Ask Me Anything - Official AMD Radeon Representative

[AnUnusedUsername]

So far most (if not all) laptops using AMD APUs have been fairly low end. Heavier, larger systems aimed at low cost more so than at being the best product possible. Is this a trend encouraged by AMD, or by the laptop manufacturers (who are likely influenced by Intel subsidizing laptops that meet their "Ultrabook" standards)?

AMDs integrated graphics are notably more powerful than Intels. Personally, I'd much rather have an ultrabook running an AMD processor. With integrated graphics, the GPU is always the bottleneck for gaming. So, aside from Intel's marketing, wouldn't the best ultrabooks for light gaming be those running AMD APUs? And yet, no one (or nearly no one) makes the equivalent of an ultrabook with an AMD processor.

 

[TripleBullet]

Does AMD have plans to release additional enthusiast class processors soon? It has been a long time since we've seen any, and we miss them.

This. My 8350 is still kicking ass on pretty much all games but it isn't going to for much longer. This is my main question. The APU's are awesome for what they are for but I am going to Intel within a year, unless of course AMD releases some awesome CPU's for me to check out first. So, what is the expected release date of AMD CPU's that will best the FX series?

 

[hjj174]

Does AMD have plans to release additional enthusiast class processors soon? It has been a long time since we've seen any, and we miss them.

This. My 8350 is still kicking ass on pretty much all games but it isn't going to for much longer. This is my main question. The APU's are awesome for what they are for but I am going to Intel within a year, unless of course AMD releases some awesome CPU's for me to check out first. So, what is the expected release date of AMD CPU's that will best the FX series?

He has an NDA not to talk about upcoming products and he isn't an employee in the area of AMD that would know greats amount information about their CPUs. Besides, it's already been said by the staff here not to ask questions about upcoming CPUs and that they are having another 'Ask Me Anything' with a CPU specialist from AMD in January.

 

[TripleBullet]

Does AMD have plans to release additional enthusiast class processors soon? It has been a long time since we've seen any, and we miss them.

This. My 8350 is still kicking ass on pretty much all games but it isn't going to for much longer. This is my main question. The APU's are awesome for what they are for but I am going to Intel within a year, unless of course AMD releases some awesome CPU's for me to check out first. So, what is the expected release date of AMD CPU's that will best the FX series?

He has an NDA not to talk about upcoming products and he isn't an employee in the area of AMD that would know greats amount information about their CPUs. Besides, it's already been said by the staff here not to ask questions about upcoming CPUs and that they are having another 'Ask Me Anything' with a CPU specialist from AMD in January.

Ahh, my bad, didn't really go through the thread but thanks man.

 

[cmi86]

They are so tight lipped on the NDA he couldn't even tell me if we can expect lower TDP on the next gen GPU's. Makes sense though. That turns into speculation into a rumor and it just snowballs from there.

 

[Daniel Sauvageau]

So, aside from Intel's marketing, wouldn't the best ultrabooks for light gaming be those running AMD APUs? And yet, no one (or nearly no one) makes the equivalent of an ultrabook with an AMD processor.

How many people would buy an ultrabook with gaming as a primary concern? The main reasons I might ever be interested in an ultrabook are portability and long operational battery life. Most of Intel's chips for this market segment are outrageously overpriced though.

With some luck, AMD's 20nm shrink might put them on the map there.

 

[zeyuanfu]

The new Core M CPUs with very low power consumption (5 watts, was it?) combined with the long lives of ultrabooks will make an unbeatable combination... unless AMD reveals new CPUs???

 

[junkeymonkey]

sorry.. I was reminded to read this threads rules and see now this is not a ask me anything thread after all.. what???
another amd misrepresented thing I guess ??


can I ask this ??

with the apu chips why did amd go with the chips they did ,and not there so called higher end fx line ?? like a fx 8350 and incorporate the gpu on them ?? why fall back to something like the Athlon ?? for a guy that had am3+ since day 1 and played out all upgrades and could not see keeping a 4 year old platform any longer what have you to offer ??? just rebuy the past today on something I had 4 years ago ?? or go with a blast heater 220w chip ?? maybe the console market is amd's best bet to survive ??

 

[Ogrodnik]

Will Mantle, in near future, help with better utilization of FX CPU threads/cores? I have 6300 @4.5GHz and I haven't seen game that could use it in more then ~40-50%. More often I see about 20-30% total CPU usage during gaming. That is a lot of potential wasted. Is Mantle about to fix anything in that matter?

 

[bit_user]

Actually, I did think of a Freesync-related question.

Will Freesync apply to video playback? So, when playing a 24 fps or 25 fps video clip, in full-screen mode, will the monitor show the native framerate (i.e. without judder)? Would this happen automatically, or would video playback programs need to make special API calls or use techniques such as Direct 3D surfaces to benefit from Freesync?

 

[bit_user]

sorry.. I was reminded to read this threads rules and see now this is not a ask me anything thread after all.. what???
another amd misrepresented thing I guess ??

Any industry rep is going to have limits to what they know and what they're allowed to discuss. Please be realistic. If they would make any big announcements, it wouldn't be in a forum like this.

with the apu chips why did amd go with the chips they did ,and not there so called higher end fx line ?? like a fx 8350 and incorporate the gpu on them ?? why fall back to something like the Athlon ??

I'm going to speculate that it has a lot to do with die size and TDP. On a die with fewer cores, there's more room for the GPU (and power budget as well).

But here's the thing about APUs: memory bandwidth is always a bottleneck for APU graphics. And more cores will compete with the GPU for that bandwidth. So, why would you want a low-end GPU paired with a high-end CPU, especially when using the GPU would only hurt CPU performance and still not deliver compelling GPU performance?

The main argument I see for what Intel has done by including GPUs in their entire desktop CPU lineup is simply to cater to users who care about CPU performance but not graphics. So, it's a cost-saving measure more than a feature for enthusiasts (well, aside from Quicksync).

As for your upgrade, why not wait and see what CPUs they intro at 20 nm? Right now, they're limited by the 32 nm process.

 

[Mac266]

Hey mate, got a couple for ya.

1. HBM. How does this affect overall performance, and can you share any results from testing?

2. Graphics Architecture. GCN has been around for awhile, are you allowed to comment on whether a new Arch. is in the pipeline?

3. Efficiency. No offense, but it's known that
Radeon GPUs are not the most effcient. Is this high on the list in terms of importance?

Thanks for your time and products.

Cap

 

[smeezekitty]

what broke it off for me was I was using vista and amd decided to drop vista support and leave me hanging ?? now I cant trust them to support me ..

I agree that it is annoying but you can hack the driver to make it work on Vista. 14.12 was much more involved than 14.4/14.9 but I was able to do it.
I will post details on the hack in a few days when I have a little more time

 

[renz496]

so the AMA has ended?

 

[smeezekitty]

Feel free to keep posting your questions to this thread, and Robert will come back tomorrow morning to respond to questions from overnight. Thanks everyone!

I would take this to mean keep on going and he will get to them later.

 

[iron8orn]

Hi Robert!

Looking for some clarification on DX such as the ability of the GTX 970 vs. R9 290X

People are saying that the GTX 970 has full DX12 support While the R9 290X has partial so what I am really asking is will a DX12 game run on a DX11 gpu and still get the same benefits such as cpu threading?

 

[ubercake]

Since the focus is on Project Freesync, can you tell us any advantage of using Freesync tech over that of the competition?

Also, what makes/models of Freesync monitors are going to be released in 2015?

G-Sync and FreeSync are conceptually similar: let the GPU control the monitor’s refresh, and do such a refresh only when a new frame is ready. All the stuttering/tearing/lag associating with and without vsync is eliminated, leaving silky smooth gameplay in its wake.

Here’s where things break down:
NVIDIA has chosen to deliver this technology in the form of an expensive proprietary module that replaces the standard kit of electronics that comes in a monitor (the scaler). They did this because scalers don’t presently support any mechanism to cede control of the refresh rate of the GPU.

That module costs $100-150 USD, and must be purchased by the monitor vendor for integration into their design. That cost is passed onto the consumer, too. It’s also obtained through licensing, which is a complicated and burdensome legal process—not to mention validating an entirely new monitor with a proprietary scaler replacement. If you’re a monitor maker, you can’t just adopt G-Sync because you want to: you have to ask and there's a big cost associated with it.

AMD acknowledged that some effort with VESA, the authors of the DisplayPort standard, could yield an amendment that would also grant GPUs control of monitor refresh rates. Extending DisplayPort in this manner would be broadly compatible, not to mention free to adopt. We proposed the amendment and it was adopted; it’s now known as DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync.

Indeed, many of the firmware vendors are telling us that they’ve only needed to design and validate new firmware for many of their scalers to outfit them with the Adaptive-Sync support. Three companies basically own the scaler market: Realtek, MStar and Novatek. All three of them have committed to supporting Adaptive-Sync, with some combination of existing scalers upgraded to new firmware, and new-generation scalers built from the ground up with Adaptive-Sync in mind.

In contrast: FreeSync is a bundle of secret sauce in our driver that leans on Adaptive-Sync support in a monitor to update the display whenever a Radeon needs to. How you use the control is as important as having the control, so FreeSync is the “how” and Adaptive-Sync is the “have.”

To tidy up loose ends: the Adaptive-Sync specification supports a wider range of refresh rates than G-Sync, requires no license or licensing fee, and AMD charges nothing to work with partners to bring a design online. Plus, using a standard scaler gives you monitor quality-of-life features like an on-screen menu, audio support (e.g. in-monitor speakers), or even HDMI/DVI outputs (which allows you to at least use the display, even if you don’t have a FreeSync-enabled graphics card).

In every conceivable way, FreeSync is a less materially expensive and more robust. Yes, it takes longer to reach market when you work on an industry standard to get there, but the benefits are very clear.

I can confirm that five UltraHD monitors 24-32" will be entering market in March. Those are from Samsung. But there are several other vendors also preparing displays for Q1, and these will be seen at CES. I'm under confidentiality agreements until then.

One of AMD's major arguments for consumers to use Freesync over G-sync is cost (due to licensing).

If monitor manufacturers have not made installing scalers with adaptive-sync technology a standard production practice, wouldn't that place a premium on the pricing of Freesync-capable monitors?

Or will the three companies producing scalers (Realtek, MStar, Novatek) be implementing the adaptive-sync standard on all scalers they ship to the monitor manufacturers?

Should we expect active-sync to be a monitor standard for all monitors with a DisplayPort (DP) connection beginning next year?

If the scaler companies will already be implementing adaptive-sync for DP as a standard part of their production process, that would also answer my supply/demand question from earlier.

 

[renz496]

my next question is regarding MS upcoming directx and GCN. so among the new feature in DX12 is:

Rasterizer Ordered View
Typed UAV Load
Volume Tiled Resource
Conservative Rasterisation

so does this new feature require new hardware or not? if not does this feature work with all GCN based hardware? also from GPU manufacturer point of view what is the difference between DX12 and DX11.3?

 

[setx]

Developer here. First, question about FreeSync:
1) I saw a notice that some cards are going to support VFR "for video only". How is that achieved since modern video drawing is done through the same 3D OpenGL/D3D APIs? Where/when can I find FreeSync documentation for developers?

General question for AMD graphics division:
2) I hope you know that one of the biggest complains about AMD solutions are buggy drivers. Do you have plans to be more general developer-friendly or only care about few hyped games? I don't see any maintained place for reporting specific API bugs (only "Check games that have problems"): tried to submit you reports in 'AMD Issue Reporting Form​', write on devgurus . amd . com ('Graphics Programming' section) – absolutely no reaction. (Only in 'OpenCL' section of devgurus I've got "we will test it" response from AMD.)

 

[Daniel Sauvageau]

If monitor manufacturers have not made installing scalers with adaptive-sync technology a standard production practice, wouldn't that place a premium on the pricing of Freesync-capable monitors?

Or will the three companies producing scalers (Realtek, MStar, Novatek) be implementing the adaptive-sync standard on all scalers they ship to the monitor manufacturers?

In the post you quoted, AMD said scaler manufacturers can enable adaptive sync on many of their existing scalers with nothing more than a firmware update so the premium should be close to nonexistent.

Unfortunately for the end-users though, not many displays have any user-friendly mechanism to apply such updates, which means we will likely see tons of displays based on exactly the same hardware re-released as AS-capable under different model numbers just because of that.

 

[Thracks]

sorry.. I was reminded to read this threads rules and see now this is not a ask me anything thread after all.. what???
another amd misrepresented thing I guess ??


can I ask this ??

with the apu chips why did amd go with the chips they did ,and not there so called higher end fx line ?? like a fx 8350 and incorporate the gpu on them ?? why fall back to something like the Athlon ?? for a guy that had am3+ since day 1 and played out all upgrades and could not see keeping a 4 year old platform any longer what have you to offer ??? just rebuy the past today on something I had 4 years ago ?? or go with a blast heater 220w chip ?? maybe the console market is amd's best bet to survive ??

The cores that are in the APU are the same CPU cores you'll find in an FX chip. Exactly what you want. We do have one chip called Athlon, but it's a very low-power chip suitable for HTPCs, thin notebooks, mITX office PCs, etc. We're proud of the Athlon brand, and we think the value offered by the new Athlons is worthy of that name.

 

[Thracks]

Hi Robert!

Looking for some clarification on DX such as the ability of the GTX 970 vs. R9 290X

People are saying that the GTX 970 has full DX12 support While the R9 290X has partial so what I am really asking is will a DX12 game run on a DX11 gpu and still get the same benefits such as cpu threading?

The GCN architecture, and all of our products based on it, are compatible with DX12. You're right that reduced CPU overhead and superior CPU multi-threading are the most vitally important aspects of these new-generation APIs, and the R9 290X will certainly support that.

 

[Thracks]

Since the focus is on Project Freesync, can you tell us any advantage of using Freesync tech over that of the competition?

Also, what makes/models of Freesync monitors are going to be released in 2015?

G-Sync and FreeSync are conceptually similar: let the GPU control the monitor’s refresh, and do such a refresh only when a new frame is ready. All the stuttering/tearing/lag associating with and without vsync is eliminated, leaving silky smooth gameplay in its wake.

Here’s where things break down:
NVIDIA has chosen to deliver this technology in the form of an expensive proprietary module that replaces the standard kit of electronics that comes in a monitor (the scaler). They did this because scalers don’t presently support any mechanism to cede control of the refresh rate of the GPU.

That module costs $100-150 USD, and must be purchased by the monitor vendor for integration into their design. That cost is passed onto the consumer, too. It’s also obtained through licensing, which is a complicated and burdensome legal process—not to mention validating an entirely new monitor with a proprietary scaler replacement. If you’re a monitor maker, you can’t just adopt G-Sync because you want to: you have to ask and there's a big cost associated with it.

AMD acknowledged that some effort with VESA, the authors of the DisplayPort standard, could yield an amendment that would also grant GPUs control of monitor refresh rates. Extending DisplayPort in this manner would be broadly compatible, not to mention free to adopt. We proposed the amendment and it was adopted; it’s now known as DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync.

Indeed, many of the firmware vendors are telling us that they’ve only needed to design and validate new firmware for many of their scalers to outfit them with the Adaptive-Sync support. Three companies basically own the scaler market: Realtek, MStar and Novatek. All three of them have committed to supporting Adaptive-Sync, with some combination of existing scalers upgraded to new firmware, and new-generation scalers built from the ground up with Adaptive-Sync in mind.

In contrast: FreeSync is a bundle of secret sauce in our driver that leans on Adaptive-Sync support in a monitor to update the display whenever a Radeon needs to. How you use the control is as important as having the control, so FreeSync is the “how” and Adaptive-Sync is the “have.”

To tidy up loose ends: the Adaptive-Sync specification supports a wider range of refresh rates than G-Sync, requires no license or licensing fee, and AMD charges nothing to work with partners to bring a design online. Plus, using a standard scaler gives you monitor quality-of-life features like an on-screen menu, audio support (e.g. in-monitor speakers), or even HDMI/DVI outputs (which allows you to at least use the display, even if you don’t have a FreeSync-enabled graphics card).

In every conceivable way, FreeSync is a less materially expensive and more robust. Yes, it takes longer to reach market when you work on an industry standard to get there, but the benefits are very clear.

I can confirm that five UltraHD monitors 24-32" will be entering market in March. Those are from Samsung. But there are several other vendors also preparing displays for Q1, and these will be seen at CES. I'm under confidentiality agreements until then.

One of AMD's major arguments for consumers to use Freesync over G-sync is cost (due to licensing).

If monitor manufacturers have not made installing scalers with adaptive-sync technology a standard production practice, wouldn't that place a premium on the pricing of Freesync-capable monitors?

Or will the three companies producing scalers (Realtek, MStar, Novatek) be implementing the adaptive-sync standard on all scalers they ship to the monitor manufacturers?

Should we expect active-sync to be a monitor standard for all monitors with a DisplayPort (DP) connection beginning next year?

If the scaler companies will already be implementing adaptive-sync for DP as a standard part of their production process, that would also answer my supply/demand question from earlier.

I think this answers the question: http://support.amd.com/en-us/search/faq/225

While AMD has undertaken many efforts to broadly encourage the adoption of FreeSync and DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync, and I think you'll agree the route we took is very attractive from a business perspective, I also think it's unrealistic to conclude that every monitor will one day support Adaptive-Sync. It's just not feasible, desirable or necessary for that to occur.

 

[Thracks]

Developer here. First, question about FreeSync:
1) I saw a notice that some cards are going to support VFR "for video only". How is that achieved since modern video drawing is done through the same 3D OpenGL/D3D APIs? Where/when can I find FreeSync documentation for developers?

What matters most in DRR is the functionality of the display controller, not the graphics or compute silicon. It is very demanding to adjust the timing of the display every 16ms (or less). It's not so demanding to drop the refresh rate once to a fixed value. Documentation will be published after the technology is formally launched in 1Q15.

General question for AMD graphics division:
2) I hope you know that one of the biggest complains about AMD solutions are buggy drivers. Do you have plans to be more general developer-friendly or only care about few hyped games? I don't see any maintained place for reporting specific API bugs (only "Check games that have problems"): tried to submit you reports in 'AMD Issue Reporting Form​', write on devgurus . amd . com ('Graphics Programming' section) – absolutely no reaction. (Only in 'OpenCL' section of devgurus I've got "we will test it" response from AMD.)

This is an issue I'm really passionate about, because I was the guy who got the www.amd.com/report form opened for people to supply feedback. When a report comes in, it goes into an internal database that's seen by PR, marketing, QA, engineering, etc. We're fully aware, and have read, every single report that comes to us.

You'll see the results of that system working in Catalyst Omega: we used the form to address the top-10 issues users care about most, in addition to hundreds of others. That would not be possible without a robust issue tracking system.

No, we do not send a "thank you for reporting" email, but we take those bug reports very seriously. I take those reports very seriously. I am on Twitter, FB, and lurking in forums like THG every day. Believe me when I tell you that we are well aware of what's going on in the community, and dedicated to fixing it.

I am not the only one doing this at AMD, either.

 

[Thracks]

Actually, I did think of a Freesync-related question.

Will Freesync apply to video playback? So, when playing a 24 fps or 25 fps video clip, in full-screen mode, will the monitor show the native framerate (i.e. without judder)? Would this happen automatically, or would video playback programs need to make special API calls or use techniques such as Direct 3D surfaces to benefit from Freesync?

Windows controls the refresh rate at the desktop, so a video player would need full screen exclusivity. But assuming you had that, yes, the refresh rate of the display could be dropped to the precise framerate, or an exact multiple of the framerate.