Thursday, January 30th 2014

AMD Mantle Driver to Only Benefit Four GPUs Initially

Crushed your F5 key on AMD driver download page yet? Unless you have four very specific AMD Radeon GPUs, you can stop it right now. According to DICE, developers of the first game to take advantage of Mantle, the 3D graphics API AMD is introducing with its Catalyst 14.1 beta driver, will give tangible benefits to only four specific GPUs - Radeon R9 290X, R9 290 (non-X), R7 260X, and A-Series "Kaveri" APU-integrated R7 200 series.

Owners of all other Radeon GPUs, including those based on the Graphics CoreNext (GCN) architecture, such as the recently launched R9 280X and R9 270X, are out of luck, for now. AMD is still ironing out issues with Mantle on those other GCN GPUs. Interestingly, in the same press note, DICE posted performance numbers yielded on an HD 7970, which look promising. AMD is expected to release its Catalyst 14.1 beta driver a little later this week, as it's jousting with some last-minute bug-finds.
Source: DICE
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133 Comments on AMD Mantle Driver to Only Benefit Four GPUs Initially

#76
ensabrenoir
:peace: keep flaming guy!!!! Its cold outside and all the heat from this thread is supplying supplemental warmth .....and much laughter:roll:.
Posted on Reply
#77
fullinfusion
Vanguard Beta Tester
Good to have a new driver to test!
Posted on Reply
#78
leeb2013
yet again, it's all BS from AMD.

Specifically targeting Rx-xxx GPUs when the 79xx and 78xx have CGN to trick people in to buying the new ones, after saying Mantle will support all GCN (which it might EVENTUALLY, if ever). Then it gives no performance improvement apart from to their rubbish Ax-xxxx CPUs, where it gives 45% vs 2% for a decent Intel CPU. Finally, the 14.1 driver isn't even available.

To top it all, they forgot to change the text on the 13.12 drivers from 13.11 so BF4 complains you've only got 13.11. Between them and Dice, there's no hope!

I can really see all game developers swooping for this game changing Mantle API
Posted on Reply
#79
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
Prima.VeraOh I read the news, but it seems you do not understand it... ;)
GCN Cards are the ones from 7000 series and above. How about users with 5000 or 6000 series?! Hmm? Both of those generations support Direct3D 11, but obviously Mantle is to good for them...
umm.... because mantle only works on GCN architecture. 5k and 6k cards are not GCN.


why do you troll these threads with stupid arguments? its insane.
Posted on Reply
#80
mab1376
W1zzardThat's the info we got from AMD this morning:


Yes the driver itself will support all cards of course
Is there any real benefit to this driver for a 280x?

is there any noted performance increases in any other games in DirectX?
Posted on Reply
#81
xorbe
Batou1986all this rage and no one is mad that the driver is still not out :laugh:
Yeah, I have avoided commenting until there is actually something to discuss other than marketing slides!
Posted on Reply
#82
tokyoduong
Prima.VeraExactly, that's the problem. You have no ideea what are we talking about. :))
I'll give you a tip.
Is about AMD's promises and lies on how they were going to fix Frame Pacing, EyeFinity issues, Crossfire profiles and now the Mantle thingy. Thing is why I kinda stop believing their bs propaganda. That's all.
lol ok Prima. I'm pretty sure everyone knows who the troll is.

Frame Pacing is getting fixed. It's about to be officially released in a few days with 14.1

Eyefinity issues are being fixed. Crossfire profiles have been continuously fixed in most updates. Mantle is about to be released with 14.1

The thing is that you never had to believe their "propaganda". You can easily buy NVDA cards with their own set of "propaganda". You have choices and both choices are good. I still don't see that any of your whining is valid. AMD did not lie or cheat your pocket. If they did, I'm sure a class action lawsuit is already in place.

The real issue here is that AMD gave us Mantle. It gave us free performance boost without costing us a cent out of our pockets. Yet somehow people like you still complain. This reminds me of the time I gave a homeless guy a meal and some pocket change and he said it wasn't enough.

I have no idea why people are complaining about 4,5,6k series not being supported. It's for GCN only! So naturally that would make 7,8k and the R2xx series being supported. These silly arguments are just annoying. I'm 100% sure that anyone running a 5k series radeon will not be cpu bottlenecked. A freaking i3 will be enough to feed those cards. Enough with this ridiculous argument
Posted on Reply
#83
Bjorn_Of_Iceland
Musselsumm.... because mantle only works on GCN architecture. 5k and 6k cards are not GCN.


why do you troll these threads with stupid arguments? its insane.
I think he won't stop until his precious GPU will run on Mantle.
Posted on Reply
#84
Prima.Vera
tokyoduongIt gave us free performance boost without costing us a cent out of our pockets.
Who is "us"? Definitely not me included. And again I wasn't complaining, I was just stating facts. I stated that if the Mantle support will be as good as their Crossfire or Frame Pacing is, then AMD users will be again big time disappointed. And everybody seems so butthurt by it, and start to troll and insult me for nothing, in typical fanboy style. That's all.
And no, I won't go and waste a lot of money buying new card, when my 5870CFX is giving average 50-60fps on games like BF4, AC4, FC3, Bioshock, etc. I have better use for those money.
Musselsumm.... because mantle only works on GCN architecture. 5k and 6k cards are not GCN.
why do you troll these threads with stupid arguments? its insane.
Then explain why AMD said that Mantle can work on nVidia cards also, if nVidia chooses to do so, hmm? You think nVidia will change its whole GPU architecture just to be able to run Mantle? =)))
Forget the GPU architecture, it's all about the drivers man. ;)
Bjorn_Of_IcelandI think he won't stop until his precious GPU will run on Mantle.
I couldn't care less about Mantle, but you obviously care more about my posts than providing one on the topic ;)
Posted on Reply
#85
buggalugs
Yep, I cant help thinking that if Nvidia devised an API with up to 45% better gaming performance than DX11, they would make people pay for it as a driver/software add on. Only $49 per year for Nvidia Forceware Extreme!!

lol, why is there so much whinging. Mantle is happening, its here.
Posted on Reply
#86
lemonadesoda
buggalugsYep, I cant help thinking that if Nvidia devised an API with up to 45% better gaming performance than DX11, they would make people pay for it as a driver/software add on. Only $49 per year for Nvidia Forceware Extreme!!

lol, why is there so much whinging. Mantle is happening, its here.
In terms of performance, is Mantle better than DX9 or just DX11? We all know that DX11 is a disaster with too much overhead and complexity in the API. When MS releases DX12 will they finally sort out their bad design/coding? And will the GPU manufacturers write better GPU drivers? Because with DX12 and better drivers Mantle would have nothing to boast about. Therefore Mantle is dead, just like all the other temporary performance optimisations, if it isnt the standard, it's an expensive temporary bootstrap.
Posted on Reply
#87
RCoon
>Walks into thread
>Sees 50 angry naked men beating each other with red and green sticks
>Welcome to TPU AMD threads

Such hostility guys, calm yourselves, debate does not require getting hot and sweaty under the collar and spit shining your new coloured stick.
Posted on Reply
#88
W1zzard
lemonadesodaWe all know that DX11 is a disaster with too much overhead and complexity in the API
DirectX saves developers time, and money ($$ = important!) because it abstracts the hardware.

Are you willing to pay $100 for a game that works on NVIDIA Fermi, NVIDIA Kepler, NVIDIA Maxwell, AMD VLIW, AMD GCN, because the developers had to spend extra time on each hardware architecture? Or will it be alright if the game only works on Maxwell and GCN 1.1?

edit: oh wait I completely forgot Intel IGP and their 5 or 6 different hardware architectures
edit edit: add $10 for OpenGL support to run on Steam Box
Posted on Reply
#89
Xzibit
Prima.VeraWho is "us"? Definitely not me included. And again I wasn't complaining, I was just stating facts. I stated that if the Mantle support will be as good as their Crossfire or Frame Pacing is, then AMD users will be again big time disappointed. And everybody seems so butthurt by it, and start to troll and insult me for nothing, in typical fanboy style. That's all.
And no, I won't go and waste a lot of money buying new card, when my 5870CFX is giving average 50-60fps on games like BF4, AC4, FC3, Bioshock, etc. I have better use for those money.
I don't think AMD R9 290X users are disappointed as much as you think

Hard|OCP -XFX R9 290X Double Dissipation Edition CrossFire Review



When we look at performance versus NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti SLI we also find the XFX R9 290X DD CrossFire coming out on top. This we did not expect. We figured GTX 780 Ti SLI might provide some faster performance in some cases. However, it really didn’t. When playing demanding games at high resolutions and aiming for those high in-game settings R9 290X CrossFire pulled through as the faster solution. When we cranked up AA settings, again R9 290X CrossFire pulled through. There wasn’t one scenario in our gaming experiences that GTX 780 Ti SLI was superior in gameplay experience to R9 290X CrossFire configuration from XFX.
We only experienced one stuttering situation and that was with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti SLI in Far Cry 3 at 4K. This could simply be a bug, but we did experience it, and it did affect the in-game settings we were able to play at. Overall, the smoothness between SLI and CrossFire in every game seems to be on par now. We have no major complaints.
With mantle support the performance gap will widen.
Posted on Reply
#90
john_
Prima.VeraWrong. 4000 series does not support Direct3D 11. I was talking about 5,6,and 7 series because architecture is similar, they only got incremental performance that's it, nothing revolutionary.
cadavecaNo.

Mantle is an API...a set of commands given to the GPU by the system, in order for the GPU to output a signal. It replaces DirectX, and uses different compression/algorithms etc, so this requires supporting "decoding" hardware on the GPU itself, which is present in GCN designs.

It provides a benefit, by both lowering CPU load, and limiting CPU-GPU communication bandwidth and time, allowing more commands to be sent to the GPU at once, eliminating bottlenecks in performance that are currently in place(on AMD CPUs).
Hey... I was kidding about 4000. I wrote that 4000 should also get support for DirectX 11. Wasn't that obvious that I was kidding? ....or had a brain surgery in the past that gone a little wrong!


Anyway my point was, and I mentioned it, that you can't expect an old architecture to be able to support a new API. Especially when this API is low level. Anyone complaining about Mantle not running on more cards than the GCN based cards, was at least over optimistic in the first place. And don't forget that we are talking about AMD here. They where always a little short on software and I guess this period, that they are also with limited cash at hands and bet their heads on HSA and Mantle, they can't come out and declare support for every card they have sold. And I don't think that DirectX 11 has anything to do with Mantle. A 5850 or a 6850 supporting DirectX 11 doesn't make them automatically capable of running Mantle.

Do you know what is the most important thing we learned here? That the old GCN cards, even that they got new names, 270X and 280X, are OLD enough and different enough to be out of the first list of the cards that get Mantle support. That is a red light for me to buy a 270/X or a 280/X card in the future and I will have to either pay extra and go for 290 or wait for the next series of cards from AMD (avoiding of course any rebrands we might see).
Posted on Reply
#91
Assimilator
lemonadesodaWe all know that DX11 is a disaster with too much overhead and complexity in the API.
Yes, because Microsoft deliberately set out to create and API that was needlessly slow and needlessly complex.

OR maybe it's because as game detail scales up, the number of pixels and operations on them also increases, thus becoming slower by default, and as a side effect the programming becomes more complex too?

I really wonder which one is most likely.
Posted on Reply
#92
john_
AssimilatorYes, because Microsoft deliberately set out to create and API that was needlessly slow and needlessly complex.

OR maybe it's because as game detail scales up, the number of pixels and operations on them also increases, thus becoming slower by default, and as a side effect the programming becomes more complex too?

I really wonder which one is most likely.
Add to that, that, in the last 2 years we haven't really seen a great increase in gpu performance. We have almost the same cards we had 2 years ago.
Posted on Reply
#93
H82LUZ73
cadavecaHostility?

lulz.

I think you're blowing it out of proportion here. I game with an MSI GAMING GTX780, and have a single ASUS 7970 MATRIX that my memory review rig uses. Both are based on Intel.

So, does Mantle help me?

Personally, I've got not emotion involved in any of this, but I am curious as to what MANTLE actually represents, and how this "free" thing is an actual thing or just a marketing ruse by AMD to get AMD GPU buyer to stop using Intel chips so much ,and buy AMD CPUs, since that's the most common thing.

I mean, I have no problem playing BF4 on a single 7970 now...so this "free" stuff...uh...whut? It gives me more...what? I just simply don't have enough information to understand what AMD is doing, where they are headed, and why. This isn't me as an AMD user complaining...man, Intel sent me three 4960X CPUs. ASUS sent me a RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION. G.Skill sent me a 32 GB ram kit. MSI gave me a GTX780. Thermaltake is sending me a PSU. I'm working on getting other hardware. I ain't got nothing to complain about...except my confusion. I sold nearly all of my AMD cards, got most of my money back, too.

I want to know.. because I do reviews. CPU reviews, at times, too. So, I need to know this stuff, but AMD doesn't have a lot of info for me, if any, that provides something I can relate to the end user as a tangible benefit...as a feature that they should look for as reason to buy AMD products. I don't pay for hardware any more...so the standard "blah blah blah complaining fanboy blah blah blah blah" comments don't apply to me, personally. I just state the facts, as I understand them, because that's my job. :p
mantel works on ALL cpus guys ,Sorry Dave I replied to your post cause you think its just For AMD Cpus. And Gpus like So many of them here .What i would do in your case is test both systems using your 7970 and see,Test pic 2 was using a 7970 and AMD 8350 FX ,Test 1 was the new APU chips.So the pics would be

1-2-3

battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4/news/view/2955063418790832031/1/

Test case 3: High-end single-player with multiple GPUs
CPU: Intel Core i7-3970x Extreme, 12 logical cores @ 3.5 GHz
GPU: 2x AMD Radeon R9 290x 4 GB
Settings: 1080p ULTRA 4x MSAA
OS: Windows 8 64-bit
Level: South China Sea “Broken Flight Deck”
This single-player scene is heavy on both the CPU and GPU with lots of action going on. Test was done on the highest end Intel CPU on Windows 8, which is the fastest option before Mantle thanks to DirectX 11.1. Still this CPU is not fast enough to keep the 2 290x GPUs fed at 1080p on Ultra settings so we get a significant CPU performance bottleneck which results in major performance improvement when enabling Mantle.
Result: 13.24 ms/f -> = 8.38 ms/f = 58% faster
Posted on Reply
#94
Prima.Vera
john_....or had a brain surgery in the past that gone a little wrong!
Thank for the insult. Now please stop replaying to my posts.
Thank you.
Posted on Reply
#95
john_
Prima.VeraThank for the insult. Now please stop replaying to my posts.
Thank you.
I was talking about MYSELF. WTF? I never make comments like that about others. UNDERSTOOD?
Not to mention that I quoted two posts, not just yours.

So thank you for cutting the phrase in half, then misrepresent it and make me look bad.
You are insulting me, not the opposite. So thank you.
Posted on Reply
#96
TheoneandonlyMrK
Prima.VeraWho is "us"? Definitely not me included. And again I wasn't complaining, I was just stating facts. I stated that if the Mantle support will be as good as their Crossfire or Frame Pacing is, then AMD users will be again big time disappointed. And everybody seems so butthurt by it, and start to troll and insult me for nothing, in typical fanboy style. That's all.
And no, I won't go and waste a lot of money buying new card, when my 5870CFX is giving average 50-60fps on games like BF4, AC4, FC3, Bioshock, etc. I have better use for those money.


Then explain why AMD said that Mantle can work on nVidia cards also, if nVidia chooses to do so, hmm? You think nVidia will change its whole GPU architecture just to be able to run Mantle? =)))
Forget the GPU architecture, it's all about the drivers man. ;)


I couldn't care less about Mantle, but you obviously care more about my posts than providing one on the topic ;)
How's about you stop being a tool then , I just ditched five series xfire and had it a long time.

During that time Amd added morphoAA framepacing ssupport and a fairly reasonable amount of free extra umph and likely more ive forgotten all Free.

What's to compain about your car /tv/ fridge maker /nvidia / intel dont do anything for free.

Bit pissed myself about this possible delay but hey ho that's life get over it tech sometimes bites ass.
Posted on Reply
#97
Prima.Vera
theoneandonlymrkHow's about you stop being a tool then , I just ditched five series xfire and had it a long time.
Trust me I will, but not anytime soon:
1. Don't have spare money for a new GPU right now
2. I really don't need it right now, since I can play ALL the newest games without any problems with more than 40fps with full details, so what's the point. ;)

And again, I wasn't complaining, I was just question Mantle's success, knowing it's current limitations, and also knowing from experience the support AMD provided for its other features. That's all. ;)
Posted on Reply
#98
Recus
As expected Mantle is DAO.

Performance improvement only for high/ultra-end GPUs and CPUs. Not mainstream ones. AMD fanboys saying that only 0.01% buying high/ultra. So HD 7850+Mantle won't be faster than Titan.
Nvidia and Intel don't support it.
Can be done on OpenGL and it's freeeeee.
Mantle supporting games cripple Direct X.
Posted on Reply
#99
NeoXF
Prima.VeraWrong. 4000 series does not support Direct3D 11.
Hint: that was sarcasm, you communication skills aren't the best out there aren't they?

Don't know why I even keep reading your posts, they're litteraly filled BS and a truck-load of bias and the same old same old naggy grind, try a change of pace maybe? Also try not sactifying nVidia every 2 paragraphs and twisting everything little thing about AMD to sound bad or horrible, just the ones that actually are.

Fact: Guys, Mantle will NOT commit genocide upon your family trees.
FX-GMCSeriously? All these articles and they haven't actually released the driver?
Apparently they where about to, but pulled it back at the last moment due to a big fault in it. It's in the pipe for within the next 2 days tho.
Posted on Reply
#100
Prima.Vera
NeoXFHint: that was sarcasm, you communication skills aren't the best out there aren't they?
For you also:
Can you please stop quoting and replaying to my posts? Go flame and insult someone else.
Thank you.
Posted on Reply
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