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AMD Halts Optimizations for Mantle API

Flying_Hellfish

Flying_Hellfish

Flying_Hellfish

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AMD has halted optimizations for its Mantle 3D graphics API, for current and future graphics cards. The cards will retain Mantle API support at the driver-level, to run existing Mantle applications, but will not receive any performance optimizations from AMD. Launched around 2013, Mantle had a short stint with AAA PC games, such as Battlefield 4, Thief, Sniper Elite III, and Star Citizen, offering noticeably higher performance than DirectX 11. The API improves the way the CPU-end of 3D graphics rendering is handled, particularly with today's multi-core/multi-threaded processors, bringing about significant increases to the number of draw-calls that can be parsed by a GPU.

AMD will now focus on DirectX 12 and Vulkan (OpenGL successor by Khronos Group). Why the company effectively killed its own 2-year old and promising 3D API is anyone's guess. We postulate that Mantle could have been used by AMD to steer Microsoft to introduce vital bare-metal optimizations it reserved for the console, to the PC ecosystem with DirectX 12. It appears to have served that purpose, and as if to hold up to its end of a bargain, AMD 'withdrew' Mantle. DirectX 12 will feature a super-efficient command-buffer that scales across any number of CPU cores, and will have huge increases in draw-calls over DirectX 11. The new API makes its official debut with Windows 10, later this month. AMD's Graphics CoreNext 1.1 and 1.2 GPUs support DirectX 12 (feature level 12_0), as do rival NVIDIA's "Maxwell" GPUs.
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Source

Does this come as a surprise? It's a shame it never worked out I suppose. Some competition would be nice.

Has anyone heard much about this OpenGL successor, what do you think?
 
Doesn't DX12 solve a lot of the problems they had with DX11, therefore mooting the point of it a little? If so, it's hardly a surprise they've canned it given their financial predicament.
 
They only stopped because DX12 effectively does the same job and mantle has been handed over to the Khronos Group to incorporate into Vulcan (OpenGL).
Mantle was developed to push graphics API's forward and that has been achieved so it's natural and common sense to cease development . Nothing to see here..move on.
 
If Mantle was the push needed to get dx12 into development then it's done it's job. It's good that AMD can now move their mantle development funds elsewhere.
 
A little disappointing really and I was hoping to give Mantle a good workout in BF4 but frames are just not enough and roughly 20% slower than AMD running DX11, which is already a good 20% behind the Titan X.
 
shankly1985 said:
And here is the reason why...
For now AMD will continue to work with Khronos, the Mantle API will now come under OpenGL in AMD drivers... Mantle isn't gone its just not getting used in the same way it used to.

Read this
https://www.khronos.org/assets/uplo...y/2015-gdc/Valve-Vulkan-Session-GDC_Mar15.pdf
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This was the best possible outcome for Mantle. We're extremely excited about our performance on DX12 and Vulkan. Not too long to wait until we get our first glimpse of some DX12 performance either, with Ashes Of Singularity on its way. :)

tbywaIr.jpg

pmc25 said:
Mantle's still very much alive. It's the API used for LiquidVR.
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Yup. :cool:
 
AMD was already a member of the Khronos group and OpenGL had been a mess for years and was crying out to be sorted. They should have pushed for a mantel like API from there, especially when there all for being open for all and for the good of all gamers.

I guess this way they got some good PR out of it.
 
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KillBoY_UK said:
AMD was already a member of the Khronos group and OpenGL had been a mess for years and was crying out to be sorted. They should have pushed for a mantel like API from there.

I guess this way they got some good PR out of it.
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Good PR usually means increased sales. The opposite happened, so wasted effort maybe?

NMBlack said:
If Mantle was the push needed to get dx12 into development then it's done it's job. It's good that AMD can now move their mantle development funds elsewhere.
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Redundancy pay?


Odd that the article says mantle was used in star citizen as it never has.
 
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Hotwired said:
Awkward that you jumped in to score a point before finding out what exactly happened to the mantle tech.
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That's the thing, I dont care what happened or what happens to the Mantle tech. What I did say was that Mantle would die a slow death. No-one wanted to use it, it was in about 4 games if that, and in those games it really didnt need to be there either.
 
fs123 said:
They only stopped because DX12 effectively does the same job and mantle has been handed over to the Khronos Group to incorporate into Vulcan (OpenGL).
Mantle was developed to push graphics API's forward and that has been achieved so it's natural and common sense to cease development . Nothing to see here..move on.
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NMBlack said:
If Mantle was the push needed to get dx12 into development then it's done it's job. It's good that AMD can now move their mantle development funds elsewhere.
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Jamielicious said:
Mantle did its job, it set the agenda for dx12, and reduced the impotance of having a £180+ Intel CPU.
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You think AMD spend a lot of money with Dice/EA for them to create Mantle for AMD just so that it helped MS push DX12 in the right direction ?

I'm sorry but no company spends time and money just to help someone else.
 
Hotwired said:
Awkward that you jumped in to score a point before finding out what exactly happened to the mantle tech.
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Nope, because most of us pointed out that mantle as a standalone api couldn't last and wouldn't be adopted, that it would only continue to exist if handed off to someone like khronos and were criticised for saying that

Even matt himself had a bet on with me that mantle itself would have a public SDK (and by the end of 2014) which never happened, he didn't pay up though
 
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