Mantle demonstrates smoother gameplay in Civ 5 Beyond Earth (& what it means for the industry)

[Humbug]

So getting a low end processor with a much higher end gpu is legit now with mantle?

It certainly helps and games like BF4 have shown that. However most games still use legacy APIs so do research before you buy.

The point I was making is that an API which can render the same scene with less CPU time is clearly an example of superior engineering. It's clearly doing something right. If DX12 and OpenGL Next can do the same it is good for everyone.

This is why it is so wrong when people say it doesn't matter to me because I have a good CPU. Yes it does matter to you! Whether you have powerful hardware or not we should all strive for good optimization. Good software means achieving a job in an efficient and non-bloated manner.

e.g. if the min GPU for AC:Unity is a geforce 680 then that's not good, and even people who have Titan Blacks and R9 295x2s should consider it not good, it means that the dev has failed to properly utilize his resources and it means that they are unable to get decent performance which means they have no headroom to push graphical boundaries.

 

The fact that for the moment in some games you can still brute force it with more powerful hardware is beside the point, better optimization is good for the industry and will benefit us all in the long-run.

-Widespread adoption of more efficient APIs mean that devs can free up the CPU to do other things which make the game world more immersive. e.g. more advanced AI routines and what deathjester was talking about with more going on on screen.

-GPUs are getting faster and faster so rapidly. CPUs are not. This means that CPU bound scenarios will become more and more common if we keep doing things the way we are atm.

[xAcid9]

The new beta driver that enable Mantle in CIV:Beyond Earth. 

 

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDCatalyst14-9-2BetaWINReleaseNotes.aspx

[psy9o]

Lets redirect this fan war right now, because an important point was brought up why do most games still only use 1 or 2 cores max while we are now even reaching 8 cores and Quadcore is become the standart. This is not new and especially with the big focus in the last years on portable hardware for phones and tablets multi core has become the standard for the future. Yet game developers seem to be sticking to 1 to 2 core optimization, the reason is very simple when you think about it. CONSOLES the sole reason is that as long as it is more profitable to mainly develop a game for consolesand consoles don't have quadcores, big publishers will not make the effort to support and optimize for multi processors and we as PC gamers with our X5580 8-core and what not will keep getting the short and of the stick

[Humbug]

the current consoles have 8-core CPUs

[wrath]

why does everytime has to end up with a fanboy screwing around?

this discussion wasnt about whats better and whats not

[Legion]

I don't understand why you would ever even want to have a high framerate in Civ games. Sure it's nice, but you have all the time in the world to make your next move, it's not like someone with 10fps has an inherent disadvantage to someone with 60fps.

 

Sort of irrelevant to talk about performance numbers at all with this game imo. Let alone how it makes one graphics card sellers technology better than another. Okay, you can run BF4 and Civ;BE with 10 more frames per second, woop-de-doo.

 

Smoothness when panning across the map for one.

 

Not important early game but can be nice on weaker systems at end game when it starts to chug.

[Humbug]

why does everytime has to end up with a fanboy screwing around?

this discussion wasnt about whats better and whats not

I think some posters are programmed to respond to certain keywords.

e.g. If post includes AMD + Mantle;

then response = Nvidia + PhysX;

 

My opening post included those keywords so it triggered a response.

[wrath]

I think some posters are programmed to respond to certain keywords.

e.g. If post includes AMD + Mantle;

then response = Nvidia + PhysX;

 

My opening post included those keywords so it triggered a response.

You may be right

[spartaman64]

wow a lot more games got mantle support than i was expecting 

[Humbug]

wow a lot more games got mantle support than i was expecting 

Star Citizen takes the cake. Chris Roberts is supporting 3 totally different APIs.

 

-DX11 by default on Windows

-Mantle as optional for AMD users

-OpenGL for all Linux users.

 

Wonder how time consuming that is... I guess it's not bad as he does not have to worry about console ports.

[Valentyn]

Star Citizen takes the cake. Chris Roberts is supporting 3 totally different APIs.

 

-DX11 by default on Windows

-Mantle as optional for AMD users

-OpenGL for all Linux users.

 

Wonder how time consuming that is... I guess it's not bad as he does not have to worry about console ports.

 

 

Well porting CryEngine to OpenGL is certainly a feat in and of itself. Besides them, only one other developer ( Warhose Studios ), is attempting to port the engine to OpenGL.

 

[suicidalfranco]

wow OpenGL will really gain a lot by implementing Mantle then, cant wait for it

[Valentyn]

wow OpenGL will really gain a lot by implementing Mantle then, cant wait for it

 

It's not really implementing Mantle, so much as using it as a common area to drastically improve OpenGL. At GDC Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD already shoed that they're panning to drastically reduce driver overhead in OpenGL.

http://gdcvault.com/play/1020791/

 

After that AMD granted the Khronos group ( which controls and develops OpenGL ), full access to Mantle to help improve OpenGL further.

http://techreport.com/news/26922/amd-hopes-to-put-a-little-mantle-in-opengl-next

 

http://www.tomdalling.com/blog/modern-opengl/opengl-in-2014/

This is all fantastic news, and can only further help us consumers in the long run.

[RisingWarrior]

I think I might have to switch to team red the next time i buy a graphics card. Mantle seems to go the right path and it can become a legit api if only the devs would implement it better/faster. But I am also excited about the improvements that OpenGL and DX12 will get from this.

[FellTheSky]

So does it look all washy like BF4?

[Humbug]

So does it look all washy like BF4?

Was a bug from Dice which was fixed around February / March if I remember correctly.

[KeltonDSMer]

So does it look all washy like BF4?

 

As Humbug stated, the "washed out colors" thing in BF4 was an error on Dice's end that was quickly resolved, and was not inherently related to using the Mantle API. Actually, the Mantle render path could look better because of forcing a slightly improved form of AA (EQAA vs. MSAA).

 

"EQAA is an interesting feature as it improves on the quality of MSAA (somewhat) by doubling the coverage sample count while maintaining the same color sample count as MSAA. So 4xEQAA will have 4 color samples and 8 coverage samples while 4xMSAA would have 4 of each. Interestingly, Firaxis has decided the EQAA will be enabled on Beyond Earth anytime a Radeon card is detected (running in Mantle or DX11) and AA is enabled at all. So even though in the menus you might see 4xMSAA enabled, you are actually running at 4xEQAA. For NVIDIA users, 4xMSAA means 4xMSAA. Performance differences should be negligible though, according to AMD (who would actually be "hurt" by this decision if it brought down FPS)."

 

Source: PCPER   http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Civilization-Beyond-Earth-Performance-Maxwell-vs-Hawaii-DX11-vs-Mantle

 

Note: CivBE will use EQAA with any Radeon card installed, even if running DX11. The IQ should be the same comparing Radeon DX11 vs. Mantle, but might be slightly different comparing Radeon/Geforce (EQAA vs. MSAA). I am the type of person that would likely not be able to tell the difference.

[Humbug]

Gedosato.

http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?tag=gedosato

Just got it working for ME1, thanks!

Got it going on 4K, noticed a big reduction in the jaggies.

Will check about the texture packs later, I need to make sure that the texture packs don't change the artistic vision...

[Kingofpants]

Probably a few percent better, I hope.

With the 390x being a 20 nm card, wouldn't be suprised if it could push some serious muscle and have a 30% advantage over 290x

-Not quote-

On an unrelated note, I wish Physx stayed as a card. Like game makers able to push a card that has lots of Floating point units and is very good at physics simulation would help remove strain from the CPU.

Yes I know that GPUs are good at floating point, but if physx remained a physical card, we could see a shit ton of games supporting it and if you had the ability to get low level acsess to the card then maybe game engines could design there own Tress FX and Gameworks, which would finally work cross platform.

It woulda been awesome, But nope.

[Sammael]

...

 

If there are any titles that NEED a low level API they are MMO's and RTS games. This is why when the fanboys were saying "Mantle sucks", people in the know just laughed. Those of us with high clocked Intel's knew what this was for and where we would see huge gains. There isn't a CPU that exists that can handle massive amounts of people on screen in some games with our current API. A low level API was needed for all cpu's and not just budget ones.

 

 

ding ding ding

 

Give this man a medal.  It's too bad we have not heard of ANY current mmo maker stating they are going to implement mantle or even dx12 so far, because they benefit the MOST of all.

 

 

Back when I used to play wow you would often have your entire system slow to a crawl once too many players came on screen, or you might have to lessen the draw distance so keep frame rates in check.  Mantle can open that up to a much larger degree and make the entire experience more fluid and playable.

 

 

It is an absolute DISGRACE that a game that is still as large as wow refuses to implement mantle.  Same goes for Starcraft, those custom maps that allow large unit counts on screen can easily bring systems to their knees, we need mantle for these types of games.  Not the dumb shooters most of the spazing teenage gamers love to play more than anything else.

[Valentyn]

 

Back when I used to play wow you would often have your entire system slow to a crawl once too many players came on screen, or you might have to lessen the draw distance so keep frame rates in check.  Mantle can open that up to a much larger degree and make the entire experience more fluid and playable.

 

 

WoW can still do that! It's so heavily CPU bound it's almost a sick Joke.

 

Although instead of Mantle, I would prefer if Blizzard and others help the Khronos group to finish the new version of OpenGL that is implementing Mantle features, along with AMD, Intel and NVIDIA's reduced driver overhead.

 

Blizzard are still using Direct X 9, and OpenGL 2 ( which is ancient ). Adopting the new OpenGL 4.5 means even Windows XP systems with newer GPUs can benefit from it. Along with other OSs.

 

I would really enjoy a massive MMO with thousands of players all waging open war without having a top end system start crawling during a slide show.

[AxelRantila]

It's not really implementing Mantle, so much as using it as a common area to drastically improve OpenGL. At GDC Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD already shoed that they're panning to drastically reduce driver overhead in OpenGL.

http://gdcvault.com/play/1020791/

 

After that AMD granted the Khronos group ( which controls and develops OpenGL ), full access to Mantle to help improve OpenGL further.

http://techreport.com/news/26922/amd-hopes-to-put-a-little-mantle-in-opengl-next

 

http://www.tomdalling.com/blog/modern-opengl/opengl-in-2014/

This is all fantastic news, and can only further help us consumers in the long run.

So, Intel finally have access to Mantle?

[Valentyn]

So, Intel finally have access to Mantle?

 

I guess to some extent, considering they're working with the Khronos group on the new version of OpenGL.

 

So it means if the Mantle features are implemented in the new OpenGL. It might mean Mantle disappears having been assimilated into OpenGL, and we're back to Direct X and OpenGL as the two main APIs again.

[AxelRantila]

I guess to some extent, considering they're working with the Khronos group on the new version of OpenGL.

Ok. So far my biggest complain about Mantle has been that AMD on one day is pretty aggressive with marketing Mantle as being open, but the next day they won't give Intel access to it.

[deathjester]

Just got it working for ME1, thanks!

Got it going on 4K, noticed a big reduction in the jaggies.

Will check about the texture packs later, I need to make sure that the texture packs don't change the artistic vision...

 

Don't worry about that. I was worried about the same thing. You can back up the folder which changes everything with the patch (installer tells you what folder).  He did a really good job with the texture packs with M.E.U.I.T.M. About the only big change is Captain Andersons Uniform (included in my gallery) and Nihilus. He did a good job on both of them. Everything else is pretty much exact but just a 4k texture instead of a 256k texture. Mass Effect 2 and 3? Lot of people went buckwild. Jean Luc's Pack for 2 is pretty much exact from the bioware forum.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127177328@N03/

 

Flickr seems to do a decent job with not ruining compression too much.  First 5 are ME 1 with texture packs at 5120x2880 Bicubic res with no anti aliasing, rest are ME2 at same res. That red outfit of Garrus is in the original game, doesn't show on cutscenes in the ship. I just thought the water looked nice on Virmire and that red outfit always cracked me up in the original game. ME 1 remains just as customizable and he redid most of the armor you can pick up. N7 armor (think it is onyx) still looks the best though for cutscenes on shepard. I prob took 1000 screenshots with Gedosato, but imgur compressed them all horribly, and I just recently figure out flickr isn't near as bad.

 

Think he said he is still planning to redo the Mako and Normandy one day. ATM I am playing through Overlord DLC in 2 and about to go to reaper IFF. Send me a private and I can link you all the ones I found for 2 that are just about perfect integrity wise. Might take me a few days to get back to you, but I will put all the links there for ya. ME 1 should keep ya busy for awhile though .

 

Oh and to take a screenshot in Gedosato go to edit keybindings and remove the # from the screenshot hotkeys and save. They will save in a subfolder for each game inside the Gedosato install directory.