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Jon1984
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Sun Feb 02, 2014 8:40 pm

It's been difficult to work with the built in logger from Battlefield 4. I think I managed to successfully put to work the logger with MSI Afterburner. I run the game in Direct3D mode so the MSI AB works, play the mission then restart the mission without getting out of BF4 so MSI AB keeps working. Between missions I change in the game settings from Direct3D to Mantle.

It's just a run so it's data isn't relevant to have a clear perspective on Mantle but here's what I've gathered so far:

Mission: Singapure, about 8 minutes of game, just before you enter the tank.
Settings: Ultra, 1080p

Direct3D in red and Mantle in blue. Framerate and Frametime.

http://imageshack.com/a/img545/6071/kj27.png

The graphic isn't really easy to read, but you can see that there is no really noticeable differences between D3D and Mantle.

My subjective conclusion is that with mantle things run a little bit more smooth, but not by a bunch. I think there is a improvement, although small but is there. It's subtle though.

Tomorrow I will try the multiplayer and see if it can be easier to see the differences.
Last edited by Jon1984 on Sun Feb 02, 2014 8:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Sun Feb 02, 2014 8:42 pm

I'll actually reuse my post that I did on Ars earlier today.
Heres my preliminary mantle results on a map that seems pretty CPU bound. Havent checked to carefully, these are @ home on a uncontrolled enviroment so YMMV. But it's real world results from todays play-session. Thats why DX is only 2.5 minutes, while the full Mantle was 17 minutes. It was unplayable on DX on that map.

It was unplayable at the same settings with DirectX, on Mantle it got somewhat what I can surmise is a 20% boost and was really smooth Except for the frames that does hickup, they hickup badly. For being beta, it's actually very usuable, despite the chokes considering DX dont even seem to be able to have the same settings playable at all. Some of the results seems a bit weird number wise, like the Frame/CPU time numbers on mantle. They would point to it taking longer. But the GPU only takes one frame out of 2000 longer. On DX, every 24/frame took longer then avg(i.e. 60Hz).

And Mantle felt really smooth, while DX was unplayable so there is definitely more to watch out for from people and reviewers that have controlled enviroments to test on.

Summary Numbers
Image

DirectX
Image

Mantle
Image

Video Settings
Image
 
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Mon Feb 03, 2014 11:16 am

Jon1984 wrote:
It's been difficult to work with the built in logger from Battlefield 4. I think I managed to successfully put to work the logger with MSI Afterburner. I run the game in Direct3D mode so the MSI AB works, play the mission then restart the mission without getting out of BF4 so MSI AB keeps working. Between missions I change in the game settings from Direct3D to Mantle.


You need to restart the game, otherwise the switch between DirectX an Mantle does take effect.
 
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Mon Feb 03, 2014 2:30 pm

The effects of mantle wont be as good with the 6xxx or 7xxx series. The R9-290/x is really where you see all the performance. Using perfoverlay.drawgraph 1 it's literally a flateline in game for me using a R9-290 in multiplayer. As is stated in the patch notes for the beta drivers, they're working on performance on the 6xxx and 7xxx series, which would include the 270/x and 280x as they're 7xxx series.
 
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Re: AMD: Catalyst 14.1 Beta, Mantle & Battlefield 4 Patch up

Mon Feb 03, 2014 2:39 pm

Savyg wrote:
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I'm pretty excited! Not so much for BF4, but for any tech demos out there that can show me what my HD7950 is actually capable of. Besides BF4, can you name anything that we may want to check out?

The Star Swarm demo just went up on Steam.

the difference with mantle is impressive in Star Swarm - the average FPS wasn't incredibly higher on my system*, but the minimum FPS was something like 7-8 in D3D and 15-17 in Mantle.

* mac pro 2009, 3.33ghz nehalem xeon, 10gb ram, radeon 7950 3gb.
 
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Mon Feb 03, 2014 2:46 pm

My empirical experience with my 7950 is that it works. I'm able to push up to 4x MSAA from 2xMSAA and still completely lock it at 60FPS.


However, I don't know if it's the code in BF4 or the 14.1 drivers (probably the drivers), I get severe lulls of low FPS for several seconds every few minutes. Basically makes it unusable for me so I'm back to DX11 and 2xMSAA.
 
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Mon Feb 03, 2014 2:51 pm

ChronoReverse wrote:
My empirical experience with my 7950 is that it works. I'm able to push up to 4x MSAA from 2xMSAA and still completely lock it at 60FPS.


However, I don't know if it's the code in BF4 or the 14.1 drivers (probably the drivers), I get severe lulls of low FPS for several seconds every few minutes. Basically makes it unusable for me so I'm back to DX11 and 2xMSAA.

That's been happening to others in this thread, and to a friend of mine who also tested this yesterday.
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Jon1984
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Mon Feb 03, 2014 2:58 pm

BlackStar wrote:
Jon1984 wrote:
It's been difficult to work with the built in logger from Battlefield 4. I think I managed to successfully put to work the logger with MSI Afterburner. I run the game in Direct3D mode so the MSI AB works, play the mission then restart the mission without getting out of BF4 so MSI AB keeps working. Between missions I change in the game settings from Direct3D to Mantle.


You need to restart the game, otherwise the switch between DirectX an Mantle does take effect.


Good call. Seems like my graphic isn't valid because its probably both runs on DirectX.
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Mon Feb 03, 2014 3:21 pm

morphine wrote:
ChronoReverse wrote:
My empirical experience with my 7950 is that it works. I'm able to push up to 4x MSAA from 2xMSAA and still completely lock it at 60FPS.


However, I don't know if it's the code in BF4 or the 14.1 drivers (probably the drivers), I get severe lulls of low FPS for several seconds every few minutes. Basically makes it unusable for me so I'm back to DX11 and 2xMSAA.

That's been happening to others in this thread, and to a friend of mine who also tested this yesterday.


Same for those in my community with the appropriate know-how and hardware. They all switched back to DX11 due to the performance issues.

Kind of a disappointment, but at least the base performance gains are real!
 
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 1:32 am

Oh yes, everyone is switching back to DX because of the spike you get every 15-30 minutes that lasts for all of .25s. I got more spikes when I was using DX then using mantle, although my situation is a bit different because I stream.

There still is the crash though. For me that spike gets longer and longer till it finally crashes, which more then likely indicates some sort of looping bug. You can tell when the game is about to crash too.
 
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 7:03 am

Bensam123 wrote:
Oh yes, everyone is switching back to DX because of the spike you get every 15-30 minutes that lasts for all of .25s.
the Spike for me was every 3-4 min. I have ZERO spikes with DX11.

One thing no one is reporting on is the thermals with Mantle enabled. Just after a cursory look at temps after an hour of BF4 both CPU and GPU are up 7-10 degrees over the same time played at DX11. I also notice the GPU fans and case fans kicking up to high and staying that way.
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 8:29 am

tanker27 wrote:
One thing no one is reporting on is the thermals with Mantle enabled. Just after a cursory look at temps after an hour of BF4 both CPU and GPU are up 7-10 degrees over the same time played at DX11. I also notice the GPU fans and case fans kicking up to high and staying that way.


Good observation! I'd like to see that tested (hint).

Theoretically, the R9 290X using Mantle could provide no benefit over DirectX if your cooling can't handle the extra heat. That could become a consideration if you have limited cooling capability, a Steambox for example.

That's got me wondering, do Kaveri GPU parts thermally throttle the same way that Hawaii does? I haven't seen any figures on that, then again Kaveri isn't a high performance part so throttling is more acceptable.
 
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 8:40 am

I am using a R9 280X this one in particular. Its a Rev2 with three fans on it. And boy do they ramp up after 15-20 minutes of game time when Mantle is enabled.

As for CPU cooling I am using the Corsair H100i which has dual 240's for the radiator. I also have two 240 intake fans. So I would say I have good cooling. Tonight I think I will pull out my infrared thermometer with laser pointer and see what my RAM and south bridge temps are. I am sure they ramp up to the same 7-10 degrees.
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:00 am

Don't forget you can use GPU-Z like the TR did here to monitor (and log) clock speed for throttling.

Mantle's benefit seems really hard to gauge in absolute terms, it's dependent on so many factors. Throttling could potentially be another one.
 
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:19 am

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tanker27
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:22 am

puppetworx wrote:
Mantle's benefit seems really hard to gauge in absolute terms, it's dependent on so many factors.


I expected as much since the driver is the first one and this is only one game that makes use of it. But BF4 is a dichotomy (or trichotomy even), where yes a lot can be offloaded to GPU but there is still so much more that is CPU dependent and then its a multiplayer game when network traffic plays into the gaming experience.

Like I said before when Mantle works boy is it smooth and beautiful.
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Aphasia
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:26 am

I did some more tests on BF4 and I think some dedicated benchmarks might be in order. BF4 is definitely not a one-stop solution for seeing what mantle can do. Mostly because the game load is so varied so just jumping onto a different server might present a different load depending on the part of the map, amount of people, etc. At the same time, SP doesn't tax the game nearly as much as 64p conquest.

Played Rush on some other maps, and no matter Mantle or DX, the performance is the same. That is, everything at Ultra, without any AA, and it flows just fine. Although at 2560x1600, the game is definitely GPU bound on most maps. The hard part comes when you go onto certain maps in conquest large and 32 players and upwards. That's where the game seems to starve the CPU so it can't keep up with graphics in DX, while working fine on Mantle. So the difference in some situations are unplayable in dx, smooth in mantle.

As I showed in my last post, on that server, map, configuration it amounted to 22%ish boost making it really shine, but as others have said, those tiny freeze frames that comes destroy it as a permanent change at this point. That's why I switched back to DX. Same with the fog/skybog bug. Once those two are squashed, I so no reason for continuing with DX unless I want to do Fraps-recordings. Because that is also one of the things that people might want to do. Better would be built in recorder, but...

Haven't looked at the temps though, but it might be something to watch out for. If I do any more tests I'm going to remember to log the temps.

Although if this catches on, we might get overlay, recording, streaming support via origin at some point.
 
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:29 am

Man I havent delved into video card stuff this much since the old RIVA TNT v Voodoo Banshee battle. :wink:
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Aphasia
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 10:01 am

Yeah, same here. And it all really started with 3DFX and glide back then.
I still remember my Matrox Millenium 4MB and that external pass-through-cable with an Orchid Righteous 3D and special Glide editions of Quake, Descent ant MechWarrior 2. Those were eye openers. I still remember the klick of the relay when Glide started and wen't into the path.

Back then there was common with different renderers as a normal choice, software, Glide, then later OpenGL and DirectX. Now people are all up in arms, because, OMG a new renderer that are in beta that aren't universal because.... what exactly.

It was from Voodoo(1) over TNT2, Then from TNT2 to GeForce, then it was from GeForce Ti over to 4870: At all those occasions I read a ton of material and discussed about it. After the 4870 though, I've been happy enough not to switch back despite a few games here and there with better performance on the green side. As long as it work's it works. And I have my computer on 24/7 so drivers have been rock stable for me considering I put in what... 500+ hours of gaming every year.

And nowdays, I tend to use my free time for movies and gaming, not readin considering I do ton's of tech stuff at work hours, albeit security/networking. It's just not enough space to keep it all in your head anymore. And GASP, I even pass over a few of the TR graphs in the reviews these days.

Edit: Sorry, almost did a stealth edit there :P
Last edited by Aphasia on Tue Feb 04, 2014 10:20 am, edited 2 times in total.
 
tanker27
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 10:18 am

Aphasia wrote:
It's just not enough space to keep it all in your head anymore. And GASP, I even pass over a few of the TR graphs in the reviews these days.


LOL ain't that the truth. A few years ago I switched to being a full time web developer and all this HTML5, .NET, C#, js, and AJAX all rolling around in my head there's no room for it all. When I started out in IT I was a hardware guy, desktops and servers. Never in my mind did I ever think I would become a code monkey.

Anyways, its refreshing to go back to the in's and out's of Video Card stuff. Now if wee could get another AAA game released that uses Mantle so we have something to compare it too. BTW when's Dragon Age III supposed to drop? Wasnt it one for the AAA titles that was going to make use of Mantle?
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 10:34 am

Yeah, my head contains policies, ISO standards, firewall rulesets, a ton of different iterations of various flavours of proprietary shells not to mention all the black magic networking stuff ;)

Well, supposedly, anything using Frostbite is going to have Mantle support, so that means Mirror's Edge 2, Dragon Age 3, Battlefront, although out of those, DA will probably be first out. Good question if Thief or Star Citizen will come out before that, haven't kept up with the dates on those. Q3 2014 for Dragons Age inquisition according to Wikipedia.
 
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 10:59 am

Aphasia wrote:
Yeah, my head contains policies, ISO standards, firewall rulesets, a ton of different iterations of various flavours of proprietary shells not to mention all the black magic networking stuff ;)

Well, supposedly, anything using Frostbite is going to have Mantle support, so that means Mirror's Edge 2, Dragon Age 3, Battlefront, although out of those, DA will probably be first out. Good question if Thief or Star Citizen will come out before that, haven't kept up with the dates on those. Q3 2014 for Dragons Age inquisition according to Wikipedia.


Thief is supposed to come next month.
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 11:37 am

Jon1984 wrote:
Thief is supposed to come next month.

Feb 27 according to Steam.
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tanker27
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 12:52 pm

Meh, Not a big Thief fan so I probably would pass on it.
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 2:38 pm

tanker27 wrote:
Meh, Not a big Thief fan so I probably would pass on it.

I don't really care for the theme itself but Square has been hitting home runs for me except for Hitman: Absolution (which was alright, just had a strange playstyle.)

Will probably grab it.

My A10-7850K arrived, got the UEFI updated, everything works perfectly with no reinstall in 8.1 coming from a DX58SO + i7 920. Right on. Didn't know you could do that.

Too bad I'm still stuck with the 660 so no Mantle for me yet o.o
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 2:56 pm

Savyg wrote:
My A10-7850K arrived, got the UEFI updated, everything works perfectly with no reinstall in 8.1 coming from a DX58SO + i7 920. Right on. Didn't know you could do that.


Since Vista. It's more ideal if you sysprep it first, but technically you could still sysprep it now to clear out the cobwebs.

cd x:\windows\system32\sysprep
sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown

------

TR Mantle Benchmarks

I feel like the technology is less revolutionary than touted by AMD or excited developers. There's also implications both in the benchmark results and discussed in the press that AMDs D3D driver isn't robust.
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 3:17 pm

Ryu Connor wrote:
I feel like the technology is less revolutionary than touted by AMD or excited developers.

I feel like it'll save me money, and as relatively budget constrained gamer I appreciate that.
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 5:23 pm

Savyg wrote:
I feel like it'll save me money, and as relatively budget constrained gamer I appreciate that.


It could, but there are a lot of caveats attached to that.

Deciding if there is sufficient widespread adoption (critical mass of support) of Mantle to make this worthwhile. Glide greatly diminished long before the end of 3dfx.

Deciding if a cheaper and weaker CPU - that ends up being okay for gaming due to this API - is worth being slow in everything else. Time is money after all.

The debate of NVIDIA D3D being in the ballpark even with lower powered CPUs.

I don't see this changing CPU recommendation paradigms with this many aspects up in the air.
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 5:32 pm

One way of reading Scott's results is "Mantle is nice, Nvidia's D3D is better still."
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Re: BF4 Mantle Thread

Tue Feb 04, 2014 7:23 pm

Those results are pretty surprising, although bad for both Nvidia and Mantle is that many people with that CPU and card probably do as I do, that is, run as high as the card will go while still being smooth, i.e. not that much of a CPU bound scenario. In those circumstances, the 290x and 780 Ti is way closer, although it seems, once the card is not a chokepoint, nvidias drivers are really darn fast. Although, considering there what... 20% Price difference, it should be at least a bit faster.
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