The AMD Mantle Thread

[blightymate]

PS4 and Xbox One is also anything than impressive API wise.

Johan Andersson's APU13 presentation - slide 31 - "PS4 graphics API has great programmability & performance as well"

I do no know what your capabilities are but I do know Mr. Andersson is considered to be one of the premiere game/engine developers in the world, a man of known high integrity and held in high esteem by his colleagues.

I will therefore consider the PS4 API is NOT 'anything than impressive' pending valid contrary evidence.

If you are in possession of such evidence, please provide it.

 

[Stewox]

PS4 API was said to be lower level than XOne

 

[blightymate]

And? The point is, what game could possibly utilize that many draw calls? You speak as though draw calls are the be all end all of gaming..

You're going to run into GPU bottlenecks long before you can fit that many objects on the screen at once.

The increases in draw calls will be accompanied by newer generations of GPUs.

That's not to say that Mantle would not bring benefits however. It would, but are those benefits great enough to outweigh backward compatibility and cross architectural compatibility?

I think not.

A number of very capable and highly experienced game developers with hands on experience with Mantle think otherwise.

On what basis do you consider your judgement of the commercial feasibility of Mantle more valid than theirs?

 

[smackababy]

A number of very capable and highly experienced game developers with hands on experience with Mantle think otherwise.

On what basis do you consider your judgement of the commercial feasibility of Mantle more valid than theirs?

Because developers, no matter how capable and highly experienced are generally bad at making business decisions. 3DRealms ring any bells? At some point there has to be a cut off for how much money and how much time is spent on a project. Letting the developers decide that is usually a bad idea.

 

[Lonbjerg]

The increases in draw calls will be accompanied by newer generations of GPUs.

So now Mantle needs NEW GPU's to really shine?
BTW, why do you crosspost across multiple forums?
PR campaign?

 

[Lonbjerg]

But it does have percieved effect of doing so against a higher level decade old API.

"Percieved effect" is not a metric I care for...no should any technical person.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Here's the FPS from the demo, made it more clearer to see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06OmAEOj308

Highly Recommended to use 720p or Download Source.


Notable Times:
3:10 or Frame5702
5:06 or Frame9195
5:07 or Frame9215
6:38 or Frame11949
(youtube probably won't be accurate enough to hit at that very frame)

EDIT: (holy smokes)
---------------------
MAX:
6:39,10 or Frame11968

~103595 BATCHES
@
15.1757 ms F2F or 65,89 FPS

If they are trying to sell better perfomance...they lost me on the crappy graphics in that demo.

 

[Lonbjerg]

I never said it was off-topic. I was indicating that it was extremely boring to read the same post over and over with dubious "proof" constantly being used.

Yes the problem is you continue to use one canned benchmark as "proof" of something. Show me those blobs firing at other blobs, acting with some kind of intelligence while maintaining 200 fps. Or even 20 fps.

And you'll be linking that same video as proof of something and still be the only person believing it's anything like the same as what Mantle is capable of.

I'll put them together so you can see for yourself.

Demo showing vast amounts of draws in a gameplay situation - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIWyf8Hyjbg&feature=player_detailpage#t=1836

Something that clearly isn't - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxTrbPhGFt0

One of these is a GAME, one is a DEMO. There is a huge difference.

I raise you with real gameplay: EVE online
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRTmVr4pU8Y

This is real people online...not a A.I. tech demo.

I am still failing to see the "power of Mantle" in those tech demoes compared to real games already published

 

[blightymate]

So now Mantle needs NEW GPU's to really shine?

Out of context, question based on false premise.

 

[blightymate]

I am still failing to see the "power of Mantle" in those tech demoes compared to real games already published

Understood.

 

[blightymate]

If they are trying to sell better perfomance...they lost me on the crappy graphics in that demo.

With what graphics quality would they have found you?

 

[SiliconWars]

I raise you with real gameplay: EVE online
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRTmVr4pU8Y

This is real people online...not a A.I. tech demo.

I am still failing to see the "power of Mantle" in those tech demoes compared to real games already published

You realise that's been sped up by 4x? FPS would be in single digits if lucky.

 

[blightymate]

"Percieved effect" is not a metric I care for...no should any technical person.

Reviewer subjective 'highest playable' resolution forms the basis of HardOCP's reviews.

Do you consider HardOCP's reviews invalid using this perceived effect?

 

[blightymate]

I raise you with real gameplay: EVE online
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRTmVr4pU8Y

This is real people online...not a A.I. tech demo.

I am still failing to see the "power of Mantle" in those tech demoes compared to real games already published

The Oxide demo showed much faster fighters with buttery smooth motion throughout vs. the EVE gameplay with slower fighters and continual stutter.

A valid graphics quality comparison was negated due to the Oxide demo being projected on a washed out screen alongside the presenter.

 

[jj109]

You realise that's been sped up by 4x? FPS would be in single digits if lucky.

Having played that game for 3 years, I can say that EVE's awful client performance has nothing to do with draw calls. Sometimes the CPU and GPU is going to be almost idle and the client is pushing only 13 fps with a 4770K. In huge blob fests the major limiting factor seemed to be the overview, which is the spreadsheet that lists everything on the screen. I could turn LoD to minimum and zoom all the way out, but still stuck at 10 fps with absolutely nothing rendering.

I was more impressed with how well Supreme Commander handled massive numbers of objects on screen for a DX9 game. That game came a few years too early though. Most people couldn't play the game as it was meant to be played without the simulation rate dropping to 1/5 speed.

 

[SiliconWars]

Having played that game for 3 years, I can say that EVE's awful client performance has nothing to do with draw calls. Sometimes the CPU and GPU is going to be almost idle and the client is pushing only 13 fps with a 4770K.

That would strongly suggest the API is at fault, which is what Mantle is changing remember - not the CPU. The CPU is capable of much higher calls and fps but it can't do it because of the API is the bottleneck.

 

[jj109]

That would strongly suggest the API is at fault, which is what Mantle is changing remember - not the CPU. The CPU is capable of much higher calls and fps but it can't do it because of the API is the bottleneck.

Did you read past the first two sentences?

 

[SiliconWars]

Yes but I really doubt they'd let something like an overview kill the possibility of smooth epic battles.

It's draw calls, unless you can show me a battle like that running at 60 fps - not give other excuses for why it's running at 10 fps.

 

[jj109]

Yes but I really doubt they'd let something like an overview kill the possibility of smooth epic battles.

It's draw calls, unless you can show me a battle like that running at 60 fps - not give other excuses for why it's running at 10 fps.

There can be nothing drawing, all effects off and LoD to minimum, with just the overview and local chat scrolling away and still be stuck at 10 fps. Please don't make assertions about the game when you haven't played it to a meaningful degree.

 

[SiliconWars]

How do you know that it wouldn't be running at 10 fps regardless? The burden of proof is on you or Lonbjerg to show epic space battles running smoothly, so far they just don't exist outside of the Mantle demo.

 

[Lonbjerg]

You realise that's been sped up by 4x? FPS would be in single digits if lucky.

Not because of GPU limitatons, but because of server node capabilites.
(you cannot just add cores and expect scling to continue linear.)

 

[Lonbjerg]

The Oxide demo showed much faster fighters with buttery smooth motion throughout vs. the EVE gameplay with slower fighters and continual stutter.

A valid graphics quality comparison was negated due to the Oxide demo being projected on a washed out screen alongside the presenter.

A big difference between a smal demo with A.I. and the a real world MMO with 3000 online players involved in a single battle...the limitations you where seeing is more due to network lantency than GPU limitatons.

 

[Carfax83]

But the multithreaded rendering isn't working for everyone. The only games that are confirmed to support it today are Civilization V and Assassins creed 3 and 4. And neither perform a huge degree worse on AMD cards

Yes, not every engine is going to benefit from multithreaded rendering. In fact, only in CPU limited situations does it seem to confer benefits, and most games tend to be more GPU than CPU limited. Civilization 5 had huge benefits with it, as it's a massive strategy game and the Lore engine was designed with DX11 multithreaded rendering in mind..

If the technology is further improved and refined, then you could achieve much higher draw call submissions compared with the present implementation.

Also, Project CARS uses driver command lists as well. BTW, where was it confirmed that Assassin's Creed IV uses it? I know it was suspected, but not necessarily confirmed..

The engine programmers are no morons, if they could get pass the draw calls problem using DX11 multithreaded rendering or OpenGL+extensions, they most likely would do that. They would hit two birds with a stone.

One big thing preventing usage of DX11 multithreading is the fact that it's not supported by AMD.

 

[jj109]

How do you know that it wouldn't be running at 10 fps regardless? The burden of proof is on you or Lonbjerg to show epic space battles running smoothly, so far they just don't exist outside of the Mantle demo.

You are the one making assertions without any evidence, but I'll indulge you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFkLvopNKRk#t=238

EVE Online runs well at max with ~100 ships and however many drones flying about, and that's on DX9. They just recently added DX11 support, so draw calls are even less of a bottleneck now.

 

[Carfax83]

The increases in draw calls will be accompanied by newer generations of GPUs.

There is only so much you can fit on a screen though without absolute clutter. Tell me, what use would it be to have one million disparate objects on screen at the same time?

On what basis do you consider your judgement of the commercial feasibility of Mantle more valid than theirs?

My judgment isn't more valid than theirs, but I do raise valid points.

Backward compatibility and cross architectural compatibility are MAJOR concerns; particularly the latter.

Looking at the Steam hardware survey, GCN users only account for roughly 5% of users. That's a lot of work for the industry to go through for such a small percentage of users.

If AMD is serious about Mantle, then make it an open standard and bring in Intel, NVidia etcetera.. Without their support, it WILL fail.