have also said that Mantle in other situations works very well - this is also true.

The real problem for some people is I have pointed out that Mantle is rubbish under some conditions, even HardOCP had problems with Mantle compared to DX11.

Mantle has got weaknesses and faults - people have got to accept and live with it.

The fuss is because you called the beta API embarrassing because it did not work as well as DX did for you. On your quad fire, ivy-e setup using 200% resolution scaling. For most of us, it works very well (despite the ongoing issues with Battlefield 4) so its no surprise that there is a bit of 'fuss' over your claims.

No one thinks Mantle is perfect Kaap. I've listed many of the problems in the BF4 benchmark thread. The main one is the vram usage as far as im concerned. There was a stall issue initially, but that has been fixed for a while now. Yes there are cpu spikes when you exceed the vram limit, but that's hardly a shock is it. DX behaves exactly the same way. Funny, cos you used to insist if you breach the vram limit you hit 1 fps, well it does not work like that in BF4 from my testing under DX and Mantle. If there are cpu spikes in other scenario's it's most likely down to the game itself. I think we all know that from the BF4 benchmark thread.

Do you really know what Mantles weaknesses and faults are? Or are you just referring to how its been programmed by Dice in BF4? Because at the end of the day any fault likely lies with the game itself rather than an issue specifically related to Mantle API. If this was the case, then star swarm and thief would have the same issues with vram, would they not?