AMD GPU14 Tech Event Sept 25 - AMD Hawiian Islands

[SiliconWars]

I've never seen so much lipstick be put on such a pig of a product announcement in my life.

"This puppy is Fermi"

 

[Silverforce11]

It's only been announced yesterday but the important pieces are in place with GCN covering every relevant next gen gaming platform. If this was only on the PC front I wouldn't expect it to outlast Glide but as it is, it definitely has a shot to gain traction. It seems like it's been brewing for a while now and in about a month we'll see just how much traction there is is with Mantle.

Thats the point. If it was PC only it would be dead on arrival. Even something so dominant as Intel cannot get many developers to bother with their iGPUs, its an afterthought.

In prior generations, cross-platform developers would have to cater to the specific console, all vastly different, then had to cater to the PC sector, all vastly different. Now big studios have been given a scenario they never had but always dreamt about, they would be a fool to not use it.

 

[cmdrdredd]

And

http://www.maximumpc.com/amd_r9_290x_will_be_much_faster_titan_battlefield_4



Lots of big words so far.

It is just words. Amd isn't known to have the beat software team out there either.

Also if you are already taking maxed game settings with aa and all enabled getting 60fps all the time I don't see where someone getting 80fps is "ridiculing" anything(just throwing out random numbers). Yeah it might make for nice graphs but in gameplay they will both be perfectly acceptable. I don't buy their talk at this point.

 

[raghu78]

It is just words. Amd isn't known to have the beat software team out there either.

Also if you are already taking maxed game settings with aa and all enabled getting 60fps all the time I don't see where someone getting 80fps is "ridiculing" anything(just throwing out random numbers). Yeah it might make for nice graphs but in gameplay they will both be perfectly acceptable. I don't buy their talk at this point.

60 -> 80 fps definitely makes a difference in competitive multiplayer scenarios in BF4. so I think you are ignoring the impact that Mantle can have on gameplay.

 

[OCGuy]

60 -> 80 fps definitely makes a difference in competitive multiplayer scenarios in BF4. so I think you are ignoring the impact that Mantle can have on gameplay.

60 ---> 80 absolutely matters, not because of average, but because of minimum.

120---->140, not so much.

 

[cmdrdredd]

60 ---> 80 absolutely matters, not because of average, but because of minimum.

120---->140, not so much.

Note that I said ALL THE TIME....

Selective reading is annoying.

 

[Arkadrel]

http://www.maximumpc.com/amd_r9_290x_will_be_much_faster_titan_battlefield_4

“with Battlefield 4 running with Mantel (AMD’s new graphics API), the card will be able to ‘ridicule’ the Titan in terms of performance.”

Those are big words.
The 290x ridicules a titan in BF4 with mantle.

 

[cmdrdredd]

http://www.maximumpc.com/amd_r9_290x_will_be_much_faster_titan_battlefield_4




Those are big words.
The 290x ridicules a titan in BF4 with mantle.

That have to prove it first and make it work in more than one game too.

 

[GaiaHunter]

That have to prove it first and make it work in more than one game too.

It should work in any Frostbite 3 engine, so the likes of Mass Effect new game and Dragon Age: Inquisition as well.

 

[raghu78]

That have to prove it first and make it work in more than one game too.

Mantle was designed by AMD in close collaboration with EA / Dice and. EA uses Frostbite 3 across all the games in their company. Frostbite 3 's first Mantle showcase is BF4. All of EA's upcoming games will benefit from Mantle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLt5RVGJfQY

see the video at 3:00 for a list of EA games powered by Frostbite 3. Battlefield, Need for Speed, Command and Conquer, Starwars, Mass Effect and Mirror's Edge are a few.

 

[OCGuy]

http://www.maximumpc.com/amd_r9_290x_will_be_much_faster_titan_battlefield_4




Those are big words.
The 290x ridicules a titan in BF4 with mantle.

AMD's "Can of whoopass" moment? Haha

 

[Jaydip]

The problem is you don't need mantle to "ridicule" your competitor, NV/AMD has already done that prior to mantle.

 

[Genx87]

http://www.maximumpc.com/amd_r9_290x_will_be_much_faster_titan_battlefield_4




Those are big words.
The 290x ridicules a titan in BF4 with mantle.

This was linked on this very page in this thread. Second after AMD's failed promises. Lets wait and see what reviewers find in the performance numbers? AMD telling us their new super duper technonology is going to crush the competition tells us nothing right now.

 

[ams23]

That have to prove it first and make it work in more than one game too.

The reality is that DirectX and OpenGL are the industry standard API's used by most game developers across all computing platforms, and these API's will evolve over time to take better advantage of future heterogeneous architectures (with the introduction of new features such as unified virtual memory). Mantle will only be used as a backup for those game developers who are paid handsomely by AMD to use it. And considering AMD's dwindling cash balance and heavy debt burden, there is only so far they can push it.

 

[Jaydip]

Mantle was designed by AMD in close collaboration with EA / Dice and. EA uses Frostbite 3 across all the games in their company. Frostbite 3 's first Mantle showcase is BF4. All of EA's upcoming games will benefit from Mantle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLt5RVGJfQY

see the video at 3:00 for a list of EA games powered by Frostbite 3. Battlefield, Need for Speed, Command and Conquer, Starwars, Mass Effect and Mirror's Edge are a few.

I only found a major flaw , Activision EA's biggest competitor may not be too eager to work on this.I won't be surprised if Activision goes NV exclusive going forward.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Mantle was designed by AMD in close collaboration with EA / Dice and. EA uses Frostbite 3 across all the games in their company. Frostbite 3 's first Mantle showcase is BF4. All of EA's upcoming games will benefit from Mantle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLt5RVGJfQY

see the video at 3:00 for a list of EA games powered by Frostbite 3. Battlefield, Need for Speed, Command and Conquer, Starwars, Mass Effect and Mirror's Edge are a few.

Battlefield is the only game using frostbite that I care about and the other titles aren't exactly going to break sales records on PC. After mass effect 3 people are going to hesitate on any new titles in the series, same for dragon age as well. So they need to move this off of EA IMO cause there are a ton of people who never buy games from EA lol. Many of them on these forums too.

 

[cmdrdredd]

The reality is that DirectX and OpenGL are the industry standard API's used by most game developers across all computing platforms. Mantle will only be used as a backup for those game developers who are paid handsomely by AMD to use it. And considering AMD's dwindling cash balance and heavy debt burden, there is only so far they can push it.

I said before it may be relegated to gaming evolved status titles only at some point unless a developer wants yo port a game from ps4 or xb1 to the PC more easily.

I am just being realistic here. The idea is great but the reason low level APIs work on consoles is the locked hardware set. You simply do not have that with the PC. You have nvidia GPU with amd CPU, amd GPU with Intel CPU, nvidia GPU with Intel CPU. Then amd GPU with amd CPU. It really is more fragmented than it seems at first glance. That doesn't account for people who don't upgrade drivers and complain about missing performance, or people not on the latest windows version with all the directx updates. It becomes a nightmare for support teams.

 

[Xarick]

All I learned from this is I wish I had pre-ordered a PS4, because that is where gaming will be at for a while.

 

[cmdrdredd]

All I learned from this is I wish I had pre-ordered a PS4, because that is where gaming will be at for a while.

Nah...you'll still get watch dogs, assassin's creed, witcher 3, battlefield 4, cod ghosts, batman arkham origins and more on PC.

 

[krumme]

60 ---> 80 absolutely matters, not because of average, but because of minimum.

120---->140, not so much.

Ok then you just buy the slow card. Your choice.

 

[Nintendesert]

This is my take on Mantle and why it came about. It's nothing new, it's Glide. It's also what console developers can more easily do to get a lot more performance out of their hardware than a PC developer can.

There's a reason AMD wants to go to a closer to metal API: TSMC.

TSMC is already showing us that they can't keep up with the Nvidia/AMDs demand for smaller and better nodes. We're stuck at 28nm for another year. After 20nm? Who knows. AMD/Nvidia can't rely on simply building cards around better nodes. TSMC can't do it and they're more willing to sell wafers to Apple than to Nvidia/AMD.

So AMD needs to find better ways to make use of their existing hardware for longer periods. Allowing developers to better utilize what gamers already have. We know the industry will do it, games did utilize Glide and OpenGL and DX at one time.

That's my take on ultimately why AMD needs a closer to the metal API, that along with an industry shift away from MS. How this turns out will be determined by how easily the major graphics engine developers can implement Mantle and how cheaply. The other driving force will be if graphics engines such as Frostbite and Crytek's use it, then anyone licensing those engines will get to use it. The problems of using Mantle may not be as extensive as a need for every game to implement it, but just the major engines and letting it trickle out from there.

There is a certain irony to this announcement from AMD since Nvidia is the one that bought 3dfx. We'll see how this turns out, but my 680 will keep working away for at least another year. So I'm looking forward to the generation that's on 20nm. Big changes to the PC industry with these kinds of moves and the SteamOS stuff.

 

[Kenmitch]

I already predicted AMD needs exclusives and here you are.Where are you Finalty?
I won't be surprised if NV comes with their own "Dismantle" stuff pretty soon

Are you saying that NVidia would actually stoop low enough to sneak in some code that would disable Mantle on games it helps develop?

 

[krumme]

I only found a major flaw , Activision EA's biggest competitor may not be too eager to work on this.I won't be surprised if Activision goes NV exclusive going forward.

So they make a statement saying they will not sell games at consoles or what?

 

[imaheadcase]

Are you saying that NVidia would actually stoop low enough to sneak in some code that would disable Mantle on games it helps develop?

How is it any different than amd and nvidia doing it with benchmark software? That is what Mantle is isn't it? A cheat to make games run better on certain hardware vs others.

I don't see game devs alienating a huge player base simply because they can get 10fps (whatever it might be). They will even the odds.

 

[blackened23]

I only found a major flaw , Activision EA's biggest competitor may not be too eager to work on this.I won't be surprised if Activision goes NV exclusive going forward.

Activision, publishers of Call of Duty? Have fun with that. Even with TXAA, every COD game looks like absolute trash. Then you have Blizzard games which are designed for 8-10 year old PCs. I think NV would aim for higher than Activision. One, Activision doesn't release many games. The games they do release, are not graphically compelling. So that gives nvidia Call of Duty. I would argue that PC gamers do not care because COD has never been a graphically demanding game, it has been a joke. Ghosts does not change this. Graphically, ghosts is a joke.

But the main thing is that EA releases a TON of games, Activision barely releases anything. EA and Frostbite 3 are certainly bigger "winners" than anything and everything Activision can offer, give me a break. Ubisoft maybe? I don't know - some Ubisoft games were AMD GE. Ubisoft has never been brand exclusive, some games have been AMD and others have been Nvidia (Assassin's creed)