https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIWyf8Hyjbg&list=WL723D3D393077ABE6
There's some good information there on Mantle, including a demo. Not really a graphics demo, but more about how much CPU time is freed up and what that means for games.
It's pretty technical. If you're looking for "Mantle is X% faster than Direct3D" you'll be disappointed (but they do say 3 times faster in some situations), and you'll still have to wait for the BF4 patch.
I really dont understand how mantle is going to help me. Unless im looking at something wrong here but when i play BF4 my CPU usage is only 50-70% where as my GPU usage is 75-99%. I have overclocked my GPU enough to when it hits 99% i only drop from 60 to 59-58 FPS.
From what i understand of mantle is putting less load on the CPU so more can be put on the GPU but my CPU is being used less already than my GPU so i dont see how that will help.
How's your CPU usage on a per-core basis?
One of the issues they talk about in that video is how much of the driver code is essentially single-threaded.
Mantle should make games much more efficient. It should help with what gpus and cpus are able to do so that they don't get maxed as easily. If you are already maxing BF4 out as is, then it won't really help you much, but it might lower the usage of one or both (cpu and gpu that is). The thing is that with Mantle, games can be made that require more from the hardware since they are being more efficient, and lower end hardware will be able to max out games easier.
But yeah, in your situation, you aren't likely to see any benefits aside from maybe as far as electricity usage goes, since it SHOULD (don't know that it will since it is yet untested) lower the overall usage in game if you are already maxing the game.
The video actually very explicitly says that does happen. Less CPU usage -> either less CPU needed to run the game to its full potential or less power used by whatever CPU you already have.
Yeah i already run on max settings with vsync. I suppose it could give me a boost to the point i dont have the rare drop to 59-58.
Thing about it is that I am weary to say that it is that way until it is tested by a third party. It makes sense that that will happen, but the real world gains from Mantle have yet to be seen.
It does kind of worry me about what people's expectations are for mantle, I worry that people are expecting too much and in doing so will be disappointed.
Personally, all I want to see is how this makes bf4 run on an apu (say the 6800k)
If, all of a sudden, you are now able to run at 1080 on high then awesomeness..
Only then would i say "kill your console"
I haven't watched the video yet. My hair is wet and it will have to wait.
My take/understanding of Mantle is that it will make your CPU usage much more efficient, allowing more data to be sent from the CPU to the GPU. That's it in a nutshell.
Whether or not your CPU usage is lower than your expectations is irrelevant because of processes like locking. Some code cannot be processed in parallel. Cores may be locked to prevent loss of data. And while the CPU is being bombarded with processes, it doesn't allow as much communication with the GPU. So making a low-level API that doesn't need a mountain of code should - in theory - give a performance boost through the higher hardware optimisation.
The CPU has to deal with less shit. As I explained with the locking explanation, you might not see that reflected in CPU usage levels. That might give some explanation to single-thread versus multi-thread compatibility. As it has been said, Mantle should be complimentary to a higher number of cores.
If anyone wants to tell me different, go ahead. It was reported that Mantle gave anywhere between a 20%-50% in Battlefield 4, depending on the hardware used. That is pretty exciting.
I will watch the video when my hair is dry lol
Maybe I'm wrong, but was it you who used RTS games as an example in another thread of a style that wouldn't necessarily gain much from Mantle? (paraphrasing)
If that was you, you may be quite interested to know that the video is specifically about an RTS game and how Mantle addresses their needs. Also, the demo (~20 minutes in).... lots of units, firing lots of lasers.
If it wasn't you, disregard.
It was me. And if that is the case, that would be good news.
I did have the view that Mantle would be much more appropriate for a game with a very simple mesh. That's not to say that all RTS games are complex, that's not to say that all RTS games are heavily loading the CPU.
For me it is a question of implementation in a game like Age of Empires, or a game like Total War. They are very different kinds of RTS, with one being much more complex.
Already watched it, but I have to say I am a bit disappointed with what AMD has shown so far. Yes, I would have liked to see a direct comparison of a real world application (a game, a tech demo or whatever) with direct x and with mantle on the exact same system. Real benchmarks with real world applications.
Anyway, I really hope mantle is going to take off. I currently have a gtx 770 but I simply hope that mantle will force Nvidia to either come up with something comparable or to adapt mantle. This would be a win win situation no matter what GPU you have. And if Mantle is a success and Nvidia does not see the need to stay competitive I will simply switch to AMD the next time I buy a GPU.
Either way, wheter mantle takes off or crashes spectacularly, it's going to be interesting.