The DirectX 12 Performance Preview: AMD, NVIDIA, & Star Swarm
by Ryan Smith on February 6, 2015 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Microsoft
- NVIDIA
- DirectX 12
Frame Time Consistency & Recordings
Last, but not least, we wanted to also look at frame time consistency across Star Swarm, our two vendors, and the various APIs available to them. Next to CPU efficiency gains, one of the other touted benefits of low-level APIs like DirectX 12 is the ability for developers to better control frame time pacing due to the fact that the API and driver are doing fewer things under the hood and behind an application’s back. Inefficient memory management operations, resource allocation, and shader compiling in particular can result in unexpected and undesirable momentary drops in performance. However, while low-level APIs can improve on this aspect, it doesn’t necessarily mean high-level APIs are bad at it. So it is an important distinction between bad/good and good/better.
On a technical note, these frame times are measured within (and logged by) Star Swarm itself. So these are not “FCAT” results that are measuring the end of the pipeline, nor is that possible right now due to the lack of an overlay option for DirectX 12.
Starting with the GTX 980, we can immediately see why we can’t always write-off high-level APIs. Benchmark non-determinism aside, both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 produce consistent frame times; one is just much, much faster than the other. Both on paper and subjectively in practice, Star Swarm has little trouble maintaining consistent frame times on the GTX 980. Even if DirectX 11 is slow, it is at least consistent.
The story is much the same for the R9 290X. DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 both produce consistent results, with neither API experiencing frame time swings. Meanwhile Mantle falls into the same category as DirectX 12, producing similarly consistent performance and frame times.
Ultimately it’s clear from these results that if DirectX 12 is going to lead to any major differences in frame time consistency, Star Swarm is not the best showcase for it. With DirectX 11 already producing consistent results, DirectX 12 has little to improve on.
Finally, along with our frame time consistency graphs, we have also recorded videos of shorter run-throughs on both the GeForce GTX 980 and Radeon R9 290X. With YouTube now supporting 60fps, these videos are frame-accurate representations of what we see when we run the Star Swarm benchmark, showing first-hand the overall frame time consistency among all configurations, and of course the massive difference in performance.
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eanazag - Monday, February 9, 2015 - link
Yes, and they need more millions of machines to attract developers. Find any app that exists on iOS, Android, and Windows and you'll see that the Windows version is usually lagging in support or features. Example: Star Wars Commander receives the same updates iOS does weeks later.They absolutely need developers to get on board. When they do, there should be a corresponding stream of cash flow in the Windows store.
Blessedman - Tuesday, February 10, 2015 - link
This is 100% correct... Ask any Machead if they would prefer Max Excel or Windows Excel, it is a clear choice that the windows version of Excel is far away a better product. When they can develop for an audience, do you think they would rather show off their product on the niche market (anything other than windows)?Blessedman - Tuesday, February 10, 2015 - link
Errr This isn't 100% correct.SparkySamza - Tuesday, February 10, 2015 - link
yes but numbers on mac vs mac excel, numbers wins every time cause numbers is a boss.Christopher1 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
True, but Windows 8 has the Store and it is a PAID upgrade from Vista and 7 so..... that comparison sorts falls flat in the real world.ymcpa - Saturday, February 7, 2015 - link
It's free only for the first year and it's not free to OEMs and large enterprise customers, who use software assurance anyways. They want everyone to upgrade to create a large enough user base to attract developers again. This will benefit windows tablets and phones and might make them competitive against ios and android. The only thing really holding tablets and phones back is the app selection. On the other hand, Google's only reason for giving away free software and service s to establish a large user so that the can sell ads to target that user base. In that scenario, you are the product.bitcrazed - Saturday, February 7, 2015 - link
"It's free only for the first year .."No. Win 10 is a free upgrade if you upgrade within a year of initial release. There is no fee to be paid after the 1st year.
Because we now live in a world where one doesn't need to replace one's machine every 3 years in order to be able to run the next OS version, Microsoft has learned that it needs to incentivize users to upgrade to newer OS' in order to prevent what happened with XP:
Although Microsoft had released Vista, 7 and 8, until fairly recently, a considerable percentage of their userbase were still running XP. Microsoft had to extend the support lifespan of XP twice to avoid leaving XP users without an upgrade path, but still they refused to upgrade. Then Microsoft could do no more and even extended support expired resulting in a larger number of upgrades from XP.
My offering Win10 as a free upgrade, Microsoft (and the entire industry) hopes to encourage users to upgrade from their current OS - XP, Vista, 7 or 8.x to the new OS sooner rather than later.
hwangeruk - Saturday, February 7, 2015 - link
Eh? His "free for the first year" comment was correct, stop splitting hairs.Microsoft is not trying to prevent what happened with XP at all, that's just wrong.
MS need apps for mobile, so wants a mass of users to get the tablet and phone space back.
They also want to win some hearts and minds as Windows 8 had a mixed reception (even though after 8.1 updates it was fine, the damage was done. Like games with launch issues sometimes don't recover from negative early reviews)
This has 0 to do with XP, and the XP extended support for only for paying customers not generally consumers. This move has 0 to do with XP, you are so wrong on that.
zodiacfml - Sunday, February 8, 2015 - link
It is free. They put it for free for the first year of the OS so that people are forced to upgrade immediately and not any amount of time longer than that as it that defeats the purpose of putting a huge percentage of people into just one, current operating system.Besides, adopters would be will beta testers with little obligation from MS.
Wwhat - Sunday, February 8, 2015 - link
But what does windows10 desktop to do with getting the tablet and phone space? And what do you mean with "get the tablet and phone space back", back? MS never had that market ever, nor is MS likely to get it.But yes, they are likely hoping to gain from 'an appstore' and 'cloud' and the always listening and handy for advertisers and security services alike voice-command thing.
All of which exemplifies the reason to worry..