Ashes of the Singularity Revisited: A Beta Look at DirectX 12 & Asynchronous Shading
by Daniel Williams & Ryan Smith on February 24, 2016 1:00 PM ESTDirectX 12 Multi-GPU Performance
Shifting gears, let’s take a look at multi-GPU performance on the latest Ashes beta. The focus of our previous article, Ashes’ support for DX12 explicit multi-GPU makes it the first game to support the ability to pair up RTG and NVIDIA GPUs in an AFR setup. Like traditional same-vendor AFR configurations, Ashes’ AFR setup works best when both GPUs are similar in performance, so although this technology does allow for some unusual cross-vendor comparisons, it does not (yet) benefit from pairing up GPUs that widely differ in performance, such as a last-generation video card with a current-generation video card. None the less, running a Radeon and a GeForce card together is an interesting sight, if only for the sheer audacity of it.
Meanwhile as a result of the significant performance optimizations between the last beta build and this latest build, this has also had an equally significant knock-on effect on mutli-GPU performance as compared to the last time we looked at the game.
Even at 4K a pair of GPUs ends up being almost too much at Ashes’ High quality setting. All four multi-GPU configurations are over 60fps, with the fastest Fury X + 980 Ti configuration nudging past 70fps. Meanwhile the lead over our two fastest single-GPU configurations is not especially great, particularly compared to the Fury X, with the Fury X + 980 Ti configuration only coming in 15fps (27%) faster than a single GPU. The all-NVIDIA comparison does fare better in this regard, but only because of GTX 980 Ti’s lower initial performance.
Digging deeper, what we find is that even at 4K we’re actually CPU limited according to the benchmark data. Across all four multi-GPU configurations, our hex-core overclocked Core i7-4960X can only setup frames at roughly 70fps, versus 100fps+ for a single-GPU configuration.
Top: Fury X. Bottom: Fury X + 980 Ti
The increased CPU load from utilizing multi-GPU is to be expected, as the CPU now needs to spend time synchronizing the GPUs and waiting on them to transfer data between each other. However dropping to 70fps means that Ashes has become a surprisingly heavy CPU test as well, and that 4K at high quality alone isn’t enough to max out our dual GPU configurations.
Cranking up the quality setting to Extreme finally gives our dual-GPU configurations enough of a workload to back off from the CPU performance cap. Once again the fastest configuration is the Fury X + 980 Ti, which lands just short of 60fps, followed by the Fury X + Fury configuration at 55.1fps. In our first look at Ashes multi-GPU scaling we found that having a Fury X card as the lead card resulted in better performance, and this has not changed for the newest beta. The Fury continues to be faster at reading data off of other cards. Still, the gap between the Fury X + 980 Ti configuration and the 980 Ti + Fury X configuration has closed some as compared to last time, and now stands at 11%.
Backing off from the CPU limit has also put the multi-GPU configurations well ahead of the single-GPU configurations. We’re now looking at upwards of a 65% performance boost versus a single GTX 980, and a smaller 31% performance boost versus a single Fury X. These are smaller gains for multi-GPU configurations than we first saw last year, but it’s also very much a consequence of Ashes’ improved performance across the board. Though we didn’t have time to test it, Ashes does have one higher quality setting – Crazy – which may drive a bit of a larger wedge between the multi-GPU configurations and the Fury X, though the overhead of synchronization will always present a roadblock.
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Kouin325 - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link
yes indeed they will be patching DX12 into the game, AFTER all the PR damage from the low benchmark scores is done. Nvidia waved some cash at the publisher/dev to make it a gameworks title, make it DX11, and to lock AMD out of making a day 1 patch.This was done to keep the general gaming public from learning that the Nvidia performance crown will all but disappear or worse under DX12. So they can keep selling their cards like hotcakes for another month or two.
Also, Xbox hasn't been moved over to DX12 proper YET, but the DX11.x that the Xbox one has always used is by far closer to DX12 than DX11 for the PC. I think we'll know for sure what the game was developed for after the patch comes out. If the game gets a big performance increase after the DX12 patch then it was developed for DX12, and NV possibly had a hand in the DX11 for PC release. If the increase is small then it was developed for DX11,
Reason being that getting the true performance of DX12 takes a major refactor of how assets are handled and pretty major changes to the rendering pipeline. Things that CANNOT be done in a month or two or how long this patch is taking to come out after release.
Saying "we support DirectX12" is fairly ease and only takes changing a few lines of code, but you won't get the performance increases that DX12 can bring.
Kouin325 - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link
ugh, I think Firefox had a brainfart, sorry for the TRIPPLE post.... *facepalm*Gothmoth - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link
it´s a crap game anyway so who cares?honestly even when nvidia should be 20% worse i would not buy ATI.
not becasue im a fanboy.. but i use my GPU´s for more than games and ATI GPUs suck big time when it comes to drivers stability in pro applications.
D. Lister - Friday, February 26, 2016 - link
Oxide and their so called "benchmarks" are a joke. Anyone who takes the aforementioned seriously, is just another unwitting victim of AMD's typical underhanded marketing.https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2015/09/02/directx-1...
"And don’t get me started on Oxide… First they had their Star Swarm benchmark, which was made only to promote Mantle (AMD sponsors them via the Gaming Evolved program). By showing that bad DX11 code is bad. Really, they show DX11 code which runs single-digit framerates on most systems, while not exactly producing world-class graphics. Why isn’t the first response of most people as sane as: “But wait, we’ve seen tons of games doing similar stuff in DX11 or even older APIs, running much faster than this. You must be doing it wrong!”?
But here Oxide is again, in the news… This time they have another ‘benchmark’ (do these guys actually ever make any actual games?), namely “Ashes of the Singularity”.
And, surprise surprise, again it performs like a dog on nVidia hardware. Again, in a way that doesn’t make sense at all… The figures show it is actually *slower* in DX12 than in DX11. But somehow this is spun into a DX12 hardware deficiency on nVidia’s side. Now, if the game can get a certain level of performance in DX11, clearly that is the baseline of performance that you should also get in DX12, because that is simply what the hardware is capable of, using only DX11-level features. Using the newer API, and optionally using new features should only make things faster, never slower. That’s just common sense."
Th-z - Saturday, February 27, 2016 - link
“But wait, we’ve seen tons of games doing similar stuff in DX11 or even older APIs..."Doing similar stuff in DX11? What stuff and what games?
"The figures show it is actually *slower* in DX12 than in DX11. But somehow this is spun into a DX12 hardware deficiency on nVidia’s side."
Which figure?
This is Anandtech, we need to be more specific and provide solid evidence to back up your claims in order to avoid sounding like an astroturfer.
D. Lister - Saturday, February 27, 2016 - link
You see my post? You see that there is this underlined text in blue? Well my friend, it is called a URL, which is an acronym for "Uniform Resource Locator", long story short it is this internet thingy that you go clickity-clickity with your mouse and it opens another page, where you can find the rest of the information.Don't worry, the process of opening a new webpage by using a URL may APPEAR quite daunting at first, but with very little practice you could be clicking away like a pro. This is after all "The AnandTech", and everybody is here to help. Heck, who knows if there are more like you out there, I might even make a video tutorial - "Open new webpages in 3 easy steps", or something.
PS: Another pro tip, there is no such thing as "solid evidence" outside of a court of law. On the internet, you have information resources and reference material, and you have to use your own first-hand knowledge, experience and commonsense to differentiate the right from wrong.
Th-z - Sunday, May 29, 2016 - link
Your blabbering is as useful as your link. I have a pro tip for you: you gave yourself away.EugenM - Tuesday, June 7, 2016 - link
@Th-z Dont feed the troll.GeneralTom - Saturday, February 27, 2016 - link
I hope Metal will be supported, too.HollyDOL - Monday, February 29, 2016 - link
Hm, from the screenshots posted I honestly can't see why would there be a need to run Dx12 with so "low performance" even on the most elite cards. While I give these guys credits for having the guts to go and develop in completely new API, the graphics looks more like early Dx9 games.Just a note this opinion is based on screenshots, not actual live render, but still from what I see there I'd expect FPS hitting 120+ with Dx11...