AMD confirms feature-level 12_0 for GCN maximum

[DownTheSky]

Furthermore, think about 1st wave of DX12 games. Developers are unlikely to code them with the full DX12 feature set since none of the existing consoles will support those features. If only Maxwell supports DX12.1, that's a small fraction of the PC installed userbase. You think the guys making BF5 or Deus Ex Mankind Divided would be suicidal to include DX12.1 features that run 30-50% faster on those cards thus obsoleting 99% of GPU hardware in the world for those games? Not going to happen unless NV specifically starts bribing developers to include DX12.1 (ironically how they got the developer to exclude DX10.1 in Assassin's Creed.....).

I think 12.1 is more of a workaround to allow same features with different implementations you get for GCN cards, but for nVidia, since DX12 is basically based on mantle and mantle = GCN. a.k.a it's pointless for GCN to support 12.1.

 

[SPBHM]

not if it's reasonably current NVidia.

I have a 2GB 7850 that I'll be keeping because it supports DX12, but the NVidia cards from that generation don't

Nvidia said they support DX12 on thing as old as the GTX 480 (2010), the newest AMD cards with support are from 2012,

so an equivalent to your 7850 from 2012 should be fine (gtx 660)

 

[soccerballtux]

Only thing this thread seems to confirm is how good AMD 7970 of a card is. Can't believe it was released almost 3.5 years ago and can effortlessly play any game near max at 1080p. Now compare it to gtx 580 and have a laugh. AMD's 8800GT.

This puppy has some grunt left in it.

yeah I'm pretty happy with my 7850. 1024 shaders and 256bit GDDR5! nothing to sneeze at at all!

 

[soccerballtux]

Nvidia said they support DX12 on thing as old as the GTX 480 (2010), the newest AMD cards with support are from 2012,

so an equivalent to your 7850 from 2012 should be fine (gtx 660)

they don't have the hardware features for it though?

 

[Flapdrol1337]

they don't have the hardware features for it though?

You only need feature level 11_0 for dx12, amd 5000 and 6000 don't support it for some other (afiak still hardware related) reason.

But you need to be fully 11.1 complient to claim 12.0 feature level because of reasons, and kepler doesn't support all the 11.1 features.

 

[ShintaiDK]

they don't have the hardware features for it though?

Remember there are 2 types. API and Feature support. A DX11 card can run DX12 if the drivers are there. But it cant use said features.

You only need feature level 11_0 for dx12, amd 5000 and 6000 don't support it for some other (afiak still hardware related) reason.

But you need to be fully 11.1 complient to claim 12.0 feature level because of reasons, and kepler doesn't support all the 11.1 features.

5000 and 6000 doesnt because AMD doesnt make any new drivers.

And for Kepler its quite obvious in this table why:

 

[stuff_me_good]

Not this again.....this must go back almost 15 years when Radeon 8500 had DX8.1 and GeForce 3 only had DX8.0. This stuff doesn't matter like DX10.1 didn't really matter over DX10. By the time games actually use some extended features of DX12.1 over DX12.0, most people on this site will have upgraded to Pascal and 14nm/16nm GPUs. It's the same story for the last 15 years. The GPU power and VRAM bottlenecks will creep up far quicker than the minor differences between DX12 versions. Ever try playing DX9 games with a first generation DX9 cards? GeForce 5 did support it but it was worthless for DX9 games. 9700/9800 series were miles faster of course over GeForce 5 but who really cares because people moves on to GeForce 6-7 and X800/1800/1900 series anyway because DX9 games became to demanding for 1st generation of DX9 GPUs.

But but but... I'm average Joe and I want the fastest GPU on the world so I don't miss anything and I want future proof.... yes future proof.


There is no such thing as future proof in gaming wolrd, especially if you are nvidia customer. 780 Titan has show as how important your future proofing is for the company. :whiste:

 

[AnandThenMan]

Only thing this thread seems to confirm is how good AMD 7970 of a card is. Can't believe it was released almost 3.5 years ago and can effortlessly play any game near max at 1080p. Now compare it to gtx 580 and have a laugh. AMD's 8800GT.

This puppy has some grunt left in it.

But oddly enough never received much praise it is widely considered that the 680 was the best card of the generation.

Anyway .1 thing again this just won't go away it has never been much of an advantage or disadvantage from my recollection.

 

[mindbomb]

An easy way to remember is that it follows chronological order. The 290x came first with 12.0, and then the gtx 980 with 12.1.

 

[Rvenger]

If you buy a 290x today the box more than likely should say DX 12 on it now.

 

[freeskier93]

R9 280 has listed support for the DX12 API which means GCN 1.0 support.

http://www.amd.com/en-us/products/graphics/desktop/r9

Always good to read the footnotes though:

Based on our review of the Microsoft DirectX(r) 12 specification dated July 23, 2014, we are confident that devices based on our GCN architecture will be able to support DirectX(r) 12 graphics when available. We recommend that you check AMD.com prior to purchase to confirm that a particular device will support DirectX(r) 12 graphics. Note however, any changes to the DirectX(r) 12 specification after this date could impact or completely eliminate this ability – and AMD disclaims all liability resulting therefrom.

What feature levels will be supported I don't know (and based on that footnote I don't think AMD wants to make any claims yet). As others have said it realistically doesn't matter. GCN 1.0 cards are pretty cheap right now, by the time DX12 is in full swing and the higher feature levels matter just get a new card.

 

[soccerballtux]

I like the ring of 'GCN Maximum' I'm going to start using it

 

[Makaveli]

5000 and 6000 doesnt because AMD doesnt make any new drivers.

Is it really a driver issue or because those cards are not based on GCN and are instead based on VLIW architecture.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Is it really a driver issue or because those cards are not based on GCN and are instead based on VLIW architecture.

There is nothing hardware wise preventing them. But you gotta draw the line somewhere.

 

[RussianSensation]

5000 and 6000 doesnt because AMD doesnt make any new drivers.

And how old will Fermi be when the 1st DX12 game comes out? GTX470/480 already turned 5 years old this March and there are 0 DX12 games.

Back when GTX580 was going for $450-475, GTX570 was $325, I paid $230 for my HD6950 and it unlocked into a 6970 with a simple BIOS flash. Today, GTX580 is just 8% faster on average against a 6970 at 1080P. Moral of the story -- it was better to save $ upfront that gen and reuse it towards a faster architecture in the future like GCN or Kepler or Maxwell to play DX12 games.

Only thing this thread seems to confirm is how good AMD 7970 of a card is. Can't believe it was released almost 3.5 years ago and can effortlessly play any game near max at 1080p. Now compare it to gtx 580 and have a laugh.

Either AMD's architectures are more future-proof and/or NV stops optimizing drivers for old tech. Both Fermi and Kepler are aging poorly. Today a 280X is 71% faster than a 580 and even 770 loses to a 280X.

But oddly enough never received much praise it is widely considered that the 680 was the best card of the generation.

Right, but in hindsight today, no one objective would say 680 was the best card that generation. In the last 9 months it got wrecked by a 7970Ghz/R9 280X. If we look at HD7990/ARES II vs. GTX690/680 SLI, it's a slaughter-fest with the former winning by 20-50%.

But but but... I'm average Joe and I want the fastest GPU on the world so I don't miss anything and I want future proof.... yes future proof.

More or less, it's often a gamble. IMO, the only sure way to be up to date is to upgrade more often, reselling the older GPU to finance a part of the cost for the new one. Of course there are cases if the price is close enough, paying extra could be worth it (for example, $650 980TI > $500 GTX980 I would think or buying GTX970 SLI / R9 295X2 over a single 980 for the last 8 months was definitely worth it).

 

[cbrunny]

You only need feature level 11_0 for dx12, amd 5000 and 6000 don't support it for some other (afiak still hardware related) reason.

But you need to be fully 11.1 complient to claim 12.0 feature level because of reasons, and kepler doesn't support all the 11.1 features.

Ok so you need to be 11.1 to claim 12.0, and the picture that Shintai posted clearly states that GCN 1.0 is 11.1, so why does GCN 1.0 not have 12.0?

Literally this thread is the only place I've seen on the internet that shows GCN as not having 12.0 support.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Ok so you need to be 11.1 to claim 12.0, and the picture that Shintai posted clearly states that GCN 1.0 is 11.1, so why does GCN 1.0 not have 12.0?

Literally this thread is the only place I've seen on the internet that shows GCN as not having 12.0 support.

If you think having DX11.1 is the same as DX12 featurelevel. Then you are terrible wrong. Tiled resources tier 2 for example is mandatory DX12 featurelevel requirement. GCN 1.0 doesnt support this.

 

[cbrunny]

If you think having DX11.1 is the same as DX12 featurelevel. Then you are terrible wrong.

Didn't say they were the same thing. I don't claim to be expert in any of this. I am just confused about what is going to happen because everywhere else except this thread says GCN 1.0 supports 12.0.

edit:

http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-says-gcn-products-will-support-dx12-amd-freesync-still-coming_137794

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/t...rectx-12-at-game-developer-conference.199086/

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9112/exploring-dx12-3dmark-api-overhead-feature-test/3

 

[ShintaiDK]

Didn't say they were the same thing. I don't claim to be expert in any of this. I am just confused about what is going to happen because everywhere else except this thread says GCN 1.0 supports 12.0.

I think you confuse 2 things.

DX12 API Support and DX12 featurelevel.

GCN 1.0, just like Fermi, Haswell and Kepler supports DX12 API, but not DX12 featurelevel.

So for GCN 1.0, Kepler, Fermi, Haswell, it will run DX12 with downgraded DX11 featureset. Getting the benefit of the API improvements(CPU overhead etc), but nothing new featurewise.

 

[cbrunny]

clear as mud.

 

[SPBHM]

Not this again.....this must go back almost 15 years when Radeon 8500 had DX8.1 and GeForce 3 only had DX8.0. This stuff doesn't matter like DX10.1 didn't really matter over DX10. By the time games actually use some extended features of DX12.1 over DX12.0, most people on this site will have upgraded to Pascal and 14nm/16nm GPUs. It's the same story for the last 15 years. The GPU power and VRAM bottlenecks will creep up far quicker than the minor differences between DX12 versions. Ever try playing DX9 games with a first generation DX9 cards? GeForce 5 did support it but it was worthless for DX9 games. 9700/9800 series were miles faster of course over GeForce 5 but who really cares because people moves on to GeForce 6-7 and X800/1800/1900 series anyway because DX9 games became to demanding for 1st generation of DX9 GPUs.

the Radeon 8500 could actually run Battlefield 2 (with playable framerate) the Geforce 3 ti 500 (faster than the 8500) and the Geforce 4 Ti 4600 (way faster) could not, due to the lack of PS1.4 support

as for DX9, the 9700 was the first gen of DX9 and it could run DX9 games like Half Life 2 with full settings, the trouble is that DX9 was quickly replaced by the newer versions, specially DX9c the 6 series from Nvidia supported, the X8x0 series from ATI did not, that means the X850XT 1 or 2 years after launch simply couldn't play some new games, while a 6 series could, the 6800 performance for SM3.0 was not very good, but it allowed newer games to be played with reduced settings, while the x850 would display an error message and not launch the game, or SM3.0 features to be enabled on early DX9c games (with a big cost to performance) like on Counter Strike Source (HDR)

And how old will Fermi be when the 1st DX12 game comes out? GTX470/480 already turned 5 years old this March and there are 0 DX12 games.

5 years from 2010 to 2015 had a lot of stability with the OS and API, and even with the Nvidia architecture overall, while in the past we were used to a lot more changes, a 480 or even 460 can play current games a lot better than a 2000 card could in 2005 or a 2005 card could in 2010, 5 years old cards are more relevant now than they used to, I've just finished Witcher 3 with a Radeon 5800

 

[ShintaiDK]

clear as mud.

With that said, you could still end up running into DX12 games that will only work on GCN1.1, GCN 1.2, Skylake and Maxwell(v2) if they demand a feature in their engine as mandatory. I dont see it as likely tho, at least not before way into the future.

 

[cbrunny]

so what's the difference between API support and featurelevel?

 

[ShintaiDK]

so what's the difference between API support and featurelevel?

Roughly said:
API is just the lower CPU overhead etc with drawcalls.
Features is actual methods used to improve graphics.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8544/microsoft-details-direct3d-113-12-new-features

 

[ThatBuzzkiller]

If you think having DX11.1 is the same as DX12 featurelevel. Then you are terrible wrong. Tiled resources tier 2 for example is mandatory DX12 featurelevel requirement. GCN 1.0 doesnt support this.

Yes, it does!

https://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/AMD/sparse_texture.txt

The above OpenGL extension specification which Southern Islands supports is similar tiled resources tier 2 ...

Fermi, Kepler, Haswell, and Maxwell v1 DOES NOT support tier 2 of tiled resources whereas Southern islands DOES support it!

You need to start backing up your posts before starting to spread misinformation ...