DICE releases Battlefield 4 DirectX vs. Mantle Performance Numbers

https://www.facebook.com/AMDGaming/posts/592679814137843?stream_ref=10

found in AMD section, nice find by them.

'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..'

 

Yep. Awesome news isn't it?

 

depends just how much more love the 290 /290x get.

 

I don't disagree with that. Mantle should help in all CPU limited situations.

All I'm saying is that that uber rig was the only one that clearly was CPU limited, and only running it in 1080p was most likely to make the CPU bottleneck more apparent.

 

oh sure the tests were ridiculous imo, even Hilbert commented on them.

 

The frametime graph on the bottom left is hard to make out in all except the first set of images. In that one, there were some major spikes in the Mantle version, and the min and max were both higher on the one that was supposedly showing a higher frame rate. Now, that framerate in the top right is instantaneous, not average, so they could easily have cherry picked frame samples. I'm eager to see a 3rd party, independent test.

 

I heard that the DirectX in windows 9 would get Optimizations.

Mantle success is maybe just temporary as Glide api (3DFX) was in the past.

 

As responses on here suggest, people are expecting perfection straight off. Even if you only get a 10-15 percent boost with Mantle, when you consider the difference between some video cards and the willingness of people to spend quite a bit more just for 15 percent gain, it's still impressive. Future games may benefit further through optimisation of the driver and game implementation itself, and actually make better use of it from the beginning.

The fact it boosts low end CPU's so much is critically important, it may encourage more people off of consoles on to PC gaming. In any case, I still believe we may see better performance differentials with Thief 4, and maybe even more again with future games especially with further driver optimisations.

A big thing to consider is the required display calls. Battlefield 4 probably still only has the same number on Mantle as on DirectX. If they made use of Mantle it would mean graphical quality has actually improved on Mantle! (more effects, or more elaborate effects). If a future game made use of Mantle to it's full extent, I'm sure 100,000 display calls a second will make Mantle shine a lot more above DirectX than these early examples show.

 

The 7970 with 8350 got a 25% boost. That's neither of those categories.

 

Big performance gains are claimed here, I'm very impressed. Long term, this is great news for all PC gamers.

 

I don't know if anyone heard about this already, but:
StarSwarm on Mantle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6PKxP30WxYM

Benchmarks from maximumpc with StarSwarm results:
http://www.maximumpc.com/amds_catalyst_141_drivers_are_incoming_mantle_update_and_more

CPU: AMD A10-7700K and Radeon R9 290X - 319% improvement at 1080p, 281% improvement at 1600p.

It's stuff like this that showcases just how antiquated the Direct3D API truly is, it's quite astonishing that it even lasted this long without a major overhaul/removal of legacy mechanics.

That said, since this is an API, I'm hoping nVidia (is it NVIDIA now?) starts working towards supporting this, showcasing what THEIR cards can do without the ball and chain of constant CPU calls from using Direct3D will benefit everyone.

 

Oh that good old tried and true moment when marketing smoke and mirrors meets reality. Anyways, it's probably a temporary setback, I'm sure AMD will deliver on what they promised, it's just a matter of when.

 

Of course they will

 

No mobile support? What?

This is no different from a 7870.

Unless it's because of the muxing.

 

In BF4. Not certain if it's for Mantle itself now. Shoot a tweet to AMD and ask.

 

I have an inability to tweet.

These cases are where it would be handy, since it's all companies seem to use

 

Well, I have to chime in on this cpu utilization.. My amd 8350 at 5ghz is working just fine.. 1 core gets to around 90%, the other 7 cores are between 60~80% depending on whats going on in game.. Thats at 1440p Ultra 2x hboa.. My 780ti classy turns out the frames too im always 90~110fps. I do get drops to 60 from time to time when lots of smoke is involved or when a building is being blowin up.. But my cpu never really changes. Always stays about the same.. Just that one core gets higher then the rest.

 

That is what I was eluding to in my previous post. Battlefield 4 was designed for DIrectx 11.1, with Mantle an added nicety. Battlefield 4 simply doesn't make full use of the extra draw calls that Mantle allows.

StarSwarm on the other hand is designed to make full use of Mantle straight off, which is why the performance differentials are considerably greater. Since Mantle overcomes the CPU limitation, the fact you still get a 5 percent boost with an i7-4960X is impressive. Well it is, how many people can afford an i7-4960X for a gaming rig? You typically wouldn't mix an i7-4960X with an R7-260X, if you ran a R9-290X and maxed out antialiasing and everything else, the difference may be greater. The reason why they chose those two configurations is it is one extreme to the other - budget CPU with an enthusiast card, and enthusiast CPU with the lowest supported GPU. You may still be looking at a very decent boost with a i5-4670K and an R9-280X etc.

In any case, if StarSwarm is even half reflective of the performance people can expect in the future (and no doubt there will be even further improvements, especially considering AMD are still tweaking the driver for its initial release) it is a very good thing for the future of PC gaming. If people can save money and get a budget PC with a good card, and still get great performance and quality, it really will be a big plus for PC gaming and help stop the defection of PC gamers to cheaper consoles, and encourage console gamers to get a gaming PC at an affordable price.

 

So why isn't the HD 6000 supported by Mantle?

 

That's not GCN.