AMD Mantle update...

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Originally Posted by Stukov

I think the reason you are seeing such a speed boost variance is based on what limitation a CPU bottleneck is affecting performance. While you may get 10% where no bottleneck exists, when you compare a slower CPU (such as AMD's APU) vs the fastest (Intel top of the line) you are going to see a much bigger boost with the APU % wise vs that of the Intel EE. You will also see greater improvement in a game which uses loads of CPU calculations like AI, such as the Swarm demo, Starcraft, or other RTS type games.

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I will said, it should depend more of the game, at least when we speak about overhead only. , but the video from oxyde comparing DX and Mantle with an I7 980x + 290x ... show the same increase. (( DX 8-13fps , mantle 40 to 60+ ( with peak at 85+fps )... http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/14/o...y-mantle-demo/

But starswam is an extreme case in term of CPU calculation anyway. 5000 independant AI objects who run at the same time... You take starcraftII, you take the worst case in term of numbers of objects and you multiply it by 10x ( 500 max objects to 5000 ). We are speaking a lot about RTS with the Oxyde engine, but personally i can see the impact on flight simulation like DCS A10C.. the impact on the cpu for it was crazy, because every AI ( objects, radar detection, missile, etc ) is calculated inreal time and simulated based on real "system " .

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Originally Posted by SKYMTL

No, the reason there is such a variance is that Starswarm was coded especially for Mantle. It's beyond a best case scenario. In 90% of the Mantle titles we see for the next few years, the standard DirectX + Windows driver will be the primary rendering tool while Mantle will be added in. Hence why there is a much lower gain in BF4, the poster child for an actual Mantle-supporting game.

HSA isn't active right now, nor will it come into effect within games. Games actually do a pretty good job of partitioning resources (especially those that support DirectCompute, etc.) already so HSA is mostly focused on compute-focused apps through OpenCL 2.0.

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I was thinking along the lines of the direct compute already in Frostbite simply being shifted over to the APU to free up the 290x for rendering, something Mantle can do adding more GPU resources to the pool without getting involved with AFR the engine uses natively. The extra control Mantle allows means that it would be easier to fine tune especially if you knew the hardware you were going to demo on.

But it depends on how much work they'd be willing to put into it, I imagine latencies could be an issue, but people have been hacking nvidia drivers to allow AMD as primary renderer for hardware accelerated physx for years.

From my point of view, it would be a smart idea to implement, but it would make 45% rather suspect unless you knew either way if DICE were using the APU like that.

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Originally Posted by Iconyu

I was thinking along the lines of the direct compute already in Frostbite simply being shifted over to the APU to free up the 290x for rendering, something Mantle can do adding more GPU resources to the pool without getting involved with AFR the engine uses natively. The extra control Mantle allows means that it would be easier to fine tune especially if you knew the hardware you were going to demo on.

But it depends on how much work they'd be willing to put into it, I imagine latencies could be an issue, but people have been hacking nvidia drivers to allow AMD as primary renderer for hardware accelerated physx for years.

From my point of view, it would be a smart idea to implement, but it would make 45% rather suspect unless you knew either way if DICE were using the APU like that.

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Actually, i read a lot about " the works who want spend developpers of a game ", but in reality, developpers are not developping a specific game, they developp tools for a specific engine, they want to sold then.. The reason Oxyde is puting so much effort today and Dice with Frostbyte engine, is they sell this engine to other studios, So basically developpers, when they have buy the tools will see there "time " reduced drastically. " .. exactly like Crytek and the CryEngine.. ... Ofc then, you see too developpers ( i think to StarCitizen develeopers, PCcars developpers and other ) who are just seeing what can bring to their game / future games engine Mantle in pure developpers term.. ( more drawcall, finetuning, allow them to exploit better their own engine outside the limitations of DX, because they are developping the tool, the engine, the game ( ). .. This said, we can too see "small " studio, who use Nvidia closed source library ( Gamework ) for their "first titles ".. its easier for them.. (( and in the case of gameworks, or PhysX, win some visibility, contract ( with nvidia ) . )

I have just seen Tombraider comparaison between PS4 and PS3 ... What is the first thing you see outside better textures, weather effects, 1080p and the fact it look really similar of the pc version of TR ... TressFX is enabled now in the PS4 version.... And it run really really well ..

most game companies buy a graphics engine, and they will buy whatever makes their game work the best. Oxide's demo shines light into a new DAWN for RTS where in the past just a few dozen units would demolish system performance (Starcraft & DOW 1 & 2 specially)

Obviously the improvement will be observed overall, however RTS's are going to be one of the major winners in this new era of low level coding for pc environment.

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Originally Posted by kuroikenshi

most game companies buy a graphics engine, and they will buy whatever makes their game work the best. Oxide's demo shines light into a new DAWN for RTS where in the past just a few dozen units would demolish system performance (Starcraft & DOW 1 & 2 specially)

Obviously the improvement will be observed overall, however RTS's are going to be one of the major winners in this new era of low level coding for pc environment.

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Anyway, the Oxyde engine, is not pulling ahead only in the term of " overhead " or Mantle, i dont know ( not sure ) if it is due to Mantle, but they have completely rewrite the way the code and thread call is made.. if one year ago you will have say to a game developpers, someone want do this, they will have just say it will not work.. now they run after Oxyde for this.. ( and this is not necessary due to Mantle " as API" ). When i find the forums posts of another studio who have let down their own game engine for the Oxyde one and explain why, i will try find time for post it .. ( completely busy with my job this month, christmas hollidays are nice, but now im 2 weeks late in my works )

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Originally Posted by Lanek

I will said, it should depend more of the game, at least when we speak about overhead only. , but the video from oxyde comparing DX and Mantle with an I7 980x + 290x ... show the same increase. (( DX 8-13fps , mantle 40 to 60+ ( with peak at 85+fps )... http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/14/o...y-mantle-demo/

But starswam is an extreme case in term of CPU calculation anyway. 5000 independant AI objects who run at the same time... You take starcraftII, you take the worst case in term of numbers of objects and you multiply it by 10x ( 500 max objects to 5000 ). We are speaking a lot about RTS with the Oxyde engine, but personally i can see the impact on flight simulation like DCS A10C.. the impact on the cpu for it was crazy, because every AI ( objects, radar detection, missile, etc ) is calculated inreal time and simulated based on real "system " .

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If you actually would have looked at the demo you would realize the performance increase has nothing to do with AI or unit count but with the motion blur filter they used or better disabled when running DX.
As said this is very similar to first metro where they also used an ultra expensive motion blur algorithm witch brought down highend cards back then in sub 30fps region.

Also 5000 units is nothing, we have games right now that can handle much more, Star ruler has no unit cap at all and yes all units have AI.

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Originally Posted by kuroikenshi

most game companies buy a graphics engine, and they will buy whatever makes their game work the best. Oxide's demo shines light into a new DAWN for RTS where in the past just a few dozen units would demolish system performance (Starcraft & DOW 1 & 2 specially)

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because all this games are designed to be small scale, there are games that can handle much more units without problems, SC (few thoused), star ruler (unlimited), Sins of solar empiers (with mods simple mods in the 10k region, unmoded something like 2-3k)

yeah well, sins of a solar empire in one of those games which i've only played a little, but in terms of real time rendering I'm not sure if those games come close to what Oxyde is doing, I dare say no.

I'd like to see a demo of a constant interaction of 5k-7k units constantly battling under the same parameters Oxide is doing it in. for those who sat through the entire Oxyde presentation a few weeks back will understand more or less what I'm referring to.

the number of units alone is not impressive, but rather the parameters in which they're doing it.

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Originally Posted by SKYMTL

No, the reason there is such a variance is that Starswarm was coded especially for Mantle. It's beyond a best case scenario. In 90% of the Mantle titles we see for the next few years, the standard DirectX + Windows driver will be the primary rendering tool while Mantle will be added in. Hence why there is a much lower gain in BF4, the poster child for an actual Mantle-supporting game.



HSA isn't active right now, nor will it come into effect within games. Games actually do a pretty good job of partitioning resources (especially those that support DirectCompute, etc.) already so HSA is mostly focused on compute-focused apps through OpenCL 2.0.

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Nitrous engine's (that is, starswarm's engine) directX was done first, and is completely focused on directX, and then was ported to Mantle. It's not written solely for Mantle. They even said that they haven't done any optimization for Mantle. Interestingly, Dan Baker implied he ported it by himself, alone in 2 months.

Link where Dan Baker said it wasn't optimized (warning, long presentation but it's nice to listen to): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIWyf8Hyjbg
Link where he said he ported it to mantle, and said it is a made-for-directX engine. He also said it wasn't optimized in this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yak25TKCCrc

It's more like a worst case scenario for the kind of games Oxide wishes to enable. The reasons why BF4 is less affected by Mantle is probably because it wasn't optimized for Mantle yet either, and that BF4 is less cpu-hungry compared to starswarm, which is natural for a strategy game (in this case, demo) to be CPU bound.

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Originally Posted by Hornet331

If you actually would have looked at the demo you would realize the performance increase has nothing to do with AI or unit count but with the motion blur filter they used or better disabled when running DX.
As said this is very similar to first metro where they also used an ultra expensive motion blur algorithm witch brought down highend cards back then in sub 30fps region.

Also 5000 units is nothing, we have games right now that can handle much more, Star ruler has no unit cap at all and yes all units have AI.




because all this games are designed to be small scale, there are games that can handle much more units without problems, SC (few thoused), star ruler (unlimited), Sins of solar empiers (with mods simple mods in the 10k region, unmoded something like 2-3k)

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I ask me where you pull off this ? you think the drop in fps is due to motion blur ? in dx it so much laggy you will not even see motion blur, aobject are then static ... i can tell you this have nothing to do with DOF. ( who is not removed in DX phase anyway ..)

If i understand you well, the Mantle phase is DOF, but not the DX one, and this is why DirectX is so slow ? ... huuum... you really want to find something no ?

Im sorry hornet, but i will let you speak about games developpers for understand what this demo is really involving ....

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Originally Posted by Lanek

I ask me where you pull off this ? you think the drop in fps is due to motion blur ? in dx it so much laggy you will not even see motion blur, aobject are then static ... i can tell you this have nothing to do with DOF. ( who is not removed in DX phase anyway ..)

If i understand you well, the Mantle phase is DOF, but not the DX one, and this is why DirectX is so slow ? ... huuum... you really want to find something no ?

Im sorry hornet, but i will let you speak about games developpers for understand what this demo is really involving ....

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He's not pulling it out of his ass. It's from here. Also, what hornet said isn't really attacking Mantle, so back off with the aggressiveness will ya? All he said is that the way Oxide decided to show the difference with Mantle is to disable or enable motion blur. I quite agree with him, since I'd rather see the demo bump the unit count to 10000 and show the difference between Mantle and DirectX. (EDIT: I know I wrote Oxide here instead of DirectX.. my bad)

I do disagree with the rest of his post though. I've checked Total war, I've checked supreme commander, I've checked all the other high unit count games. NONE of them could do it with the performance the Nitrous engine could. NONE of them could have 5000 units all at once, on a single screen, with all the weapons going off and still run at 30 fps.

Though, as we all know, the Star Swarm demo is coming pretty soon. I'd much rather wait for that and test it for myself.

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Originally Posted by blindbox

He's not pulling it out of his ass. It's from here. Also, what hornet said isn't really attacking Mantle, so back off with the aggressiveness will ya? All he said is that the way Oxide decided to show the difference with Mantle is to disable or enable motion blur. I quite agree with him, since I'd rather see the demo bump the unit count to 10000 and show the difference between Mantle and Oxide.

I do disagree with the rest of his post though. I've checked Total war, I've checked supreme commander, I've checked all the other high unit count games. NONE of them could do it with the performance the Nitrous engine could. NONE of them could have 5000 units all at once, on a single screen, with all the weapons going off and still run at 30 fps.

Though, as we all know, the Star Swarm demo is coming pretty soon. I'd much rather wait for that and test it for myself.

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Im sorry for the aggresivness, but if you enable DOF ( or motion blur ) you dont decrease the work of the gpu, in fact you increase the work of the gpu.. so this why i was think it is funny to say DX version got is fps plumbed because it dont use motionblur or DOF. ( im not even sure DOF is enabled, disabled, just with 8fps on directX motion blur is going to bug like crazy )..
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increase has nothing to do with AI or unit count but with the motion blur filter they used or better disabled when running DX

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Motion blur or DOF is a computing effect added after the phase of rendering... it change nothing in term of gpu/computing calculation, in fact the effect is added over the other calculation.. ( its only on console games it was used for hide the extreme LOD used on far object and hide clipping ).. The initial computing is the same... > scene > Motion blur or depth of field > render .... scene rendering > DOF ..

Oxyde was nice to disable Blur motion or DOF in this demo for the DX parts.. it will have surely run only at 2 fps with it enabled... not the invert... ( i dont think they have disable it, but a motion " blur " effect is buggy when you run at only 8frames per second )

srsly look at the damn video

I just give you a little break down:

0:00-0:46 showing of mantel running with motion blur (20-60fps)
0:46-0:58 running DX with motion blur (10-20fps)
0:58-1:21 running DX without motion blur (50-100fps)
1:12-1:36 reanable motion blur (7fps)
1:36-end back to mantle (15-38fps)

The only thing they changed with the whole scene was enabling or disabling motion blur.
In the end they showed nothing more then how crappy there chosen motion blur effect runs on DX and how "superior" it is on mantle.

For me that seems awful similar to how devs have implemented physx in many games.

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Originally Posted by blindbox

I do disagree with the rest of his post though. I've checked Total war, I've checked supreme commander, I've checked all the other high unit count games. NONE of them could do it with the performance the Nitrous engine could. NONE of them could have 5000 units all at once, on a single screen, with all the weapons going off and still run at 30 fps.

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Look at star ruler. ;)

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Originally Posted by Hornet331

Look at star ruler. ;)

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I just did that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExvDTQT8Lts

2D LODs? There's not that many 3D objects there. Got a better video, or can they be disabled?

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Originally Posted by blindbox

I just did that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExvDTQT8Lts

2D LODs? There's not that many 3D objects there. Got a better video, or can they be disabled?

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nah its 3d, what you look here is the zoomed out state (it has seamless zooming from ship level to galaxy level) where ships are represented as an icon (because they are to small to see otherwise)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44ZIN9BVkqY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rjwZPRnv08

its also not like the demo of the oxide engine drops to sub 20fps (even with mantle) when there are many ships on the screen at once.

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Originally Posted by Hornet331

nah its 3d, what you look here is the zoomed out state (it has seamless zooming from ship level to galaxy level) where ships are represented as an icon (because they are to small to see otherwise)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44ZIN9BVkqY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rjwZPRnv08

its also not like the demo of the oxide engine drops to sub 20fps (even with mantle) when there are many ships on the screen at once.

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The videos you are showing is running at less than 20 fps, with just the ships. The first demo is 15000 units, with less than 10 fps when the game is running at 1.00x speed. The second demo lags just because of the capital ships alone. Oxide's demo is running at 20 fps minimum, worst case, with motion blur on.

EDIT: All I'm saying is, I haven't seen a scene like this, with that high of an FPS, in any strategy games. http://i.imgur.com/p8ARa78.png

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Originally Posted by SKYMTL

No, the reason there is such a variance is that Starswarm was coded especially for Mantle. It's beyond a best case scenario. In 90% of the Mantle titles we see for the next few years, the standard DirectX + Windows driver will be the primary rendering tool while Mantle will be added in. Hence why there is a much lower gain in BF4, the poster child for an actual Mantle-supporting game.

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So you postulate that in BF4 when Mantle is finished you still will see a large variance in performance based on the capability of the CPU? For example if the 4770k is 10% faster than the 8350 right now, it is going to remain 10% faster once Mantle is up and running?

I find it odd, that nobody is speaking about minimum fps at all. I expect Mantle to up minimum fps on high end machines, even tought maximum to be about the same. Basically, what i expect is. Mantle will enable more games to be playable with AMD APU's and games have more smoother fps profile for high end cpus & cards (less drops and better minimum fps). I dont see anyone losing there. I do hope nVidia dont be too arrogant and atleast really tries to negotiate with AMD to enable Mantle on nVidia GPU's too. That would benefit us all.

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Originally Posted by Stukov

So you postulate that in BF4 when Mantle is finished you still will see a large variance in performance based on the capability of the CPU? For example if the 4770k is 10% faster than the 8350 right now, it is going to remain 10% faster once Mantle is up and running?

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I honestly have no idea. It all depends on how many functions they can actively carry over to Mantle.

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Originally Posted by Mechanical Man

I find it odd, that nobody is speaking about minimum fps at all. I expect Mantle to up minimum fps on high end machines, even tought maximum to be about the same. Basically, what i expect is. Mantle will enable more games to be playable with AMD APU's and games have more smoother fps profile for high end cpus & cards (less drops and better minimum fps). I dont see anyone losing there. I do hope nVidia dont be too arrogant and atleast really tries to negotiate with AMD to enable Mantle on nVidia GPU's too. That would benefit us all.

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I actually want to know if AMD's frame pacing can be easily carried over into Mantle apps. If that doesn't happen, minimum FPS or not, the experience will be a disaster at higher framerates.

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Originally Posted by SKYMTL

I actually want to know if AMD's frame pacing can be easily carried over into Mantle apps. If that doesn't happen, minimum FPS or not, the experience will be a disaster at higher framerates.

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Based on what?

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Originally Posted by blindbox

EDIT: All I'm saying is, I haven't seen a scene like this, with that high of an FPS, in any strategy games. http://i.imgur.com/p8ARa78.png

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that not high to begin with, 35fps with what 2-3k untis?

the examples i have given you have 4-5 times the unit count. :P

Dont be surprised to see the same crawling when they actually have to show the same 10k+ count.

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Originally Posted by Hornet331

that not high to begin with, 35fps with what 2-3k untis?

the examples i have given you have 4-5 times the unit count. :P

Dont be surprised to see the same crawling when they actually have to show the same 10k+ count.

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That's no more than a 2~3k on the second video. The first video is very, extremely, LODed, and is having crap FPS just from the units being shown.. The only thing we've have proven is that, you can't compare the Star Swarm demo with the current games out there. None of your videos managed to show what Oxide showed, and neither did Oxide show anything that is remotely related to the video you showed. Sure, 5000 units is nothing, but come back when I see that in a third person view of a spacecraft in the middle of the action, 30 fps minimum.

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Originally Posted by SKYMTL

I honestly have no idea. It all depends on how many functions they can actively carry over to Mantle.

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I'm not saying you can't be correct about the "native Mantle" idea you presented, but what I was saying based on the CPU bottleneck, the situation I presented the slower CPU is going to benefit more % wise from Mantle, including games where they are more CPU bound than GPU (such as RTS's).

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Originally Posted by Mechanical Man

[/B]
Based on what?

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Right now in crossfire AMD cards can sometimes throw frames at a monitor so fast that it chokes on them. And when I say choke, I mean the monitor isn't always getting a chance to put a full frame on screen as two frames are being rendered way too close together, then there's a big gap and again two frames too close together. The card can produce 60+ FPS, but it sends them out in a way that make the monitor only show 30fps and a load of junk frames.

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Originally Posted by Iconyu

Right now in crossfire AMD cards can sometimes throw frames at a monitor so fast that it chokes on them. And when I say choke, I mean the monitor isn't always getting a chance to put a full frame on screen as two frames are being rendered way too close together, then there's a big gap and again two frames too close together. The card can produce 60+ FPS, but it sends them out in a way that make the monitor only show 30fps and a load of junk frames.

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Wtf, nobody was talking about crossfire. You cant just quote someone talking about oranges and start talking about shovels ffs.

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Originally Posted by Mechanical Man

Wtf, nobody was talking about crossfire. You cant just quote someone talking about oranges and start talking about shovels ffs.

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You quoted two sentences, "frame pacing" is the issue he stated which is mostly a crossfire/sli issue. This is what the English speaking world calls 'context'.

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Originally Posted by Iconyu

You quoted two sentences, "frame pacing" is the issue he stated which is mostly a crossfire/sli issue. This is what the English speaking world calls 'context'.

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Yeah pls u do. READ WHAT HE QUOTED, HE QUOTED ME IN THE FIRST PLACE! So u do learn what CONTEXT means. Also, not answering on behalf of others is good too.. it dont make u look so stupid many times.

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Originally Posted by Mechanical Man

I find it odd, that nobody is speaking about minimum fps at all. I expect Mantle to up minimum fps on high end machines, even tought maximum to be about the same. Basically, what i expect is. Mantle will enable more games to be playable with AMD APU's and games have more smoother fps profile for high end cpus & cards (less drops and better minimum fps). I dont see anyone losing there. I do hope nVidia dont be too arrogant and atleast really tries to negotiate with AMD to enable Mantle on nVidia GPU's too. That would benefit us all.

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Originally Posted by SKYMTL

I actually want to know if AMD's frame pacing can be easily carried over into Mantle apps. If that doesn't happen, minimum FPS or not, the experience will be a disaster at higher framerates.

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Originally Posted by Mechanical Man

[/B]
Based on what?

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Originally Posted by Mechanical Man

Yeah pls u do. READ WHAT HE QUOTED, HE QUOTED ME IN THE FIRST PLACE! So u do learn what CONTEXT means. Also, not answering on behalf of others is good too.. it dont make u look so stupid many times.

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I thought the chain of conversation was pretty easy to follow, you said improved low frame rates on "high end machines" could make it smoother, he said at high frame rates without frame pacing that smoothness could disappear. Then you asked him why, and because he wasn't online and I made the mistake of thinking you actually wanted the answer I told you...

However you seem upset, I'll let you calm down.

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Originally Posted by Iconyu

I thought the chain of conversation was pretty easy to follow, you said improved low frame rates on "high end machines" could make it smoother, he said at high frame rates without frame pacing that smoothness could disappear. Then you asked him why, and because he wasn't online and I made the mistake of thinking you actually wanted the answer I told you...

However you seem upset, I'll let you calm down.

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Well, u see. i was not speaking about crossfire. If SKYMTL mean crossfire, its his job to correct himself. High end is not crossfire. Its those 500?+ eur cards with 300?+ cpus. I was speaking about hoping mantle would do it better for those builds. That is why I asked where does SKYMTL base his opinion.

i am not 100% sure but i don't think frame pacing is api specific.

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Originally Posted by Mechanical Man

Well, u see. i was not speaking about crossfire. If SKYMTL mean crossfire, its his job to correct himself. High end is not crossfire. Its those 500?+ eur cards with 300?+ cpus. I was speaking about hoping mantle would do it better for those builds. That is why I asked where does SKYMTL base his opinion.

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Both statements have sound reasoning, frame pacing isn't a problem on single card systems his statement in no way contradicts your statement. From my point of view he was just extrapolating on your thoughts, he doesn't need correct himself because he isn't wrong, just like you're not wrong to consider a decent CPU and a high end GPU the basis for a high end gaming PC.

Where you are wrong is in stating that crossfire is somehow above high end, if someone has 30" display, then a single card isn't going to meet the performance needed for smooth gameplay. Saying multicard rendering isn't high end makes it sound like an extravagance but if the owner needs it and can afford it, it's just another requirement.

actually a single 290/290x is fine for the most part at 2560x1600 (30"), given you can make a few compromises like bumping FSAA down a notch.

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Since the fall, we?ve heard some eyebrow-raising claims about Mantle, AMD?s new API (application programming interface). The numbers being tossed around in terms of performance-gain seem almost hard to believe, with Battlefield 4 running up to 45% faster via Mantle over DirectX.

It seems too good to be true, so we talked with AMD?s Robert Hallock. He explained how AMD have been able to achieve these kind of results with their API, and why he thinks it has such a strong case for being adopted as a standard. If he?s right, Mantle could spell huge changes for how games are made, and what kind of performance PC gamers can expect from their own machines.

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Read much more at PCGames

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Originally Posted by STEvil

actually a single 290/290x is fine for the most part at 2560x1600 (30"), given you can make a few compromises like bumping FSAA down a notch.

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I honestly find AA isn't even all that necessary at higher resolutions.

Doom 3 AstoundSound/TrueAudio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb57qpc0RD0

Freaky that voice :D
http://youtu.be/mb57qpc0RD0?t=4m18s

Alien Planet AstoundSound 3D demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVRUHFB0ATE

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Originally Posted by [XC] Lead Head

I honestly find AA isn't even all that necessary at higher resolutions.

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some games seem to need it a lot more than others

for mantle to be getting such big gains it makes you think microsoft has lost all interest in optimizing dx these days and has been happy for the performance difference between pc and console to be smaller
i wonder what dx12 might bring will they try to improve it or does microsoft think they have the pc gaming market and dont even have to try anymore

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Originally Posted by [XC] Lead Head

I honestly find AA isn't even all that necessary at higher resolutions.

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Depends on distance from screen I guess.

I play at 2560x1600 and AA is a must for me. Perhaps something will change with 4K displays...

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Originally Posted by dasa

for mantle to be getting such big gains it makes you think microsoft has lost all interest in optimizing dx these days

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DX hasn't really been updated for quite a while.

Besides, you have to remember that Mantle only shows large gains in CPU-limited scenarios...

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Thief system specs reveal Mantle support and DirectX 11 lovelies
With Square Enix?s take on the Thief series just around the corner the publisher has released the game?s system specs. The bulk of it is your usual fare of graphics cards this and RAM that but where the list is a little surprising is the number of AMD specific technology the game supports and the hard drive space the game requires.

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Just around the corner is February 25, read much more at PCGamesn plus all the sub-links

I've never played any of the Thief series. Are they any good.

Looks like we don't have to worry about High End PC's and Mantle:

http://i.imgur.com/w32szpe.jpg

Crossfire without a CPU bottleneck is pretty devastating.

We might even see that PCIe bottleneck we keep hearing about.

A PCIe bottleneck would be a strange and wonderful thing to have.

The big question is... What's in Johan's machine? :p:

I am so pumped for this, it sounds pretty awesome.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Craftyman.

The big question is... What's in Johan's machine? :p:

I am so pumped for this, it sounds pretty awesome.

---

I think the most important is not the FPS but feeling. lag between mouse and eyes are very important.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zalbard

Besides, you have to remember that Mantle only shows large gains in CPU-limited scenarios...

---

I wonder how close that will make the AMD A10-Series A10-7850K performance when using a gtx780ti vs 4570\4670k if overclocking

Here it comes.................!

http://vr-zone.com/articles/mantle-p...yed/70627.html

Sorry guys, not this week. I know, I'm mad too. We still have the Starswarm demo slated for January. We don't know the status of that one yet, hopefully it comes with Catalyst 14.1. I'd guess the Mantle patch for BF4 would be in the first week of February. They just finished the patch last week maybe (presumed from the tweets), and now they're just watching it behave.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by blindbox

Here it comes.................!

http://vr-zone.com/articles/mantle-p...yed/70627.html

Sorry guys, not this week. I know, I'm mad too. We still have the Starswarm demo slated for January. We don't know the status of that one yet, hopefully it comes with Catalyst 14.1. I'd guess the Mantle patch for BF4 would be in the first week of February. They just finished the patch last week maybe (presumed from the tweets), and now they're just watching it behave.

---

Multiple *credible* sources are pointing to this week.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...postcount=3247

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LordEC911

Multiple *credible* sources are pointing to this week.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...postcount=3247

---

Well, Mantle driver is not the same thing as BF4 patch is it?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Picao84

Well, Mantle driver is not the same thing as BF4 patch is it?

---

Not sure why it couldn't be bundled with the patch.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LordEC911

Multiple *credible* sources are pointing to this week.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...postcount=3247

---

Im really hoping so. Bring it on.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LordEC911

Multiple *credible* sources are pointing to this week.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...postcount=3247

---

Thanks!
Also confirmed from DICE, Johan Andersson on Twitter

http://s21.postimg.org/3pv1x2rxz/amdmantle.jpg

I'm more looking forward to the starswarm demo. Great news that Mantle is confirmed January, but there's no point if I can't test it as I don't have BF4.

The february info is fake, they delayed it until may

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kersh

The february info is fake, they delayed it until may

---

without source, thank you to not post. :down:

for what is worth...
http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-cata...support_134753

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by madcho

without source, thank you to not post. :down:

---

I'm pretty sure he can produce bull on that level without inspiration or external help.

He forgot to mention 2015... may 2015.

today or tomorrow most likely

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kromosto

He forgot to mention 2015... may 2015.

---

Don't you dare :p:

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphic...ng-Phase-2-HSA

10% improvement according to AMD. on the above link. When all the top-end cards are a few percent away from each other, this matters a lot.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...nce-analysis/4

So R9 290 = GTX 780 Ti for BF4.

StarSwarm demo in 10~12 hours, yesssss!

EDIT: Nooo AMD why did you do this... no support for GCN 1.0 cards yet (get google translate, I don't speak french either). http://www.hardware.fr/news/13551/am...h-bf4-10h.html

Sounds like we are only hours away from the Drivers. Now we need Dice to release the Mantle patch for BF4.

Well, Battlefield is doing an update right now. Maybe they are rolling out the patch now with the update. Will see if I can find some release notes. 1.23Gb patch

Mantle patch has been released

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4/news/

The new game update for Battlefield 4 brings the Mantle renderer that DICE has developed in conjunction with AMD. With this first release of Mantle, you can expect performance increases in the game if you have the hardware to support it. In this blog post, the Technical Director for Frostbite details this exciting new step for the Battlefield series.

Hi,

My name is Johan Andersson and I’m one of the Technical Directors in the Frostbite team and I have something very exciting to share with all Battlefield players: the latest Battlefield 4 update on PC includes the long-awaited new renderer in Frostbite that is using AMD’s Mantle.

Mantle is a new low-level graphics API that we’ve been working very closely with AMD on over the last 2 years and it is a major change & improvement to how we are able to program & use modern GPUs in order to get the most out of them.

Battlefield 4 on PC is already quite heavily optimized using DirectX 11 and DirectX 11.1, but with Mantle we are able to go even further: we’ve significantly reduced CPU cost in our rendering, efficiently parallelized it over multiple CPU cores and reduced overhead in many areas.

The biggest performance gains can be seen when the game is bottlenecked by the CPU which can be quite common even on high-end machines and this was main goal to improve on with Mantle. We’ve also been able to streamline and optimize some of the GPU workload. The end result is that game performance is improved in virtually all scenarios in Battlefield 4 on both Windows 7 and Windows 8 when running with Mantle!

This update is the first release of our new Mantle renderer, and we will continue to provide more tuning for different types of configurations in future updates. Still, we are really happy with the performance improvements that we are seeing with this update and we believe you will be as well.

Up to 58% with a high end 6 core Intel and 2x290x's. Wow, pretty sweet.

Now come on AMD, release the 14.1 drivers, pretty please.

Performance tests

To compare performance with Mantle vs DX11 we in Frostbite have done a couple of benchmarks with Battlefield 4 on 3 different configurations & test scenes:

Test case 1: Low-end single-player
CPU/GPU: AMD A10-7850K (‘Kaveri’ APU), 4 cores @ 3.7 GHz
Settings: 720p MEDIUM settings.
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Level: Singapore “Beach”
This area is heavy on the CPU as it is quite a lot of action going on, but the game is primarily GPU-bound both on DX and with Mantle but thanks to GPU optimizations with Mantle we get a good performance improvement.
Result: 26.6 ms/f -> 23.3 ms/f = 14% faster

Test case 2: Standard 64-player multiplayer
CPU: AMD FX-8350, 8 cores @ 4 GHz
GPU: AMD Radeon 7970 3 GB (AMD will add support for the AMD Radeon™ HD 7970 in a later stage of Mantle’s release schedule, learn more)
Settings: 1080p ULTRA 1x MSAA
OS: Windows 8 64-bit
Level: Siege of Shanghai
Level was tested with 64 “pseudo players” that we have for our own internal testing that simulates heavy game workload that we have in multiplayer in order to get more deterministic results compared to full real multiplayer. 64 players on the large Battlefield levels is really demanding of the CPU so this test case is primarily CPU-bound.
Result: 18.87 ms/f -> 15.08 ms/f = 25.1% faster

Test case 3: High-end single-player with multiple GPUs
CPU: Intel Core i7-3970x Extreme, 12 logical cores @ 3.5 GHz
GPU: 2x AMD Radeon R9 290x 4 GB
Settings: 1080p ULTRA 4x MSAA
OS: Windows 8 64-bit
Level: South China Sea “Broken Flight Deck”
This single-player scene is heavy on both the CPU and GPU with lots of action going on. Test was done on the highest end Intel CPU on Windows 8, which is the fastest option before Mantle thanks to DirectX 11.1. Still this CPU is not fast enough to keep the 2 290x GPUs fed at 1080p on Ultra settings so we get a significant CPU performance bottleneck which results in major performance improvement when enabling Mantle.
Result: 13.24 ms/f -> = 8.38 ms/f = 58% faster

I find this first test kinda funny.

It shows that the majority of the people out there won't reap any noteworthy benefits from mantel at all. You need a high end gaming rig to actually see the real benefits.

Anyway gona wait for some more in depth reviews from unbaised sites. Call me paranoid, but I dont take this numbers from an engine engineer without a grain of salt.

on battlefield, and right now... yes
later all GNC tech will benefit from it a lot more so long we stop complaining and let the devs do their work.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kuroikenshi

on battlefield, and right now... yes
later all GNC tech will benefit from it a lot more so long we stop complaining and let the devs do their work.

---

Perfs looks good.




bad news for gcn 1.0

7970 :(


And very bad news for nvidia :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hornet331

I find this first test kinda funny.

It shows that the majority of the people out there won't reap any noteworthy benefits from mantel at all. You need a high end gaming rig to actually see the real benefits.

Anyway gona wait for some more in depth reviews from unbaised sites. Call me paranoid, but I dont take this numbers from an engine engineer without a grain of salt.

---

Wat?
15-25% on low-mid en rigs isnt "noteworthy" ? Cmon dude, dont be a hater.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hornet331

I find this first test kinda funny.

It shows that the majority of the people out there won't reap any noteworthy benefits from mantel at all. You need a high end gaming rig to actually see the real benefits.

Anyway gona wait for some more in depth reviews from unbaised sites. Call me paranoid, but I dont take this numbers from an engine engineer without a grain of salt.

---

Real benefits on high end gaming rigs? Glad I'm on xtremesystems then ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by vario

Wat?
15-25% on low-mid en rigs isnt "noteworthy" ? Cmon dude, dont be a hater.

---

from 38 to 43 is nothing worth mentioning, thats exactly what you get in low end situations. percentages always seem "nice" absolute numbers are not. This numbers are also SP only (who buys BF for SP anyway?)
Wouldn't be surprised when you get even larger percentages in MP, but that means nothing when you have avrg fps of 32 in MP and get a 20% performance increase to 37fps.

Thats why i hate all this marketing stuff... oh look we have 300% incrase on our low end product (increase from 3 fps to 9 fps which isn't mentioned).

If you look at all the powerpoint slides from the past, amd created the hype and implyed you will gain most benefits from there APUs and low end gaming... now with first nubmers it turns out not to be true, if anything its teh exact opposite and if you want best performance you have to pay for it.

Still doesn't deny the fact that is free improvement no matter if its 1% or 300%.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hornet331

from 38 to 43 is nothing worth mentioning, thats exactly what you get in low end situations. percentages always seem "nice" absolute numbers are not. This numbers are also SP only (who buys BF for SP anyway?)
Wouldn't be surprised when you get even larger percentages in MP, but that means nothing when you have avrg fps of 32 in MP and get a 20% performance increase to 37fps.

Thats why i hate all this marketing stuff... oh look we have 300% incrase on our low end product (increase from 3 fps to 9 fps which isn't mentioned).

If you look at all the powerpoint slides from the past, amd created the hype and implyed you will gain most benefits from there APUs and low end gaming... now with first nubmers it turns out not to be true, if anything its teh exact opposite and if you want best performance you have to pay for it.

---

??? I thought the slides said CPU-bound things would get the most improvement. Generally when I think CPU-bound I think high-end GPU(s)...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by madcho

Perfs looks good.
bad news for gcn 1.0
7970 :(

---

AMD is clarifying that the patch supports all GCN cards but not all optimizations are there for GCN 1.0

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hornet331

from 38 to 43 is nothing worth mentioning, thats exactly what you get in low end situations. percentages always seem "nice" absolute numbers are not. This numbers are also SP only (who buys BF for SP anyway?)
Wouldn't be surprised when you get even larger percentages in MP, but that means nothing when you have avrg fps of 32 in MP and get a 20% performance increase to 37fps.

Thats why i hate all this marketing stuff... oh look we have 300% incrase on our low end product (increase from 3 fps to 9 fps which isn't mentioned).

If you look at all the powerpoint slides from the past, amd created the hype and implyed you will gain most benefits from there APUs and low end gaming... now with first nubmers it turns out not to be true, if anything its teh exact opposite and if you want best performance you have to pay for it.

---

I dont get exactly what youre saying, however changes like 23 to 27FPS CAN be REALLY noticable.It can be the difference between jerk now and then and no jerk at all.
I dont play MP games at all, so dont be so close minded about that, however most important thing is, its not about BF4, its about all future mantle powered titles!
And those slides about APU`s and AMD cpus in general are true, you just have to have settings that are CPU bound, and thats not hard with AMD CPU`s :P .
I REALLY dont get ANY negativity towards this, thats FREE PERFORMANCE OUT OF OPTIMIZATION, thing long forgotten in PC world, and it will be something to consider when buying a new GPU AND CPU.
One pretty important scenario to consider is , IF mantle somewhat takes off, AMD CPUS are still going to be "on the table" when putting a new gaming PC, whenever money is gonna be tight that is of course.Without that its hard to recommend AMD CPU, but a cheap ass Kaveri derivative with its GPU turned OFF and a decent GPU to go along with it in mantle enabled games are going to be alright,and thats a scenario that will probably get almost the highest boost, alongside powerful crossfired machines.Thats a WIN-OK-WIN ,for free.

On a side note, i have a Mediocre gaming CPU, so its not that hard with 290X or something along these lines to be somewhat CPU bound, with mantle around, next time i buy GPU its gonna be harder for the green side to convince me and people like me to buy theirs instead of the red ones.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LordEC911

AMD is clarifying that the patch supports all GCN cards but not all optimizations are there for GCN 1.0

---

Booooooo!!!! :p:

7950 here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sparky

Booooooo!!!! :p:

7950 here.

---

Actually it seems they are referring to the driver, I seemed to have misread the original info.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AMD

AMD Catalyst 14.1 Beta will support ALL desktop GCN products, though we are working with EA to further optimize performance on 280X, 270X, HD 7000 and HD 8000. We have asked EA to update their blog to reflect this.

---

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4...50493815503479

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4...4-mantle-live/

^ blog links if you wanted to know

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Craftyman.

??? I thought the slides said CPU-bound things would get the most improvement. Generally when I think CPU-bound I think high-end GPU(s)...

---

Its the opposite kind of. It happens when you use crappy settings where the GPU is too fast and the CPU is holding the system back or when you use a crappy CPU with a mid to high end GPU, and the GPU is held back by the GPU. However in the latter case, if you use high enough settings, the GPU becomes the bottleneck(GPU bound) and as long as your not using a low end CPU, your getting the same frame rates pretty much no matter what the CPU.

10% in the high end range is significant. Its means quite a bit with the close race between Nvidia and AMD currently. However considering AMD given numbers(reviewers guide graphs and performance graphs)recently, I expect those percentages to be cut in half or atleast by 25%. However even at 5%, it still pretty significant. However it requires higher game adoption to be a game changer for AMD.

After looking at these graphs Mantle doesn't appear to be as much a GPU seller as a CPU seller. Mantle looks more to significantly improve the performance of systems with cheaper AMD APU's more than anything. Mixing a high end Intel with high end GPU gives much lesser benefits for mantle. Particularly when so little titles support it.

One new problem I can see popping up is people that own HP or cheaper Dells boxes sold at big box stores thinking they can add any AMD videocard to their system. Sure they might be less CPU bound than before, but cheaper OEM boxes were only meant for mid range GPU's at best. Alot of these system come with 250-300w power supplies and have little to no airflow(hence their quietness). Thus Mantle really just disguises some problems and open up new bottle necks in their system.

Well, if anyone has a low-mid range dell box there are always going to be bottlenecks. But every little bit will help.

I have never tried running BF4 on my laptop with the A10-4600M. Maybe I should, before and after Mantle, and see what the difference is lol (not that I'd care to run BF4 on there usually).

Anyone see any benchmarks that work like this?

Low CPU + High GPU
Mid CPU + High GPU
High CPU + High GPU

Low CPU + Mid GPU
Mid CPU + Mid GPU
High CPU + Mid GPU

Low CPU + Low GPU
Mid CPU + Low GPU
High CPU + Low GPU

I would like to see the comparison to see which of these combinations make the greatest difference in terms of % difference with Mantle.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stukov

Anyone see any benchmarks that work like this?

Low CPU + High GPU
Mid CPU + High GPU
High CPU + High GPU

Low CPU + Mid GPU
Mid CPU + Mid GPU
High CPU + Mid GPU

Low CPU + Low GPU
Mid CPU + Low GPU
High CPU + Low GPU

I would like to see the comparison to see which of these combinations make the greatest difference in terms of % difference with Mantle.

---

Looks that dual graphics will profit the most.

It?s gonna be higher % for the same gpu, going towards with low end CPU.

Crossfire setups have a very high cpu demand. So it's normal that the profit will be huge.

There is one more advantage to Mantle in BF4 clearly seen on the pictures in DICE blog announcing patch.
Just look at the frame time graphs in the bottom left corner of screenshots and compare DX11 and Mantle. What do you see?

Compare to DX11 , Mantle gives lower latency but look at numbers ,on Kaveri for Mantle rendering:

Cpu : 26.73 , 23.29 , 17.50 , max = 45.76
GPU : 23.03 , 22.67 , 19.70 , max = 24.60

for DX11 rendering :
Cpu : 21.95 , 26.60 , 15.15 , max = 33.60
GPU : 27.71, 26.44 , 22.78, max = 33.14

so for Cpu number : 33.60 ==> 45.76 but for Gpu number : 33.14 ==> 24.60 .i thought mantle was supposed to improve both Gpu and Cpu ?

Edit: on 8350 and i7 3970x , both numbers for mantle are lower than DX11????

"AMD Catalyst 14.1 Beta will support ALL desktop GCN products, though we are working with EA to further optimize performance on 280X, 270X, HD 7000 and HD 8000. We have asked EA to update their blog to reflect this."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by behrouz

Compare to DX11 , Mantle gives lower latency but look at numbers ,on Kaveri for Mantle rendering:

Cpu : 26.73 , 23.29 , 17.50 , max = 45.76
GPU : 23.03 , 22.67 , 19.70 , max = 24.60

for DX11 rendering :
Cpu : 21.95 , 26.60 , 15.15 , max = 33.60
GPU : 27.71, 26.44 , 22.78, max = 33.14

so for Cpu number : 33.60 ==> 45.76 but for Gpu number : 33.14 ==> 24.60 .i thought mantle was supposed to improve both Gpu and Cpu ?

Edit: on 8350 and i7 3970x , both numbers for mantle are lower than DX11????

---

they show frame latency, not fps. Lower latency between frames = higher fps

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lightman

There is one more advantage to Mantle in BF4 clearly seen on the pictures in DICE blog announcing patch.
Just look at the frame time graphs in the bottom left corner of screenshots and compare DX11 and Mantle. What do you see?

---

one with working frame pacing one without?

whats even more funny BF3 had working frame pacing in dx.

Hell they even managed better pacing with xfire:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7195/a...lorer-cat138/5

don't know what dice again did to made it worse for single cards.

Star Swarm demo is out on Steam, by the way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by behrouz

Compare to DX11 , Mantle gives lower latency but look at numbers ,on Kaveri for Mantle rendering:

Cpu : 26.73 , 23.29 , 17.50 , max = 45.76
GPU : 23.03 , 22.67 , 19.70 , max = 24.60

for DX11 rendering :
Cpu : 21.95 , 26.60 , 15.15 , max = 33.60
GPU : 27.71, 26.44 , 22.78, max = 33.14

so for Cpu number : 33.60 ==> 45.76 but for Gpu number : 33.14 ==> 24.60 .i thought mantle was supposed to improve both Gpu and Cpu ?

Edit: on 8350 and i7 3970x , both numbers for mantle are lower than DX11????

---

He said look at the graph, not the 3 mean numbers. The graph! Look at it!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by blindbox

Star Swarm demo is out on Steam, by the way.

---

Great. Now we just need the Mantle drivers from AMD!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sparky

Great. Now we just need the Mantle drivers from AMD!

---

It's 3 GB. You definitely want to download it first. We still get to see nice space battles on DX, though. Link for the lazy. http://store.steampowered.com/app/267130/

EDIT: I was wrong, it's only 400 MB, but requires 3 GB of space.

Yeah! Frame times are a lot more consistent on Mantle for both APU and dedicated GPU's tested. This makes me happy!

The Star Swarm HUD looks very non-emmersive with all those semi-transparent squares it looks like a photo-shop GUI, seems like they could have done something a little sexier.

Idea: they need to make games with voice controlled HUD elements that auto-hide...something like wearing google-glass?

Star Swarm isn't a game. They never said it will be a game. Oxide is working on a different title, Star Swarm is just for their stress testing and engine optimizations. That said, the loading time is horrendous and it's a really, really unfancy GUI, you're right. They did call it an alpha....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by blindbox

He said look at the graph, not the 3 mean numbers. The graph! Look at it!

---

lol !! now i saw summary of the test :

DX11 : avg 26.6 ms/f (37.6 fps) 18.87 ms/f (52.9 fps) 13.24 ms/f (78.4 fps)
Mantle : avg 23.3 ms/f (43 fps) 15.08 ms/f (66.3 fps) 8.38 ms/f (121.5 fps)
Improvement 14% faster 25.1% faster 58% faster

So the effect of mantle on Crossfire is high but quick question : will mantle support Nvidia ?

tbh, anyone else also only gets 2 cores utilized? Evne with 7k units on the map it never uses more then 2 cores of the cpu.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lightman

Yeah! Frame times are a lot more consistent on Mantle for both APU and dedicated GPU's tested. This makes me happy!

---

you still forget the NV manages to do very good frame pacing on single (and multi gpu) cards with DX, so its more a thing of the driver then the api. Hell before cat 13.8 amd cards had something like 10 times the the deviation between frames then NV.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by blindbox

Star Swarm isn't a game. They never said it will be a game. Oxide is working on a different title, Star Swarm is just for their stress testing and engine optimizations. That said, the loading time is horrendous and it's a really, really unfancy GUI, you're right. They did call it an alpha....

---

Haha, I thought it was a game...thanks for the info.

It is disappointing that they rebbaged the 7970 and 7950 as part of the R9 series but AMD is going to stagger Mantle support on them...at least Frame Pacing v.2 supports them.

I always thought Xbox was better than playstation due to having Direct X support but Mantle will make that irrelevant it seems. Should Mantle worry Microsoft? Edit: Nevermind, Mantle can't be used with consoles...

Edit: I'm reading that Mantle brings low level api support to pc that is similar to the low level api support direct x 11.x brings to Xbox one...but Microsoft will bring this low level api support to pc eventually...Mantle will just be replaced by an updated DX 12 or whatever for pc.

I really, really wish AMD would release these drivers. It's now the weekend and i'm hanging out to try these out on Battlefield.

Quote:

---

As mentioned in our older article from Thursday, AMD discovered a major bug with its Catalyst 14.2 driver at the last minute, which threw a wrench in the works at the company. The driver was originally slated to come out in sync with DICE' update of Battlefield 4 on Thursday. AMD now tells us that their teams have been working overnight to fix the driver, and should have their next status update for us by mid-afternoon EST (New York time), later today. That update doesn't necessarily mean a driver release at that point in time, and so AMD might be forced to label it Catalyst 14.2 beta, keeping up with its calendar-based driver version naming. Catalyst 14.1 beta was expected to ship the first public distribution of Mantle, AMD's ambitious 3D graphics API to rival Direct3D and OpenGL.

AMD also mentioned a 24 hour exclusive period for press to evaluate the driver before public release, so it looks like your download will be at least 36 hours away.

---

http://www.techpowerup.com/197425/am...r-delayed.html

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by behrouz

but quick question : will mantle support Nvidia ?

---

question is wrong. as amd states mantle is open to everybody question should be "will Nvidia support mantle?" :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hornet331

tbh, anyone else also only gets 2 cores utilized? Evne with 7k units on the map it never uses more then 2 cores of the cpu.



you still forget the NV manages to do very good frame pacing on single (and multi gpu) cards with DX, so its more a thing of the driver then the api. Hell before cat 13.8 amd cards had something like 10 times the the deviation between frames then NV.

---

I'm not forgetting anything and my post didn't imply that at all.
Besides, even nVidia have their bad frame pacing events and it all depends primary on the game engine and not driver. AMD had huge problem with CF frame pacing and not so big issue with single card. I've stopped using CF setups around HD4870 because it was pointless from a gamer perspective even though no one at the time was discussing this issue, but now I'm back with CF on R9 290X and for the first time in many years I want to play with AFR on in most of games. Seems like Mantle will make my experience even better, at least for BF4 initially.

Mantle Known Issues List

Last Updates: 1/29/2014
Lower-than-expected performance on AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 and HD 8000 Series GPUs
Lower-than-expected performance on AMD Radeon™ R9 280X and R9 270X GPUs
Multi-GPU support will be added to StarSwarm in a future application patch
Battlefield 4™ Multi-GPU improvements will be made available in future updates
BattleField 4™ + AMD CrossFire™ stability and stuttering issues are still under investigation
Notebooks based on AMD Enduro or PowerXpress™ technologies are currently not supported
Portrait mode display configurations are currently not supported in Battlefield 4™
AMD Eyefinity technology is not currently supported in StarSwarm

Epic fail?