Mantle Enables Significant Performance Improvement in Battlefield 4: AMD

[W1zzard]

The question begs to be asked, if Mantle is the second coming of Christ, won't that basically completely and utterly negate the need for high, heck, even mid-range cards? I don't know, I think Mantle will prove to be more hype than anything else, seeing that shareholders of a company would rather see the cash inflows from selling overpriced expensive cards, than AMD being the white knight in shining armour and actually doing the right thing for gamers (I say that because while I'm an NVIDIA fanboy -it's true- I still think that Mantle would be a step towards the right direction). Boardroom chatter always wins in the end.

Look at it like this: Mantle will help to increase your GPU load, if your GPU load is below 100% (limited by CPU/API). It won't do anything if GPU load is already at 100%

 

[john_]

The question begs to be asked, if Mantle is the second coming of Christ, won't that basically completely and utterly negate the need for high, heck, even mid-range cards? I don't know, I think Mantle will prove to be more hype than anything else, seeing that shareholders of a company would rather see the cash inflows from selling overpriced expensive cards, than AMD being the white knight in shining armour and actually doing the right thing for gamers (I say that because while I'm an NVIDIA fanboy -it's true- I still think that Mantle would be a step towards the right direction). Boardroom chatter always wins in the end.

Think with 4K in mind not 1080p. Nvidia will need faster hardware to fight AMD if Mantle is a success. Also at 4K Intel can't follow.

 

[Batou1986]

just like crossfire = up to a 100% performance increase

 

[EpicShweetness]

Think with 4K in mind not 1080p. Nvidia will need faster hardware to fight AMD if Mantle is a success. Also at 4K Intel can't follow.

I was going to say, think of Mantle as a way to drive 4k. Or if anything with 1080p being on anything now a days, a drive to give you content at that resolution with less oomph. In other words less power, more compact hardware, smaller form factor same 1080p wonder show!
I think if you have 1080p and a R9 280X Mantle is nothing new or impressive, because it will give you those "use less 100FPS", but if you have 1080p and a 7770, or you get a brand new Kaveri APU, your going to see the biggest improvement. 21FPS + 45% = playable, awesome!

 

[GLD]

I WISH A 280X STILL ONLY COST $299!!! Damn miners have drove the prices up a hundred dollars.

 

[omnimodis78]

It will be interesting to come back to this in a year or so, and see who was right or wrong, and to what degree. I sincerely hope Mantle won't be a flop, but I also eye any of AMD's claims with suspicious eyes. Time will tell.

 

[okidna]

I think if you have 1080p and a R9 280X Mantle is nothing new or impressive, because it will give you those "use less 100FPS", but if you have 1080p and a 7770, or you get a brand new Kaveri APU, your going to see the biggest improvement. 21FPS + 45% = playable, awesome!

I think it's the other way around.

High resolution (say 1080p) with weak GPUs (7700 series or R7 series or APU) = not much performance improvement because weaker GPUs already used close to its full potential (already in high GPU usage state).

Meanwhile with 1080p (or lower) and a powerful or even overkill GPUs (7900 series or R9 280/290 series or CF setup) chances are you'll running in medium or even low GPU usage in most games. This is where Mantle could help, increasing your GPU usage as close as possible to 100% = much more performance improvement.

BTW, I'm using W1zzard's logic here :

Look at it like this: Mantle will help to increase your GPU load, if your GPU load is below 100% (limited by CPU/API).
It won't do anything if GPU load is already at 100%

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[librin.so.1]

Mantle is necessary for AMD. Going the root of OpenGL only or/and DirectX it is just butter on Nvidia's bread, [...]

Still no excuse to leave their other APIs in a bad state (or in case of OpenGL, in a horrible state).

It will be stupid not to use it especially when you have a competitor that, whatever it creates, it is proprietary and locked.

I don't get it.

BTW, I'm using W1zzard's logic here :

Look at it like this: Mantle will help to increase your GPU load, if your GPU load is below 100% (limited by CPU/API).
It won't do anything if GPU load is already at 100%

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

That sure is right!
Actually, from a conversation I had with a friend recently:

no matter what API anyone would think up, the GPU won't magically get more GFLOPS

 

[Serpent of Darkness]

In what could explain AMD's move to include copies of one of the most GPU-intensive games with its new A-Series APUs, the company revealed that Mantle, its ambitious attempt at a 3D graphics API to rival DirectX and OpenGL, "enables up to 45 percent faster performance" than DirectX in Battlefield 4, the only known game with planned support for Mantle, and one of the most popular PC games of the season.

1. Where you say "the company revealed that Mantle, it's ambitious attempt at a 3D graphic API to rival DirectX and OpenGL," this statement is not completely accurate. D3D and OpenGL are High Shader Language APIs. AMD Mantle is not an HSL API. It is a CPU-GPU Optimization API with additional perks. So you can't really say they are the same, and you can't make a claim that it is AMD's rival-API when AMD hasn't released or announced a HSL version.

2. The 45% isn't 45% to all setups. It's 45% for an APU setup. Mainly, this is with the Kaveri APU. There could be a possibility it will be less than 45% with Richland or below. Also, there's a possibility that it could be higher with bulldozer, Haswell, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Ivy Bride-E, Haswell-E, etc...

The Starswarm Demo showed the game without AMD Mantle, running at roughly 20 ms per frame, or 49.99 FPS. With AMD Mantle, the demo was running at 2 to 6 ms, or roughly around 200 FPS.

If you watch the following video, I believe there is some accuracy to this to an extent. It could be fake. Who knows for sure at this current time.

I suspect there is a group of people who are testing the AMD Mantle Beta Version with BF4, and this person is one of them. Take into account, when you watch this, towards the end of the video, this person is using GPU-Z. He hints two things. One, I believe he is using a Haswell setup. GPU-Z shows the integrated Intel Graphics 4000. Two, he's got a R9 series for his Discrete Graphic Card. Since Haswell has 4 cores at a higher Core Frequency, it's possible that FPS performance will go up based on the amount of cores your CPU has, and it's core frequency.

Since AMD Mantle requires a driver on the users end, the person in the video enabled the AMD Mantle in the AMD Catalyst Client. So, in my opinion, it's looking less fake.

If 45% is what AMD Mantle offers at 162 to 200 FPS, then the Kavari APU alone is pushing somewhere around 113 FPS without AMD Mantle. From the video, 300 FPS to 400 FPS is more than twice. Now if you increase the amount of cores on the CPU, this 45% will probably start to show some form of diminishing returns, but the FPS will go up higher. Why is that. Well for a start, AMD Mantle, for a lack of a better term, redirects commands through the other cores for the GPU. Thus, reducing the CPU Bottleneck occurring at the first core.

What's the point in having such a high FPS. If you look at it in context when benchmarking "Video Graphic Cards," high FPS performance versus Game-A, B, C, D, etc, is the x-factor. If AMD can provide their products with AMD Mantle, they can push higher fps for top-selling, PC Games. Higher fps equates to higher popularity versus brand B Graphic Card, and revenue returns go up as consumers purchase "higher-performing" products. Marketing of Graphic Cards are heavily dependent on third party benchers like Techpowerup.com...

 

[john_]

Still no excuse to leave their other APIs in a bad state (or in case of OpenGL, in a horrible state).

Is AMD's DirectX support in a bad state? How is that? And how much horrible is OpenGL?

I don't get it.

What is that, that you don't understand?

 

[natr0n]

Mantle needs less pillow talk and more action.

 

[arbiter]

From what i seen of AMD they tend to over state what their products can do. Claim they are faster then they really are. Case in point a recent even AMD claimed their 8350 cpu was comparable to i7 4770k, which if look at benchmarks their 9590 is still slower even though its overclocked ~20%. Been several cases of that kinda stuff over the years as well, So their claim of 45% i wouldn't believe that for a sec til a 3rd party reviewer comes out with results.

 

[EpicShweetness]

I think it's the other way around.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I see what your saying, I was thinking about how Mantle is a different API. Yes you can't magically make a GPU work harder, but what if you change the rules on how it is told to think. See Mantle might increase framerates simply because compared to DirectX it can better utilize the resources given to it. So yes if that 100% load truly means that not much can be had as the API is already utilizing everything it can and Mantle will just do the same thing then in that logic I believe you are correct. However you can see mine right....

 

[xtremesv]

Remember 3dfx Glide? Well it's not hard to guess how Mantle could end.

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

I'm still hoping mantle does so well that it forces nvidia to get serious and release GM110 as the lead maxwell chip instead of that midrange masquerading as the highend BS they pulled with kepler. Could be the the biggest generational performance jump in a long time.

 

[Dent1]

From what i seen of AMD they tend to over state what their products can do. Claim they are faster then they really are. Case in point a recent even AMD claimed their 8350 cpu was comparable to i7 4770k, which if look at benchmarks their 9590 is still slower even though its overclocked ~20%. Been several cases of that kinda stuff over the years as well, So their claim of 45% i wouldn't believe that for a sec til a 3rd party reviewer comes out with results.

AMD didn't made that claim because the FX 8350 was released a YEAR BEFORE the i7 4770k. So what you said can't be true.

 

[Nihilus]

Damn this is getting exciting. Thw haters will hate up until full release. Mantle could enable a apu system to be more powerful then a ps4/xb1. Apu systems will benefit the most.

 

[happita]

Remember 3dfx Glide? Well it's not hard to guess how Mantle could end.

No need to troll there big guy. Your just regurgitating what pretty much every skeptic has already said about Mantle. Try contributing something "new" to this discussion because it just gets boring hearing the same garbage over and over.

Mantle will be out by the end of the month. Yes they have delayed it from last month, but shit happens, YES even in the tech world where we don't get what we are promised. (Mommy, if I'm good, can I go to the arcade? Yes honey, sure.....)
The whole fiasco with BF4 being a technical mess is obvious and it has halted the progress of AMD implementing Mantle in a timely fashion. It looks like EA/DICE has been hard at work fixing up BF4 good and proper and as such I think once they feel it is on par with their and our expectations, Mantle will be ready to go.

 

[Steevo]

Sad when it doesn't work for HD 6000

Sad when technology progresses? Or sad that its two generations old and new technology requires....new technology. I guess we should all be angry it idn't going to be supported on Windows 98SE, cause that was awesome, and I had a great time playing games on that OS, and since it doesn't need DX.........

 

[RejZoR]

Remember 3dfx Glide? Well it's not hard to guess how Mantle could end.

Glide was gone because 3dfx went bust with bad manufacturing and business decisions and not because Glide was crap by itself. All the bad decisions have taken a toll on development and so hardware started lagging behind competitors and Glide made less and less sense, especially since Direct3D was gaining on popularity back then.

I don't care if gains won't be exactly 45%, i still know they will be huge knowing the performance of other such API's. I still have great memories of S3 Metal that turned my poor S3 Savage3D into something that could compete with RivaTNT2 running D3D back then. It was crazy playing all the Unreal Engine based games with insane framerates just because of that API.

Now that i think, maybe someone might write a Mantle API for older Unreal games Imagine UT99 with 50000 fps

 

[Prima.Vera]

For guys saying that you need Mantle for 1440p resolution or more, since in 1080p you already have more than 60fps with the newer cards, I double-dare them to run any of those games full detail on 8xSSAA with Edge Detect; and post the fps status. I triple dare them.
Btw, anyone remembers Witcher 3 with the Uber Sampling version? Try that with 8xAA on a 1080p
Cheers.

 

[Mussels]

45% on an A10 CPU, with a 290x.


so umm, with all the people here who are acting like experts on mantle, why has no one pointed out the obvious?

we wont get faster FPS oh high end systems, its systems with an 'average' or weak CPU that see the greatest gains.

pair a 290x with a 'slow', multi core CPU and you'll see the greatest gains.

 

[Prima.Vera]

^-- you have a point...

 

[xorbe]

if fps goes up 45% won't gpu power usage go up 45%

 

[Nihilus]

if fps goes up 45% won't gpu power usage go up 45%

No, you can't give more than 100% despite what your little league coach told you. Mantle makes the GPU more efficient. Think xbox 360 vs ATI 1950. Similar hardware but you would not be able to run what an xbox 360 can with an ATi 1950 card.