News - Battlefield 4 AMD Mantle update released

[cheesyboy]

Are they? Maybe they are, and maybe they're not. Because they've decided to increase GPU power at the same time that CPU power is being ramped up, you can't tell what proportion of that increase is due to CPU v's GPU.

To me, better examples would have been (1) An APU-based system; (2) Same APU as #1 but with R9 290X; (3) Core i7 Extreme with the same R9 290X as #2. At least then you could have got a feeling for what's going to give the best "bang for the buck" with the new driver.

Then again, it's a free upgrade, so maybe I shouldn't complain too loudly?

I guess they were going for likely real life systems (i.e. some balance between CPU and GPU)- a low-spec rig (the APU), a mid-ranger (the FX/7970), and a top-end machine (the i7/two 290x).

Off the top of my head, the x86 grunt of the 8350 is around twice that of the 7850k, and the i7 is getting on for twice the 8350.

Whereas the jump in GPU performance is way more than doubling each time (512 GCN cores in the APU, then 1792 in the 7970, and a combined 5632 in the two 290x's)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I have posted some more up to date info in this thread I started earlier today:

http://forums.hexus.net/pc-hardware-...e-numbers.html

[Traldera]

So....why did my PC download the update when I use Nvidia? Did they not bother to run a check which card you are using? 1.2gb is a lot of space to use if it doesn't even affect me

[crossy]

Explain? No - I don't know the internal workings at AMD But I can have a guess. Dice have obviously (unless they've made up their "benchmarks") got it working with a 7970, so the restriction seems likely to come from the AMD side. The initial support is via a beta driver, so presumably AMD are erring on the side of caution when releasing a public beta. Maybe there's a couple of new bugs with GCN 1.0 and the new driver that means they're not willing to release ir publically for those cards.

Hmm, that seems like a good explanation - heck, it's probably as good as I'm likely to get at least.

So....why did my PC download the update when I use Nvidia? Did they not bother to run a check which card you are using? 1.2gb is a lot of space to use if it doesn't even affect me

It's a conspiracy - EA/Dice are getting consideration from ISPs for "encouraging" people to upgrade their broadband.
(Joking of course)

[Platinum]

So....why did my PC download the update when I use Nvidia? Did they not bother to run a check which card you are using? 1.2gb is a lot of space to use if it doesn't even affect me

The update includes the Mantle patch and other optimizations, its a patch for all that happens to have Mantle support.

[Phage]

Still no AMD driver ?

[Dooms]

Yeah I was thinking that. Strange to release the patch with mantle but not give us the driver to play with it.

[KeyboardDemon]

Still no AMD driver ?

And no indication of when to expect them either. I wish they would get it together, I've lost count of the number of times AMD have announced that a driver update to resolve an issue or activate a feature is on the way and then having to wait sometimes up to three or four months before it becomes available, I have an FX8350 rig with a 290X card just waiting for this update so I can try it out.

[kompukare]

Yes, the excuse was that QA found an issue with the installer (maybe it messed up some of their test systems?). But Warsam71 did post a sticky on the AT forum.

So between that and some feed someone mentioned (Twitter?) it should be here today. But, Warsam71 also mentioned this:
"Furthermore, we’re giving the press time to exclusively test the beta driver while we implement the finishing touches on all the features you can expect from this driver."

So I could imagine it taking longer. Don't know how easy it is to antagonise the press, but usually they would let big websites have the beta first so they can write articles etc., so that may be big reason for the delay.

[herulach]

So....why did my PC download the update when I use Nvidia? Did they not bother to run a check which card you are using? 1.2gb is a lot of space to use if it doesn't even affect me

You also got some other stuff, new colours in the chat box, headshot notification on the kill screen, big welcome messages on servers etc. 1.2Gb is what 20 minutes on half decent BB? Considering you've needed to download knocking on 30Gb to play already its not that much.

[aidanjt]

You also got some other stuff, new colours in the chat box, headshot notification on the kill screen, big welcome messages on servers etc. 1.2Gb is what 20 minutes on half decent BB? Considering you've needed to download knocking on 30Gb to play already its not that much.

I have a 50mbps cable internet service and downloading superfluous gigabyte-sized patches would still bother me, mostly for the waste of space my SSD can do without...

[3DPowa]

Hope that HEXUS will make a full review of Mantle

[DanceswithUnix]

Interesting quote on Ars (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/0...3d-and-opengl/)

"and so Mantle performs the validation once, when the object is created, rather than once per frame. It also reduces the strictness of some of that validation, on the basis that developers will do the work at development time, rather than having to do it on end-user machines at run time."

because reducing error detection always goes well, *sigh*