Firaxis discusses why Mantle is revolutionary for their work with Civilization: Beyond Earth

[Gregster]

Okay, humbug, it's clear this debate is going nowhere and will continue to go nowhere. I'll put an end to it here.

It's not that he is missing what your saying, it's that he is reading your posts, quoting them in his replies, but somehow seeing something completely different and replying to that lol.

Been there and not sure what he reads at times but it isn't what I have typed

 

[James J]

Apparently it's different with Microsoft though, seems like everyone and their mother's love to jump on the hate-train against them - despite not realising exactly how much they have done for the entire technology industry over, well, their entire lifetime as a company.

Thats what makes me laugh the most. If apple was the dominant provider of the OS we wouldn't even have a gaming industry. The fact is, direct x has progressed over the years. If people say otherwise, should have gone to specsavers. Both amd and nvidia have kept upto date with opengl support, yet how many games in the last 5 years have even used it as a default api?

 

[James J]

Your quite blatantly bias.

And get this, a lot of Game Developers don't like Nvidia any more than the do Microsoft for the same reasons, they deserve each-other.

Says the guy with the AMD forum signature. Look up irony and hypocrisy as you fit both definitions nicely.

 

[humbug]

Apparently it's different with Microsoft though, seems like everyone and their mother's love to jump on the hate-train against them - despite not realising exactly how much they have done for the entire technology industry over, well, their entire lifetime as a company.

Because we are PC Gamers, not Microsoft Share Holders.

Microsoft have used their API monopoly to stagnate PC Gaming and even make it difficult for developers to make games for the PC.

Now someone has come up with something better and Microsoft feel threatened, well BooHoo. excuse me while as a PC Gamer i take joy in that, if you don't like it your certainly in the wrong forum.

 

[David Bisset]

Because we are PC Gamers, not Microsoft Share Holders.

Microsoft have used their API monopoly to stagnate PC Gaming and even make it difficult for developers to make games for the PC.

Now someone has come up with something better and Microsoft feel threatened, well BooHoo. excuse me while as a PC Gamer i take joy in that, if you don't like it your certainly in the wrong forum.

Not really true, DX is fairly easy to use - what is hard is making it run as fast as possible.

Edit: As Martini says below, the ease of use is one of the reasons it's so popular. Another is it's stability, which is of course related to the rate of development and the limitations that maintaining backwards compatibility impose.

 

[Martini1991]

I can't agree with the MS API monopoly.
They're not preventing other API's working on their OS, the fact people use MS's API isn't down to MS.

I thought the reason DX was used is because it was easy?

 

[Marine-RX179]

What i'm simply saying is You want a trimmed out fast version of a o/s and api right??
Who is going to fund it?
Gamers wont, there simply isnt enough of those willing to spend what it costs which is why windows and DX is still the biggest gaming platform in the PC
Would i like it to be far better if DX was faster slimer and windows had less bloat ? yes
Do i blame them for making a profit and achieving what there Shareholders want? nope thats what successful business do.
Should they make stuff they lose loads of money on ? no otherwise eventually they wont exist and then u have...

What MS currently does is make stuff they can sell to a wide base and make money .
Widen the net of a product and for a Modest increase in RnD you gain more profit .What business doesnt do this?

And why cant they move away from just a pc base?
What they do/dont do is once again upto them not what i or you would like them to do

Windows gamers edition is not gonna happen we get that, but what gamers don't need is for Windows and dx to become lesser and lesser focus on PC users- THAT is the biggest issue at the moment.

Also...Microsoft is pumping billions and billions of dollars on R&D for mobile platform which they are struggle to make back for their investments worth because not enough people are jumping onboard Window phone and tablets due late to scene and facing tough competition of Androids and IOS out there, and you are telling me they got the fund to blow in that direction but can't find the fund to make Windows with innovation and better experience for gamers, but for PC users as a whole as well?

GFWL had been awful, rotten and died because it was aim to cater for Xbox gamers and PC gamers at the same time; Windows 8 had be a awful experience for more PC users, because it was aim to cater for PC and touchscreen/tablet users at the same time. To solve issue for Windows, guess what Microsoft had to do? They have to make Windows 8 more like Windows 7 and hide away features and functions that PC users don't need! If you genuinely believe one size fits all solution for multiple entities is better a dedicated solution for a single entity, I got nothing to say.

Microsoft has already attempted to made something to cater two or more things at the same time on two separate occasions (XBoxLive/GFWL and Windows 8), and both times epically failed for PC users. Now with dx12 they haven't learned their lesson, trying to up the challenge to make one thing to cater for 3 or 4 different things...so I guess we have no choice but to just finger-cross for "3rd time lucky"?

As I said, I welcome the idea of dx12 to benefit both AMD and Nvidia, but not in the way of what M$ has planned for it (with PC users being the bottom of priorities).

 

[PhysicsMan94]

Because we are PC Gamers, not Microsoft Share Holders.

Microsoft have used their API monopoly to stagnate PC Gaming and even make it difficult for developers to make games for the PC.

Now someone has come up with something better and Microsoft feel threatened, well BooHoo. excuse me while as a PC Gamer i take joy in that, if you don't like it your certainly in the wrong forum.

This is the Graphics Cards subforum, not the PC games one, and whilst, indeed, GPUs are used extensively for gaming - they are also used for other industries too. I game on my GPUs but I also use them for accelerating performance in the particle simulations I program on Visual Studio 2013 (which is another incredibly good application Microsoft invented).

On another note, what's with the attitude (especially towards me)?

 

[Martini1991]

This API won't be the same as their prior misguided promises.
DX12 that we end up using won't be the same as what the Xbox One will be using (Impossible really, for the console it'll be as low as you can get, or it should be, but that's not possible for PC)

 

[mmj_uk]

Because we are PC Gamers, not Microsoft Share Holders.

Microsoft have used their API monopoly to stagnate PC Gaming and even make it difficult for developers to make games for the PC.

Now someone has come up with something better and Microsoft feel threatened, well BooHoo. excuse me while as a PC Gamer i take joy in that, if you don't like it your certainly in the wrong forum.

AMD could have achieved the same by pushing OpenGL, they've already admitted that Mantle will be brought to OpenGL as best as possible through extensions, if their intention is to break a monopoly why go down the proprietary API route? they can keep claiming it's open to all but while ever it's limited to a small selection of their own GCN based cards that's not the case in reality.

 

[humbug]

Not really true, DX is fairly easy to use - what is hard is making it run as fast as possible.

They put a lot of time and effort in to improve upon the xBox API over the years while doing little to nothing with DX on the PC, the reason for that has been gone over many times.

A very small independent studio or even individuals can make games for the consoles with those API's.

Download Crytek's Free Engine, make a Game plugged into those API's and away you go, by comparison to Microsofts PC DX API its fast, its cheap and its fun.

This matters because startups, small studios and the likes; can get into consoles relatively easily and without to much cost.

To get into PC Gaming it takes a lot more, an army to get DX to work for you.

Forgetting for a minute about performance benefits Mantle is also the same sort of thing that you find in Console API's, this means the little folk now have the PC Gaming Eco System open to them.

A good thing all round.

 

[Final8y]

Apparently it's different with Microsoft though, seems like everyone and their mother's love to jump on the hate-train against them - despite not realising exactly how much they have done for the entire technology industry over, well, their entire lifetime as a company.

While MS has done allot they certainly have not done all that they could have otherwise Developers would not have been moaning for years, there would be no Mantle because DX would already have all the benefits of Mantle within reason and not well the benefits are coming in DX12.

Its in MS best interest to provide the best gaming API on the PC platform, a platform which they dominate than for someone else to come along and make a better one which has the potential be multi platform and multi OS, that's called losing your advantage and the embarrassment that a much smaller and more resource constraint company out did them at there own game even for a moment.

 

[layte]

Like Himbug says. I'm real glad AMD have brought us Mantle. Now we can expect to see an influx of all those indi games that the PC Eco system has been crying out for and missing out on.

Now.... Here on planet reality. DX is free to use, simple to pick up and has more available documentation and samples than you can shake stick at.

 

[Marine-RX179]

This API won't be the same as their prior misguided promises.
DX12 that we end up using won't be the same as what the Xbox One will be using (Impossible really, for the console it'll be as low as you can get, or it should be, but that's not possible for PC)

Woouldn't be the same in the sense of hardware limitation, or Microsoft not wanting to give too much performance for PC users? The hardware on XBone is a x86 GCN based APU and is essentially a PC is it not? So why would a more efficient API works on Xbone but not on PC (unless windows is getting in the way again)?

 

[TheRealDeal]

Like Himbug says. I'm real glad AMD have brought us Mantle. Now we can expect to see an influx of all those indi games that the PC Eco system has been crying out for and missing out on.

Now.... Here on planet reality. DX is free to use, simple to pick up and has more available documentation and samples than you can shake stick at.

Yet it's slow and outdated and AMD have proved this. It's not really the games that are proving it as much as the developers using it saying so. To many are in denial about this but surely as more game Dev's from different studio's keep going on about the benefit's of Mantle over DX then people have to accept that Microsoft have been Lazy with DX.

 

[TheRealDeal]

Woouldn't be the same in the sense of hardware limitation, or Microsoft not wanting to give too much performance for PC users? The hardware on XBone is a x86 GCN based APU and is essentially a PC is it not? So why would a more efficient API works on Xbone but not on PC (unless windows is getting in the way again)?

I think it's more to do with the Xbone having fixed Hardware but i doubt a bloated windows helps much.

 

[Gregster]

Nobody disputes that MS have been lazy and could have done more but the fact remains that it has been the industry standard for years and still is. AMD have Mantle to help lighten the load off the CPU and this is great for the select few GCN cards it works on.

 

[Martini1991]

Woouldn't be the same in the sense of hardware limitation, or Microsoft not wanting to give too much performance for PC users? The hardware on XBone is a x86 GCN based APU and is essentially a PC is it not? So why would a more efficient API works on Xbone but not on PC (unless windows is getting in the way again)?

Oh come on, it'd be impossible to make it as efficient as it'll be in consoles because they're a set piece of hardware, PC's are far from it.

 

[Gregster]

Oh come on, it'd be impossible to make it as efficient as it'll be in consoles because they're a set piece of hardware, PC's are far from it.

Spot on.

how many times do we see someone running into problems that another person doesn't. So many different components to cater for.

 

[TheRealDeal]

Nobody disputes that MS have been lazy and could have done more but the fact remains that it has been the industry standard for years and still is. AMD have Mantle to help lighten the load off the CPU and this is great for the select few GCN cards it works on.

So are you saying because MS has been the industry standard for years we all just have to like and lump it. People keep talking about mantle like has been around for years but its only been around in games since January. yes it's only on GCN atm as a starting base but are we forgetting that AMD have stated it will be released at some point this year. If that's the case then nobody can say it's proprietary as it will then be up to the others to support it or not. The games it's been used in so far show promise but Mantle was only really a patch add in. By the looks of it games like Civ 6 and Star Citizen will show it in a better light.