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Videocardz || UL adds Mesh Shaders test, a new DX12 Ultimate Benchmark; RDNA2/Turing/Ampere Scores

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ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

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Microsoft added mesh shaders as a DX12U requirement, which Nvidia adopted with Turing, and AMD with RDNA2 (hence no 5000 series scores). Intel already shown they will support DX12U with a recent tweet. Xbox Series both support Mesh Shaders, and, theoretically, PS5 as well

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videocardz.com

UL releases 3DMark Mesh Shaders Feature test, first results of NVIDIA Ampere and AMD RDNA2 GPUs - VideoCardz.com

UL adds Mesh Shaders test Today UL released a new DX12 benchmark called Mesh Shaders Feature Test. The test is part of the 3DMark benchmarking software stack. It is now available for free through an update. The DirectX12 Ultimate API brought four technologies: DX Raytracing, Sampler Feedback...
videocardz.com videocardz.com

what the fuck does all this mean? theoretically, a more efficient rendering path than pixel vertex shaders. some videos on Mesh Shaders from Nvidia, AMD, and MS

What is a mesh shader?
Mesh shaders introduce a new approach to geometry processing that simplifies the graphics pipeline while also giving developers more flexibility and control.

In 3D graphics, a mesh is the set of vertices, edges and faces that define the shape of an object. In current graphics pipelines, all the geometry data in a mesh must be processed sequentially before any further steps can be taken. This can be a significant performance bottleneck.

Mesh shaders replace the old approach with a new model that brings the power, flexibility and control of a compute programming model to the geometry pipeline.

Mesh shaders can process small sections of a mesh, called meshlets, in parallel with a much greater degree of flexibility and control.

Amplification shaders, another new part of the mesh shader pipeline, are especially useful for culling, as they can efficiently determine which meshlets are visible before shading. An amplification shader can cull nonvisible meshlets far more efficiently than the traditional methods.

You can read more about mesh shaders on the Microsoft DirectX Developer Blog and in the DirectX Functional Spec.
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New 3DMark test measures mesh shader performance

Find out more at benchmarks.ul.com
benchmarks.ul.com benchmarks.ul.com






or if you want, you can buy the benchmark on steam and dickwave show off your gpu
store.steampowered.com

3DMark on Steam

3DMark is for gamers, overclockers and system builders who want to get more out of their hardware. With its wide range of benchmark tests, 3DMark has everything you need to test your PC's performance.
store.steampowered.com store.steampowered.com
 
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Pottuvoi

Pottuvoi

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Oct 28, 2017
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It doesn't replace pixel shaders, but the traditional vertex pipeline.
Normal rasterization and Pixel shaders are still used.

One of the most exciting features introduced by Turing..
 
BoredLemon

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Nov 11, 2017
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ILikeFeet said:
Xbox Series both support Mesh Shaders, and, theoretically, PS5 as well
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PS5 doesn't support Mesh Shaders, because that's DX12 thing and PS5 uses custom API.
From the looks of it Geometry Engine is Sony's version of this tech.
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ILikeFeet said:
what the fuck does all this mean? theoretically, a more efficient rendering path than pixel shaders.
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Mesh Shaders are part of geometry pipeline, so they replace Vertex/Geometry/Tessellation/etc shaders. Pixel shaders have nothing to do with it.
meshlets_pipeline.png
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ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

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Jroc

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I don't understand those Mesh Shader OFF scores.

A 1650 Super is within 5FPS of a 6900XT?
 
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ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

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from the UL website. there will also be a Sampler Feedback feature test coming this year as well

Test mesh shader performance with 3DMark
The 3DMark Mesh Shader feature test shows how game engines can improve performance by using the mesh shader pipeline to efficiently cull geometry that is not visible to the camera.

The test scene is a hall containing many rows of highly detailed, carved pillars. As the camera moves through the scene, the pillars in the foreground block the view of those further back.

The test runs in two passes. The first pass uses a traditional approach to geometry culling to provide a performance baseline. The second pass uses mesh shaders to efficiently cull hidden meshlets.

The result of the test is the average frame rate for each pass and the difference between the two expressed as a percentage. You can read more about the test in the 3DMark user guide.
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New 3DMark test measures mesh shader performance

Find out more at benchmarks.ul.com
benchmarks.ul.com benchmarks.ul.com
 
Pottuvoi

Pottuvoi

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Test looks to be meshlet culling.
Would have been nice to have some procedural geometry or tessellation test as well.
 
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Fate Of The Art

Fate Of The Art

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Oct 27, 2017
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I hope this tech will help to alleviate polygonal aliasing, or chunky-looking curved details. In the interactive portion of the test you can see that the golden curly bits are smoother up close to the camera. As somebody who is guilty of applying way to many iterations of meshsmooth back in the day, this makes me hopeful.
 
Dictator

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ILikeFeet said:
no, think it's also a hardware feature, hence why I figured the PS5 might be able to support it
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We are still not exactly sure what PS5's Geometry Engine actually is, at least from official sources out there. Other than the fact that it has been described as "primitive shaders", which are an pre-mesh shader implementation found in RDNA 1.
 
Locuza

Locuza

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Mar 6, 2018
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Pottuvoi said:
Test is most likely very geometry heavy.
Geometry and/or rasterization bottlenecks are likely.
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Something is really off with the RDNA2 scaling.
The 6800 has only 3 Primitive Units and Rasterizer + 96 ROPs, 1/4 of the fixed-function-rendering pipeline is disabled.
Yet the performance is practically identical between the 6800, 6800XT and 6900XT.

Sho_Nuff82 said:
An average of 2.5x to 7x increase in FPS can't be applicable to real scenarios, can it?
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No, real scenarios don't consist of 99% geometry processing without doing much more.
Mesh Shaders are running on the Shader Cores, which have to execute many other Shaders types in addition, it can also be that the classic path is faster than using Mesh Shaders.
But obviously developers will profile their workloads and use the path which brings the best performance.
Mesh&Task-Shaders can beat the classic path by a lot, though nobody should expect a 4-7x increase in total frames per second for a complex game.

caiocmsouza said:
I see only nvidia contributors in this feature =[ Maybe will we see AMD developers doing the same soon?

Anyway, mesh shaders is not a directX thing right?
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Very unlikely at this point in time.
Similar to the official ray tracing extension we will rather have to wait till the Khronos Group defines a standard for every vendor.
It shouldn't be so far away though

ILikeFeet said:
no, think it's also a hardware feature, hence why I figured the PS5 might be able to support it
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caiocmsouza said:
yeah you're right, its hardware feature too.


The improvements is amazing
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"Mesh Shaders" are just a name for a certain functionality, which Microsoft picked.
You also could call them "Geometry Shaders" if that name wouldn't be already in use.
It's important to know what is necessary in terms of hardware to expose that kind of feature.
If the PS5 can offer the same features is not crystal clear, the "Primitive Shaders" could provide the same feature set or impose some limitations.
Without technical documentation one shouldn't clinch on the name alone and derive from that if X hardware does support the same type of functionality or not.

Timor Kristòf for example mentioned in a XDC session that "Mesh Shaders" could also be supported on RDNA1 GPUs, this will depend on the specification defined by the Khronos Group and if real hardware limiters will occur which don't exist on RDNA2.
mega-leaks-part-4-xboiijcu.png


Timur Kristóf in relation to Mesh Shader support on Navi10, XDC 2020 - Day 2 - September 17, 2020 (1:04:00): https://youtu.be/FxFPFsT1wDw?t=3843
 
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caiocmsouza

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Jan 31, 2018
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Locuza said:
Something is really off with the RDNA2 scaling.
The 6800 has only 3 Primitive Units and Rasterizer + 96 ROPs, 1/4 of the fixed-function-rendering pipeline is disabled.
Yet the performance is practically identical between the 6800, 6800XT and 6900XT.


No, real scenarios don't consist of 99% geometry processing without doing much more.
Mesh Shaders are running on the Shader Cores, which have to execute many other Shaders types in addition, it can also be that the classic path is faster than using Mesh Shaders.
But obviously developers will profile their workloads and use the path which brings the best performance.
Mesh&Task-Shaders can beat the classic path by a lot, though nobody should expect a 4-7x increase in total frames per second for a complex game.


Very unlikely at this point in time.
Similar to the official ray tracing extension we will rather have to wait till the Khronos Group defines a standard for every vendor.
It shouldn't be so far away though



"Mesh Shaders" are just a name for a certain functionality, which Microsoft picked.
You also could call them "Geometry Shaders" if that name wouldn't be already in use.
It's important to know what is necessary in terms of hardware to expose that kind of feature.
If the PS5 can offer the same features is not crystal clear, the "Primitive Shaders" could provide the same feature set or impose some limitations.
Without technical documentation one shouldn't clinch on the name alone and derive from that if X hardware does support the same type of functionality or not.

Timor Kristòf for example mentioned in a XDC session that "Mesh Shaders" could also be supported on RDNA1 GPUs, this will depend on the specification defined by the Khronos Group and if real hardware limiters will occur which don't exist on RDNA2.
mega-leaks-part-4-xboiijcu.png


Timur Kristóf in relation to Mesh Shader support on Navi10, XDC 2020 - Day 2 - September 17, 2020 (1:04:00): https://youtu.be/FxFPFsT1wDw?t=3843
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wow mesh shaders in rdna 1... Nice!
 
Nzyme32

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Oct 28, 2017
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Will be interesting to see the first sets of games whenever they arrive.
Somehow doubt there will be big performance jumps for Radeon until new cards hit
 
Stacey

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The latest AMD drivers did something to the results of this test.

I'm seeing a 1463% increase with my 6800.
2021.02.12-12.04upjn0.png
 
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Deleted member 16908

Oct 27, 2017
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Interesting how the 2080 Ti outperforms the 3070 and the 2080S outperforms the 3060 Ti.
 
Cats_Schrodinger

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Maybe this is a stupid question, but my 1660 Super is supposedly Turing and thus should support Mesh Shaders. Yet there is no DX12 Ultimate support so I'm guessing I won't be able take advantage of Mesh Shading.
 
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ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

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Cats_Schrodinger said:
Maybe this is a stupid question, but my 1660 Super is supposedly Turing and thus should support Mesh Shaders. Yet there is no DX12 Ultimate support so I'm guessing I won't be able take advantage of Mesh Shading.
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You can use mesh shading. DX12U requires hardware support for all its features, GTX Turing is just missing RT
 
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