Quote" Now that AMD is powering all four major gaming platforms – namely the Wii U, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC – the company has finally revealed its secret weapon to bind these platforms together: the low-level high-performance “Mantle” graphics API. This will allow developers to “speak the native language” of AMD’s Graphics Core Next architecture used in modern AMD-based graphics cards and APUs.
According to AMD, the Mantle benefits include reducing the CPU overhead to enable 9X more draw calls per second than other APIs. This will provide PC gamers proper multi-tasking scaling on the CPU without the need to handle all the background draw calls required by the older APIs. Other Mantle benefits include leveraging optimization work from next-generation game consoles to PCs, and new rendering techniques. Thus with direct access to all GPU features, developers can unlock higher graphics performance on consoles and gaming rigs with GCN-based GPUs.
The first company to support the Mantle API is Electronic Arts. The Frostbite 3 engine, developed by EA subsidiary DICE, will supposedly render natively with Mantle in Windows without the need for DirectX when running on GCN-based GPUs and APUs, but the engine will still be compatible with other rendering APIs. Johan Andersson from DICE indicated that AMD’s API is similar to the one found on consoles where developers have direct access to the hardware for optimal performance. Mantle is also compatible with DirectX HLSL to simplify porting. "
If this is open source (were find out soon enough but looks 99% odds on) we could see the great day when DirectX is finaly killed off by something better. Would be supper cool to have the main 2 graphics API’s (opengl for tablets and Mobiles, With Mantle for Consoles and PC’s etc ALL OPEN SOURCE. Cant wait for more info on this.
PS, As Even Nvidia drivers are open now, if nvidia don’t want to support this new MAntle API i see no reason why Linux users couldnt add support them self’s.
Sorry for my ignorance. But does this that helps users amd radeon blender?. To be clear on anything, amd can not solve the problems it has with OpenCL GPU rendering engines as cycles. So do not think we see neither for the new graphics amd or for earlier releases that walk cycles or any other render engine. Deception GCN.
Disculpen por mi ignorancia. ¿pero esto de que ayuda a los usuarios de amd radeon blender?.Para ser claros en nada, amd no puede solucionar los problemas que tiene con motores de render opencl gpu como cycles. Asi que no piensen que veamos ni para la nuevas graficas amd ni para la series anteriores a que ande cycles o cualquier otro motor de render. Decepcion GCN.
I meant that card drivers in terms of the open source reverse engineering project, Nvidia are still being a pain in … but as this article shows (http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/nvidia-seeks-peace-with-linux-pledges-help-on-open-source-driver/) they have started to get the message that the open source community hates them, and if they want to sell tech to linux users in the future now games will be making more of an impact on Linux users they better start at LEAST helping a little more in terms of an open source driver that’s decent out the box from the reverse engineered driver. The good thing about this new AMD API is IF open sourced there’s no reason it couldn’t be made to run with open operating systems like linux, and if AMD are right about it being a direcX 11.2+ KILLER were on for the win in the long run.
This can help with viewport speed as well as create better real time renderer i guess. And AMD said they will show something to make better linux drivers. Seeing as they put affort to make better opensource drivers and got rid off propietry technology to accelerate video decoding in their cards as well as dropped their propietry compute language to support OpenCL, announced Mantle to be crossplatform there is a solid chance its also opensource.
Nvidia don’t like nouveau and were saying this on public few times already. They just see where everything is shifting and maybe will play nicely from now on. But for now they just promised to give nouveau team some specs.
Mantle is an API and therefore cannot be open-source, because it is an interface. Any implementations may or may not be open-sourced, but that’s probably irrelevant in practice for almost everybody except the very technically interested and those who can’t sleep at night because their kernel touches nonfree code.
NVIDIAs CUDA implementation also happens to be open-source, but it didn’t make much of an impact. Any projects to support CUDA on non-NVIDIA hardware are so far inadequate and garner little interest.
I just think they should all choose 1 standard and contribute to it.
That standard exists and it is called OpenGL. It’s an API that nobody really would want to use, however. You can’t possibly devise a standard that takes full advantage of a specific hardware architecture, but at the same time is abstract enough to work on all other architectures. In practice, you almost always have to deal with hardware differences in OpenGL, as well.
In the early days of 3D acceleration, vendor-specific APIs were the rule, not the exception. With the headaches that APIs such as OpenGL cause, I’m sure a lot of 3D programmers would’t mind if that became the standard again. Supporting the big two (or three?) vendors APIs isn’t necessarily more work than implementing an OpenGL renderer that works on all these platforms. OpenGL already is pretty much unusable without an abstraction layer, so why not develop such layers for not-so-abstract APIs instead?
All i would say is upgrading right now before the new APU style boards appear would probably be a mistake. The whole idea of unified CPU/GPU/Joint memory architectures that AMD have pushed shows even with the new gen console designs to the benefits for code either on the gpu or cpu can take the best bits from each to really push performance. Let alone when the same architecture hits PC boards with even more powerful cpu/gpu combo’s. Sit tight and just see what happens for a few months.
Also i think the from what ive been reading that the Mantle API is not just an AMD CUDA style system, but an integrated mix of low level API (Cuda Style) but with Platform specific interface (e.g Your DX’s / OpenGL’s). Why else would EA with Battlefield 4 pick this interface for windows over DX, but also add other API’s also work with the engine. It’s a question im interested to find out, the sooner the better.
There is no open GPU to my knowledge, and it would suck if there were. The amount of money and cutting edge tech it takes to produce a modern GPU requires either enormous prices or enormous scale to even break even.
@Zalamander, not sure how you would presume to know that nobody would want to use OpenGL.
Also all previous vendor spesific API’s failed to gain much traction afaik, before OpenGL there were various API’s and since then there has been Glide - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glide_API which didnt take off.
I still say what’s wrong with Opengl?, Yes Dx and HLSL is to be honest easier to work with but fixed in nature by Microsoft (hence why everyone now uses Opengl for testing new features of hardware, And you dont have to get forced into OS changes when new API changes are made ONLY available on their new costly platform even though your happy with the old one). Opengl with nice code can make things easier (e.g Your G3D’s etc) can make use of the same code over different supported Opengl hardware, even Mixing HLSL styles with GLSL. BUT i would prefer to have a new interface like AMD have promised that has such large performance increase that beats even your DX’s that would be open source, Learning something new if you know it will pay off is incentive enough when looking at next gen code and hardware. Found it funny that nvidia made this statement the other day http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/nvidia-consoles-gpu-graphics-power,news-45625.html. Has nothing to do with the fact they have no hardware in any of the new platforms, which means their only market now is PC and integrated units for other producers like set top boxes etc. AMD have cornered the 3d market, it makes sense at which point to push a new API, Unlike Nvidia which try to milk devs and the end users (e.g your Physics engines’s like Phys X that needs THEIR hardware to work correctly and licensing for devs to use, Or Optix for raytrace applications. In the end meaning a dev releases a game that if uses such tech means even though one user may have an AMD card of equal power it will run FAR slower. Hows that to treat the end user as a game dev, AMD’s drivers are shite most the time but at least they understand screwing devs and end users makes them no friends. Hence why tresFX etc are open and run on even nvidia hardware (at last the end user gets thought about). If Mantle is open and easy to use, works on platforms other than windows this could be the day AMD become the main force in Gaming, And i dont think that would be a bad thing for devs or users.
Very informative slides from Dice on Mantle, Even if Microsoft have spoiled the party by saying they won’t support it on console (Nobs!) this is what i thought it would be, a truly open platform that most features will be available even on current GPU’s, but massive benefits. Bindless resources and true virtual memory addressing (meaning no more having to fit everything into the GPU mem), this API is built for path tracing in my eye’s. Very cool, Can’t wait to get my hands on the BETA.
