MetalFX and the ANE.

Jimmyjames

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Do we know the extent to which MetalFX (Temporal) uses the ANE and or AI/ML? A cursory search yields some suggestions that it does, including from @leman on Reddit I think, and Philip Turner on the Apple forums. Trying it out on my M4 does show that with MetalFX Quality mode there is some ANE usage, but it seems really low: less than 5%. Can that be correct?
 
Do we know the extent to which MetalFX (Temporal) uses the ANE and or AI/ML? A cursory search yields some suggestions that it does, including from @leman on Reddit I think, and Philip Turner on the Apple forums. Trying it out on my M4 does show that with MetalFX Quality mode there is some ANE usage, but it seems really low: less than 5%. Can that be correct?
Seems plausible to me. M4 has a 38 TOPS ANE, so 5% of that is 1.9 TOPS. If you assume it's upscaling to 10MP, that'd be about 190K math ops per output pixel per second, or 3166 per pixel at 60 FPS.
 
Seems plausible to me. M4 has a 38 TOPS ANE, so 5% of that is 1.9 TOPS. If you assume it's upscaling to 10MP, that'd be about 190K math ops per output pixel per second, or 3166 per pixel at 60 FPS.
Ahhh ok. Makes sense. Thanks.
 
Does ANE utilization go up if you choose MFX Performance?

I also wonder if MFX Denoising uses AI model (like nvidia ray reconstruction).
 

Nvidia’s framegen apparently works quite well in Hogwarts Legacy through translation layers on an M1 Max. It must be using the ANE. I haven’t watched the original video just read the article so unclear how many other details there are.
 

Nvidia’s framegen apparently works quite well in Hogwarts Legacy through translation layers on an M1 Max. It must be using the ANE. I haven’t watched the original video just read the article so unclear how many other details there are.
The comparisons to FSR are odd. Apple doesn't hook it through a special path like they do DLSS so of course there is a performance hit.

Wonder if Apple is able to convert the transformer model or if it is just the CNN.
 
What do you mean by this? They overtake the whole DLSS dll to call back into GPTK to trigger Metal code instead
So it isn't running the actual DLSS model at all. Which would explain why the powerlines in CP2077 looked like garbage (that has been fixed in the DLSS Transformer model). So does that mean that Nvidia Reflex doesn't actually work?
 
So it isn't running the actual DLSS model at all. Which would explain why the powerlines in CP2077 looked like garbage (that has been fixed in the DLSS Transformer model). So does that mean that Nvidia Reflex doesn't actually work?

It's not running DLSS or any Nvidia specific tech, no. Apple is grabbing the calls to DLSS the game makes and using the inputs given to DLSS to instead run MetalFX. Don't know if Apple hooks Reflex or how Reflex works so no clue on that one. If it is purely implemented in-game then it probably does just work. If it requires a driver/DLL component, then no, actual Reflex most certainly not. I don't know if Apple has a hook to replace that with a Metal implementation of something similar but I would find it very unlikely
 
It's not running DLSS or any Nvidia specific tech, no. Apple is grabbing the calls to DLSS the game makes and using the inputs given to DLSS to instead run MetalFX. Don't know if Apple hooks Reflex or how Reflex works so no clue on that one. If it is purely implemented in-game then it probably does just work. If it requires a driver/DLL component, then no, actual Reflex most certainly not. I don't know if Apple has a hook to replace that with a Metal implementation of something similar but I would find it very unlikely
It is in game (SDK), that for lack of better explanation makes games CPU bound for better response time or in game feel (which is hidden if you use a controller).
 
Does macOS have any way to measure "pc latency"?
Latency is such a huge conversation. There's a bunch of different ways to measure during development, but measuring from the outside perspective we're a smidge more limited. If you just mean present delays then that information is present in the updated Metal 4 HUD. But if you want to know something like when the game thread finished its physics computations for a given frame relative to the call to present, then I don't think you can get that without the game itself providing the instrumentation
 
What does “pc latency” mean?
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It sounds like Metal 4 HUD does show this value. What would be missing is the input latency and display latency (which Apple should show/know on mobile systems).
 
I just posted a message in the AC Shadows thread about an upscaling mystery within the game. It’s tangentially related to to the ANE so I thought I would mention the post here also.
 
Ahh ok. That seems like quite a generic measure, encompassing many subsystems.
It is. Folks that play with mainly controllers are less likely to feel poor framerates/latency than those that primarily use keyboard and mouse. The macOS mouse acceleration sucks for (FPS) gaming crowd dwells here.
 
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