Wednesday, July 13th 2016

DOOM with Vulkan Renderer Significantly Faster on AMD GPUs

Over the weekend, Bethesda shipped the much awaited update to "DOOM" which can now take advantage of the Vulkan API. A performance investigation by ComputerBase.de comparing the game's Vulkan renderer to its default OpenGL renderer reveals that Vulkan benefits AMD GPUs far more than it does to NVIDIA ones. At 2560 x 1440, an AMD Radeon R9 Fury X with Vulkan is 25 percent faster than a GeForce GTX 1070 with Vulkan. The R9 Fury X is 15 percent slower than the GTX 1070 with OpenGL renderer on both GPUs. Vulkan increases the R9 Fury X frame-rates over OpenGL by a staggering 52 percent! Similar performance trends were noted with 1080p. Find the review in the link below.
Source: ComputerBase.de
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200 Comments on DOOM with Vulkan Renderer Significantly Faster on AMD GPUs

#176
kifi
HTCThis dude's video explains where the extra performance comes from:


The relevant part starts @ around 8:46.

The reason AMD cards are gaining so much is not so much because Vulkan is so much better but rather because AMD's OGL is so damn worse then nVidia's: look @ the CPU overhead on both camps with OGL. It explains why nVidia's gains are so much lower: there' much less room for improvement with nVidia.
That is because Nvidia OpenGL method is non standard and developers foolish used the hacked method.
Posted on Reply
#177
ShurikN
Has async been implemented in Doom Vulkan yet?
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#178
kifi
ShurikNHas async been implemented in Doom Vulkan yet?
Already available when turning TSAA on as pointed out by some readers owning AMD graphical cards (R380, Fury, RX480...).
Nvidia cards uses preemptions to compensate the lack of asynchronous compute in their hardware.
Posted on Reply
#179
TheGuruStud
kifiAlready available when turning TSAA on as pointed out by some readers owning AMD graphical cards (R380, Fury, RX480...).
Nvidia cards uses preemptions to compensate the lack of asynchronous compute in their hardware.
Compensate is a strong word. More like marketing speak.

I highly doubt that compute is being properly leveraged, too, being a pretty new API and Async being new for that matter.
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#180
Xzibit
TheGuruStudCompensate is a strong word. More like marketing speak.

I highly doubt that compute is being properly leveraged, too, being a pretty new API and Async being new for that matter.
Also developers that off load PC version to a third party are less likely to implement those. With the first wave we are seeing stripped version & DX11 regression. Ports being ports.
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#181
bug
TheGuruStudCompensate is a strong word. More like marketing speak.

I highly doubt that compute is being properly leveraged, too, being a pretty new API and Async being new for that matter.
Read Anandtech's GTX 1080 review. It explains in depth the state of async compute and why it currently makes more sense for AMD's hardware.
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#182
Ungari
ShurikNHas async been implemented in Doom Vulkan yet?
Not by TPU in it's benchmarks for Pascal vs. Polaris reviews.
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#183
TheGuruStud
bugRead Anandtech's GTX 1080 review. It explains in depth the state of async compute and why it currently makes more sense for AMD's hardware.
I can only handle so much shill shrimpi (the intel paychecks are just too much).
Nvidia would benefit, but they wanted to cut power usage for today's perf/watt.
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#184
bug
TheGuruStudI can only handle so much shill shrimpi (the intel paychecks are just too much).
Nvidia would benefit, but they wanted to cut power usage for today's perf/watt.
Well, you couldn't be more wrong, but if you won't be bothered reading, there's nothing else I can add.
Posted on Reply
#185
FordGT90Concept
"I go fast!1!11!1!"
I just ran Talos Principle benchmark on my R9 390 and 16.7.3 drivers (ultra, medium AA, 1920x1200):
Vulkan: 80.1 fps
DX11: 96.6 fps

It doesn't have the massive boost on GCN cards that Doom got--at least not yet. It is still beta.
Posted on Reply
#186
BiggieShady
FordGT90ConceptIt doesn't have the massive boost on GCN cards that Doom got--at least not yet. It is still beta.
Hm, getting closer ... too bad they can't profit from cpu bound scenarios since there are none
Posted on Reply
#187
arbiter
Since this isn't on this thread will just add it,
Posted on Reply
#188
bug
arbiterSince this isn't on this thread will just add it,
Yeah, AMD's OpenGL implementation has sucked for ages. It's one of the reasons I've stuck with Nvidia.
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#189
BiggieShady
arbiterSince this isn't on this thread will just add it,
Wait a minute ... is this just doom specific or it's like this in general ... are you telling me AMD Vulkan implementation requires beefy CPU to really shine? ... talk about negating all benefits of low cpu overhead in Vulkan.
Posted on Reply
#190
arbiter
BiggieShadyWait a minute ... is this just doom specific or it's like this in general ... are you telling me AMD Vulkan implementation requires beefy CPU to really shine? ... talk about negating all benefits of low cpu overhead in Vulkan.
Its something to remember, its def something that needs more testing in future with more games to see if its isolated to doom or if it could be recurring issue in other games. I can't remember where i read it since it was years ago but there was story about AMD gpu/drivers running higher cpu load in same game then nvidia card did which could be why if that issues comes to be it.

links to couple articles they had:
www.hardwareunboxed.com/gtx-1060-vs-rx-480-in-6-year-old-amd-and-intel-computers/
www.hardwareunboxed.com/amd-vs-nvidia-low-level-api-performance-what-exactly-is-going-on/
Posted on Reply
#191
evernessince
BiggieShadyWait a minute ... is this just doom specific or it's like this in general ... are you telling me AMD Vulkan implementation requires beefy CPU to really shine? ... talk about negating all benefits of low cpu overhead in Vulkan.
The reason you are seeing the delta between the brand new Intel CPU and the ancient one is because the more frames your GPU outputs the more CPU power is required. This is why, if you haven't noticed, benchmarkers use the best CPU possible. If they didn't the frame-rate would cap.

All we can draw from that benchmark is that it's pretty amazing that ancient CPU can even play that game over 60 FPS. You could drop $50 on a G3258 and it would easily double the performance. If you don't have that yet are buying an RX 480 there is something wrong.
Posted on Reply
#192
FordGT90Concept
"I go fast!1!11!1!"
I think the clockspeed is more important than the processor. 2.67/3.2 versus 4.5 GHz. Not only did they use the highest clocked Intel processor available, it's overclocked too (4.0 GHz stock). The two combined make the old processors look worse on GCN than they really are. The fact every test was over 60 FPS says it all.
Posted on Reply
#193
bug
evernessinceThe reason you are seeing the delta between the brand new Intel CPU and the ancient one is because the more frames your GPU outputs the more CPU power is required. This is why, if you haven't noticed, benchmarkers use the best CPU possible. If they didn't the frame-rate would cap.
That is exactly NOT the case.
Lowering CPU overhead is meant to let weaker CPUs push more FPS. Too early to tell just by looking at one title, though.
Posted on Reply
#194
BiggieShady
evernessince... This is why ...
Dude, look at the graph ... it also shows the same game and same cpu setups with gtx 1060, without the fps drop. :slap:
arbiterlinks to couple articles they had ...
As far as I see, this is something specific to couple of games ... and also specific to new apis ... and new apis are much more low level, it's all understandable .. but bethsoft/id did both amd and nvidia vulkan renderer implementations for idtech engine, I'd expect they'd like to have less fps drop on older cpus with amd gpu. Also GCN is in all consoles so I'd expect them to optimize. It almost looks like whatever they did in the code that benefited consoles (compiling with optimizations for jaguar cores and more heterogenous environment), hurts performance on cpus with older cores and older pcie controllers, but I'm just guessing. It may all be in the driver, also. With apis this low, you never know.
Posted on Reply
#195
bug
BiggieShady... It may all be in the driver, also. With apis this low, you never know.
Unlikely. Lower level APIs mean drivers become thinner. The driver does less work, the application has to do the heavy lifting now.
This is why I will not draw any conclusions based on one title. Where we had AMD and Nvidia doing the optimizations till now, we now (potentially) have every single developer to account for. In theory, everyone now only has to optimize for the API (kind of like coding for HTML5, not for a specific broswer), but sadly, there will always be calls that work better on one hardware than they do on the next. To be honest, it's not clear that smaller developers are even moving to Vulkan/DX12 at all. Interesting times ahead, though.
Posted on Reply
#196
jabbadap
arbiterIts something to remember, its def something that needs more testing in future with more games to see if its isolated to doom or if it could be recurring issue in other games. I can't remember where i read it since it was years ago but there was story about AMD gpu/drivers running higher cpu load in same game then nvidia card did which could be why if that issues comes to be it.

links to couple articles they had:
www.hardwareunboxed.com/gtx-1060-vs-rx-480-in-6-year-old-amd-and-intel-computers/
www.hardwareunboxed.com/amd-vs-nvidia-low-level-api-performance-what-exactly-is-going-on/
Well read this too:
www.hardwareunboxed.com/gtx-1060-vs-rx-480-fx-showdown/


Results are quite schizophrenic, on 1080p with FX 8350 RX 480 is victorious on OGL but looses on Vulkan to gtx 1060. But in 1440p it's vice versa. I would say that RX 480 is on 1080p cpu limited and on 1440p gpu limited on vulkan, while gtx 1060 is gpu limited on both resolutions. In OGL gtx 1060 is cpu limited on 1080p but gpu limited on 1440p, amd is gpu limited in both res.
Posted on Reply
#197
BiggieShady
bugUnlikely. Lower level APIs mean drivers become thinner. The driver does less work, the application has to do the heavy lifting now.
GTX 1060 loses 4 fps moving from skylake to bulldozer ... and RX 480 loses 30 fps moving from skylake to bulldozer. Relatively it's obvious something CPU heavy is happening on radeon code path be it in game or in driver ... you shouldn't rule out the drivers yet because it's still early enough for non optimal critical code segments to exist. I mean drivers are thinner and game code has more control over GPU, it's not like drivers do absolutely nothing - in fact since less time overall per frame is spent running driver code, any sub optimal stuff potentially going on there has more effect overall in CPU bound scenarios if game code is properly optimized. 480 chews through single 1080p frame incredibly fast and doom is well optimized ...
Posted on Reply
#198
EarthDog
Or the CPU is just so slow comparatively...
Posted on Reply
#199
arbiter
evernessinceThe reason you are seeing the delta between the brand new Intel CPU and the ancient one is because the more frames your GPU outputs the more CPU power is required. This is why, if you haven't noticed, benchmarkers use the best CPU possible. If they didn't the frame-rate would cap.

All we can draw from that benchmark is that it's pretty amazing that ancient CPU can even play that game over 60 FPS. You could drop $50 on a G3258 and it would easily double the performance. If you don't have that yet are buying an RX 480 there is something wrong.
By you saying more frames gpu outputs the more cpu power is required, well if that is completely the case the fps of 1060 would dropped like 480 which wasn't the case. I think as we move more in to dx12 gonna have to start testing a more realistic rig option for users based on the card as well, if you are buying card like 480/1060 most don't have a 6/8core high end intel its more likely mid to low range cpu where its bit more limited. 4 year old cpu isn't really useless yet.
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#200
BiggieShady
EarthDogOr the CPU is just so slow comparatively...
What's indicative is i5 750 and phenom x4 955. At those clocks they have similar single threaded performance, the main difference is i5 has integrated pcie controller and better memory controller. Radeon loses 10 frames there.
Maybe devs have some leftover code from console's heterogeneous memory optimizations for GCN code path :laugh: that would be ironic ... we have x86 everywhere and instead of maintaining only x86+GCN and x86+CUDA codepaths, you still have to maintain all codepaths even xb1 separately to benefit from that weird extra on-chip cache.
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