PC Graphics

[radeoforce]

Why in Horizon Zero Dawn RX Vega64 has performance level like Polaris?
Horizon Zero Dawn im Benchmark-Test: GPU-Benchmarks, Frametimes und ein Treibervergleich - ComputerB... 
https://gamegpu.com/action-/-fps-/-tps/horizon-zero-dawn-test-gpu-cpu 

https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Horizon-Zero-Dawn-Spiel-55719/Tests/Horizon-Zero-Dawn-PC-Test-Review-... 

i understand, GCN 1.4 isn't actually generateon of gpu, but Polaris is GCN 1.3, and it has optimal performance! 

https://ibb.co/LRSQTVc
https://ibb.co/CvCFmy7
https://ibb.co/Vjwbd8F

[pokester]

While both are GCN they are also different in architecture. I certainly get your point though and would expect Vega to be faster too. That being said it could be that an optimization as often happens in the driver is not being applied to Vega as it is to Polaris. That may be intentional or due to architectural differences it makes one unstable verse the other. Or it is simply an oversight and maybe if you report it to AMD, they will get it fixed in an upcoming driver.

Next is the possibility it is not the driver at all and is the games detection of your card not optimizing correctly. 

Your best bet would be to report it to the Game Developer and to AMD here: https://www.amd.com/en/support/contact-email-form

[autouzi]

I also have abyssal performance and stuttering on a Vega 64.

[colesdav]

RX Vega 64 and 56 have low market share versus Polaris based RX480/580/590 and lower tier Polaris GPU.
Horizon Zero Dawn was originally produced for Playstation 4 which has a GCN1.1 based GPU.
So the game was not developed on a Polaris GPU.
Vega 56 and 64 should definitely be faster but it is probable all focus went on Polaris GPUs initially.

[walkmanti]

This doesn't really make sense, look at death stranding and the performance scaling with amd gpu's. Developed on PS4, and using the decima engine (albeit a different version of it). There's something seriously wrong with HZD and Vega. 

[colesdav]

I agree there is something wrong with Horizon Zero Dawn on Vega.
Total lack of effort from the drivers team for Vega is probably a reason.

The same thing that happened with Fiji GPU now seems to be happening to Vega w.r.t. driver performance improvements. 
Dropped like a hot brick. RX580 4GB beats R9 Fury X 4GB HBM in some games now which simply should not happen.

Did anyone file an AMD Reporting Form Online (I think it might be removed now - just be ignored since last time I checked I could not file report for latest driver) or use the Adrenalin 2020 Bug Reporting tool (if you are o.k. to let AMD trawl your System and Program Data?).

[pokester]

But wait it makes sense Vega is dead. Oh no I forgot it will be in next years upcoming APU's still too. 

[colesdav]

Yes, APU, good point.

Perhaps we are in the "death throes" of discrete GPU from AMD for Consumer market?
Maybe AMD forcus for Consumer will move to console APU type solutions once next XBOX and Playstation launch.
It would likely make sense for AMD next step = Ryzen CPU + Radeon GPU in one package from now on to take Nvidia GPU Consumer Market Share, if they could get Radeon Drivers and software sorted out.

I am more than annoyed about AMD lack of support for their older and current Discrete GPUs.
It is/was so bad that it makes buying any AMD GPU since 2017 a bad idea.
Look at recent history:

RX590 /Polaris - not even work properly on Blender GPU rendering.
Radeon 7 - EOL within 6 months and left for dead.
RX5700XT. Not supported on ROCm. Windows 10 drivers are just recently "stable" if you are prepared to mix and match Adrenalin 2019 19.12.1 GUI/UI and 2020 20.8.1 drivers.

I still expect to see "Big Navi" launch before end of 2020, even if it will be a paper launch, and not make it for Thanksgiving/Christmas Market yet again.
I think AMD Supply Chain will simply drop MSRPs on existing RX5700XT Navi 10s to get rid of them, with more "Raise The Game"  Deals.

Looks like it is already happening in EU market.

I think there will be a Navi 10 refrest similar to R9 290X -> R9 390X with maybe "XT Silicon" similar to the Ryzen "3*00XT" stunt.
Maybe refreshed Navi 10 RX5700XT GPU will end up 1-2% faster and get its proper name back -  RX690 to replace Polaris RX590.
I really do not see why anyone with a Vega 64 Liquid  would even bother to look at the RX5700XT as an "upgrade", from what I have seen, it is a downgrade.    

[pokester]

Sorry but to me the only thing worse than what the drivers have been over the past few years with GPUs and to me really only has been the past few years. Is their APU's and worse APU's in conjunction with their discrete graphics. The only laptops on the market I won't buy are ones with AMD graphics and that is because their support has been abysmal at best. Generation after generation of the systems not working right. Can't load drivers, nothing using the discrete graphics then dropping support long before any other maker does. Nothing makes me sicker than to see the complaints of people that can't get their laptops working. Now we are seeing the complaints flooding in on the 4xxx APU's too. 

So me I hope that AMD's future isn't based on APU's as their past and current situation with them is pretty bad. 

Intel may not have great graphics built into their CPU's, and if any company had an excuse for not having good drivers they do as they don't even offer discrete graphics. Yet I have not had a driver not work on any laptop with their cpu's ever. 

I hold out hope for big navi but the fact that upcoming APU's will have Vega, doesn't give me much faith. Plus apparently AMD feels the same way if they are leaning in that direction for the future of GPU's/ 

I would actually have to bet that it is more software that hardware too. As next gen consoles are using what should be similar to our new APU's for PC. They however have the benefit of very proprietary hardware driver control. Likely Microsoft and Sony are doing much better with control of the AMD hardware than what AMD has been. 

I can' t think of a more logical explanation unless maybe their was some sort of non-compete with the AMD  APU's and consoles agreed upon? 

[colesdav]

Yes I agree that the AMD APU video drivers and APU + Discrete AMD GPU  have been a nightmare on laptops in the past.
Plenty of examples in the past, situations like mixing APU non GCN + GCN discrete on gaming laptop resulting in problems even installing drivers.
I was just thinking maybe AMD will focus effort on APU moving forward after these new consoles launch, and forget Discrete GPU for Consumers completely.

Funny that you comnplain about the APU drivers yourself after what happend to me yesterday.

I was in local PC store yesterday looking for a new laptop.
I have still not decided what laptop  to purchase - it has to have 1-2 Thunderbolt3 ports.
I looked at a new AMD Ryzen based laptop from HP which has built in Vega graphics but no Thunderbolt3, unfortunately.

Just out of interest I tried to launch Radeon Settings and an error message popped up saying that Adrenalin Settings did not match the GPU Driver Version.
I checked the driver version in control panel and it had an AMD Vega Driver installed dated December 2018.
Maybe  Microsoft  Automatic Driver update managed to kick in and install those old drivers or maybe it failed to install a newer Adrenalin 2020 based driver for APU.   
I just laughed and walked away.
Brand new HP Ryzen based laptop with broken Radeon Drivers out of the box, on display, in the store.
What a way to start.

[pokester]

Based on what I can tell, to get a working driver requires that you load pre 2020 drivers to begin with that still have the switchable graphic control in the drivers. 

I am not sure though how much of an option that is though for the new 4xxx lineup. As the old drivers likely won't recognize those chips. 

[hopkins]

You now what pisses me off? I remember the Vega series being hyped up as a killer graphics card when it comes to the value. Heck, I even participated on the AMD Vega World tour and I could see and try the AMD Vega 56 in Budapest in 2017 summer during their event where you needed preregistration to get in. They were referring to it as new architecture and praising it to heaven. I was really hyped after the event and was eager to get my hands on a Vega card. In the first round I could not get one because of their papaer launch(every unit got bought immediately), so in october I could get my hands on it in the second round form scan.co.uk for 397 GBP. I was so happy and hyped that I got the most advamced AMD GPU and that I made a good bet because it offers best-in-class performance.

I could never imagine AMD let us down after all the hype. But I can see how badly Horizon Zero Dawn runs on Vega and there is not a single hint whether we are gonna get an updated driver. I am looking the forums but I don't see that AMD would be working on it, except a reddit post where a Radeon Community Team member replied that they are investigating(that's something at least), https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/i68nkd/horizon_zero_dawn_vega_16x_af_hbcc_performance/ .

I hope they will rectify this driver issue because there is no way this GPU could not performe at least on par with GTX 1070.

[pokester]

Just make sure to report it to AMD: https://www.amd.com/en/support/contact-email-form 

Also a lot of the tech sites have emails or forums you can contact them in and unlike here the people that run the show, respond and participate.

Explain it to them. Maybe one of them will do a video of the situation and that might actually gain some traction with AMD.

Seeing as AMD is not abandoning Vega, just its users at this point as they are going to continue its usage in mobile chips. It is in their best interest to optimize the drivers. Especially since mobile is handicapped to begin with not being nearly as strong in the hardware but does have the same architecture. 

I just hate to say I told you so as I had said numerous times before the launch of navi that support for Vega would drop like a lead balloon. That I thought AMD couldn't wait to put it behind them. It sure looks like in reality it is moving in that direction. 

I still have to wonder why the choice to continue vega in upcoming APUs. Is it that Navi just isn't working out in that arena and is far worse than even vega. Or is there some sort of non compete clause with console makers for the first year or something with APU's having Navi graphics similar to the next gen consoles. 

No idea but to me it is strange. 

Bottom line though is that at this point the whole GCN line is still supposedly supported and without doubt the whole product stack has suffered. From poor optimization for Vega, for Polaris that won't run any 2020 drivers unless you franken-mod the driver to use the new driver with the 2019 interface. 

Has anyone seen if this lack of optimization for this game does do the same all the way down the GCN pipe? Or is it really just Vega.

[pokester]

Okay apparently blackzion has posted the answer to one of my questions.

https://community.amd.com/thread/255895 

[colesdav]

I can remember a couple of things about a video  of the Budapest event for Vega:
Dióhéjban: AMD Radeon RX Vega gamer találkozó Budapesten | PlayDome - YouTube 
I do not think it gave many technical answers though:
https://www.pcinvasion.com/amd-vega-budapest-event-provides-answers-performance/ 

Many features on Vega were never fully utilised or implemented.
AMD gave up on it.
https://techreport.com/news/33153/radeon-rx-vega-primitive-shaders-will-need-api-support/ 
Navi is Vega done "properly".
Pity it doesnt have HBM2e and HBCC though.

[hopkins]

Yeah I know we did not get many technical details, we all assumed the other PC was running on Nvidia GTX 1080 which was confirmed in the comments. What I was blown away by was the overall experience, back then a GTX 1080 was pretty expensive and you could utilize G-sync with G-sync monitor only. Then they showed the Vega on the Siggraph presentation and I was even more pumped for this card also because of the promised features. What a missed opportunity if I think about it when I read your article...making matters worse was the terrible paper launch of the Vega which I could get also in the 2. MSRP launch round after the first stock was sold out in couple of minutes.

I don't get why they gave up on HBCC and HBM2 memory because the highlighted those as strong selling points on their presentation. It's just displeasing they present something and in the next generation they are already ditching it.

A lot has changed since then when it comes to Nvidia also as for example you can use most freesync monitors with Nvidia GPU which was a big middle finger to AMD. Yesterday I watched the Nvidia presentation and honestly I was blown away, I did not expect such aggressive performance boost and competitve pricing. I will see what AMD will bring to the table but if they won't address the performance issues on Horizon Zero Dawn my next card will be Nvidia.

[colesdav]

The RTX3000 series performance boost was a nice surprise for Nvidia and probably a shock for AMD.
However - remember that Turing rasterisation performance uplift was not as high as many people were hoping for - in DX11 at least.

I am surprised at the Total Graphics Card power consumption for the RTX3090/3080/3070 at 350/320/220 Watts. 
Likely down to having to launch on Samsung 8nm versus latest TSMC 7nm process.

At least NVIDA GPUs actually monitor and control total power input to their GPUs at the PCIe Slot and the x8/x6 pin input leads using a current shunt at each input and have an IC to monitor the total power input and keep it at the Power Target Level.
AMD GPUs only monitor and control power input from the VRM into the GPU IC.
That means you can get some large input power levels on the RX Vega 64 Liquid and RX 5700XT compared to their "TDP" when you increase the Power Target  in Radeon Settings.
 
The pricing - I think Nvidia are trying to keep the higher price bands that came in with Turing but they have at least dropped the Founder Edition card pricing by $100 for the two lower end cards - possibly to attack "Big Navi" from the start. 

Here are the RTX 2000 series Turing Launch pricing:
$599 for the RTX 2070; $799 for the RTX 2080, and $1,199 for the RTX 2080 Ti

Here are the RTX 3000 series Ampere Launch pricing:
$500 of the RTX 3070 , $700 for the RTX 3080 and a whopping $1500 for the RTX 3090.

For the Turing Series the Founders Edition cards were better binned GPU silicon and the GPU shroud and cooler was really complicated.
They were generally ~ $100 more expensive than the lowest cost AIB cards.

[colesdav]

Another point to note:
780 Ti cost $649, the 980 Ti cost $649 at launch - the RTX2080TI cost $1200 at launch - the RTX3090 now costs $1500 at launch.
Owch.

[colesdav]

And the GTX 1080 was ...
The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition graphics card comes with a recommended retail price of $699 (£483). The custom boards will start are around $599 (£394).

[hopkins]

A would not compare the RTX 3090 directly to the 2080Ti because I am confident they  will release an RTX 3080Ti between the two. If I look at the RTX 3090 as a "little Titan" then the price immediately does not feel that high anymore.

[colesdav]

Yes sure - perhaps that comparison for the RTX3090 is unfair - perhaps they will release an RTX3080 Ti later on.
I think Big Navi may be in serious trouble versus what Nvidia have just launched but AMD are the only ones that know that for sure.

[hopkins]

Yeah that 100 Dollars lower price was the thing I was suprised about. For me the RTX 3070 is where the value is at. It is still expensive but considering the performance and the RTX performance compared to the RTX 2080Ti it looks like a crazy value for the money. I know the 2080Ti was overpriced but still..

A cannot wait what big Navi brings to the table and whether AMD will bring us extra features like DirectStorage or their own DLSS solution(which would come in handy in many games) but I for now I cannot imagine AMD surpassing Nvidia, they will hard time to do so even when it comes to price. I will wait until all these GPUs are out and the consoles are released and will decide on which hardware will I spend my money.

[colesdav]

Navi has an HBM capable memory controller - at least in this Navi GPU:
AMD Unveils Radeon Pro 5600M: Navi, HBM2, Apple-Exclusive - ExtremeTech 
AMD Announces Radeon Pro 5600M Navi GPU with HBM2 - Inside Apple's MacBook Pro 16" 

I am not sure if it supports HBCC - I will check.

[hopkins]

You are right, thank you for the correction! This is good news as we will get those high memory bandwidths which is also benificial for the Raytracing performance. I am curious though what kind of custom computing units will AMD build into the Navi to counter the RT cores and tensa cores of Nvidia Ampere.

[colesdav]

I think AMD will be forced to use HBM2e to increase memory bandwidth and reduce latency into the RDNA2 GPU and increase performance now. I think HBM2e & memory controller is also lower power requirement than for GDDR6. 
I think Big Navi might increase the amount of "on chip" memory cache as well. 
HBCC might make a comeback.

It will be interesting to see AMD response to what Nvidia just launched.

[hopkins]

Well the AMD Keynote has been announced, the new Navi cards are going to be unveiled October 28. It remains to be seen what price to performance AMD brings to the table but personally I think it is a too late release date. Nvidia cards are just stealing the show and the price of new Xbox consoles has been unveiled as well. Many people including me don't wanna wait because as we know it usually can take 1 extra month until you can get your hands on an AMD GPU.

[colesdav]

Zen3 is much more important.
Even if AMD launched RDNA2 Big Navi tomorrow I would not buy it until the drivers work.
They already missed the chance to sell them for Thanksgiving / Christmas.

[hopkins]

I don't need Zen 3 that much because I am still on my 3 years old B350 chipset which is not supported by Zen 3 anyways so I needed to upgrade my motherboard also which I won't do right now. But I needed maybe a slightly better GPU for my 3440x1440 @100Hz monitor with next gen features as the consoles are also around the corner...so I could not be excited more about the new GPUs than new CPU. Although I understand the excitement from brand new PC builders because for them the Zen 3 will be the best bang for the buck when it comes to CPU. I told my friend also that he should wait for ZEN 3 because that will be the real deal. And at the same time I offered him my Vega 56 at very reasonable price beause he is considering replacing his 7 years old 4th gen Intel setup.

[colesdav]

Sure I understand that some people need a good GPU for 4K gaming.
AMD needed to have Big Navi released in March 2020 to stand a chance of having AIB GPU, VBIOS and ~ working drivers in time for Thanksgiving / Christmas market though, based on past performance.

[pokester]

There is no way that AMD AIB RDNA2 boards will be available before January. Very likely a bit longer than that. By the time AMD has them out. Nvidia will have Ti versions ready if no already out and honestly be ready to do a Super refresh if needed likely with 90 days of any AMD product availability. 

[colesdav]

I will not be surprised if they simply announce a new RX6700XT RDNA2 GPU which is an exact cutout of the XBOX Series X GPU in a discrete dual fan GPU shroud for PC, and do a "Big Navi" presentation w/o actually launching anything just yet.

We might even see a repeat of the Polaris RX480 launch again.

Remember this?

[pokester]

I think that is a more than fair point. There isn't a lot of proof of development of an larger CU product just the ones for the consoles. 

Not saying it can't exist, but either AMD has kept a better secret than EVER before, or we don't know about it because it doesn't exist. 

I find it very hard to believe that not a single employee of an AIB partner hasn't let some kind of info go if that is the case. 

Plus honestly even if they do I am expecting it to be another Toaster and still with poor drivers. 

Although it will be interesting to see RTX 3000's thermals too. Not really worried too much about the 3070 but above that could be toasters too. 

That is one thing I don't want under my desk again, a GPU that makes my legs sweat. The RX 580 would make my office unbearably hot in less than an hour. 

[hopkins]

There is no better feeling when your north facing room on a windy or rainy day gets heated up by your VGA. Our boiler is turned off so early in the season but the evenings and nights are cooler. But no problem because the GPU does the job at the same time provides the enjoyment of gaming or content creating in a cosy enviroment! A mug of hot chocolate or black tea and enjoy even more...

[pokester]

I will be honest there were a few weeks in the winter when it got really cold and my desk is on the outside corner of the front of the house that the wall does radiate cold. So yah for about 6 weeks the heat wasn't so bad. 

It was so hot though in the summer I didn't want to play games in there.

[hopkins]

Wow I could not remember this as I did not have the money for PC back then but when this will repeat this would be huge and would make me scratch my head. It would be a rather tough choice for me because I would worry about drivers at AMD but at the same time I could get a terribly good performance per Dollar deal.

[radeoforce]

After patch 1.03 vega has better performance 

Critical places with drops to 32 fps, became 53 fps. But this game have a big problem with the VRAM management
https://i.imgur.com/ZLbflmm.jpg 
https://i.imgur.com/vj3q9J9.jpg 
https://i.imgur.com/gsktJeo.jpg 

https://i.imgur.com/hjpyGGF.jpg 

[hopkins]

OK so quick update: the performance issues seem to have been resolved by and large. The new 20.8.3 driver with the latest 1.04 patch seemed to have improved performance on Vega 56. I am not saying it could not be better but the driver is just fine now, I think the card is now matches  the GTX 1070 when it comes to performance.I am looking forward to RDNA 2!