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DirectX 12

One for the gossip goats...

Who do you think it is? Unity3D or Unreal Engine or perhaps even Crytek?

At the last GDC there was talk that a major game engine developer was in deep trouble. It is sad to say that SemiAccurate saw direct evidence of this at GDC 2014, one of the major players is hurting bad.
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Sources
http://semiaccurate.com/2014/03/28/major-game-engine-developer-serious-problem/
http://ralphbarbagallo.com/2014/03/26/unity3d-vs-unreal-4-vs-crytek-gdc-2014-engine-wars/
http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7873&page=2
 
Probably, Charlie trying to get more people to pay to join his site and pay the extortionate $1000 a year fee to then find out he is talking complete BS (again).
 
GoogalyMoogaly said:
Maybe it's DICE's Frostbite engine?
After the shambles that was BF4 maybe nobody (other than the ones EA said had to be EA own their *****) wanted to touch Frostbite 3?
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Don't think its them. Reckon it may be one of the engines going for a subscription service, so Unity or Unreal Engine.
 
LtMatt said:
Don't think its them. Reckon it may be one of the engines going for a subscription service, so Unity or Unreal Engine.
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I can dream can't I!? :)

I thought Unreal was used in Thief and aren't they just about releasing the 4th version of the Engine? Plus it's been used a lot over the years hasn't it? Surely it can't be Unreal?
 
Where is Unreal used?

The people who made Bio-Shock Infinite (Irrational Games) went bust.
They used Unreal.

Square-Enix Montreal let go of a bunch of staff.
 
Loads of companies let people go, particular after a game seen as a failure which Thief seems to be. Almost a shame as the game gets significantly better, but it's not great. Chapters 1-3 are basically dog turd vs I think 4 and 5, overall very dodgy though.

Who is in trouble, who knows. I wouldn't suggest a subscription model is anything to worry about. Though having a quick check Unreal 4 is still licensable in the usual older way of one off fee upfront rather than subscription + 5% royalties. It's a good way to get more indie developers using your product who otherwise can't afford an upfront fee which would be too large for a small game anyway.

Crytek though seem to be saying $10 a month per user with no royalty fee's and does seem to indicate that is for all developers not just indies. That does seem a bit, desperate and low. Or did almost no one licence their engine before so this is a way to persuade more people to use it?

Does seem low, it would appear that for instance UE2 cost $350k to licence with royalties on top(no idea how much) or $750k with no royalties due.

There is the free version of UE3 which is... free for non commercial use but if you make a game and sell it then Epic get 25% of all profit or income(not sure which) past $5k, which is a huge cut.

The $10-20 a month and 0-5% royalty fee's seem ridiculously small by comparison. Could make a lot of game devs who make their own engines for only 1-2 games give up and everything centralise on only a few stupid cheap to licence game engines.
 
drunkenmaster said:
Loads of companies let people go, particular after a game seen as a failure which Thief seems to be. Almost a shame as the game gets significantly better, but it's not great. Chapters 1-3 are basically dog turd vs I think 4 and 5, overall very dodgy though.

Who is in trouble, who knows. I wouldn't suggest a subscription model is anything to worry about. Though having a quick check Unreal 4 is still licensable in the usual older way of one off fee upfront rather than subscription + 5% royalties. It's a good way to get more indie developers using your product who otherwise can't afford an upfront fee which would be too large for a small game anyway.

Crytek though seem to be saying $10 a month per user with no royalty fee's and does seem to indicate that is for all developers not just indies. That does seem a bit, desperate and low. Or did almost no one licence their engine before so this is a way to persuade more people to use it?

Does seem low, it would appear that for instance UE2 cost $350k to licence with royalties on top(no idea how much) or $750k with no royalties due.

There is the free version of UE3 which is... free for non commercial use but if you make a game and sell it then Epic get 25% of all profit or income(not sure which) past $5k, which is a huge cut.

The $10-20 a month and 0-5% royalty fee's seem ridiculously small by comparison. Could make a lot of game devs who make their own engines for only 1-2 games give up and everything centralise on only a few stupid cheap to licence game engines.
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They also have a "Cry Engine free SDK"

Its part of the Engine wars, Epic started with the mentioned subscription model, Cry Tech undercut them.

Another thing that needs to be said; The CryTech subscription model also extends to Consoles, The Epic one does not.

This is not the only way CryTech or Epic find their revenues, for example a full Cry Engine 3 licence will cost you $1.2m.
 
Pulled from a TechReport article looking at DX12.

Mantle Will Be Faster Than DX12

At GDC, AMD's Corpus elaborated a little bit on that message. He told me Direct3D 12's arrival won't spell the end of Mantle. D3D12 doesn't get quite as close to the metal of AMD's Graphics Core Next GPUs as Mantle does, he claimed, and Mantle "will do some things faster." Mantle may also be quicker to take advantage of new hardware, since AMD will be able to update the API independently without waiting on Microsoft to release a new version of Direct3D. Finally, AMD is talking to developers about bringing Mantle to Linux, where it would have no competition from Microsoft.
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[b[Source[/b]
http://techreport.com/review/26239/a-closer-look-at-directx-12/3
 
Yup, said it before as well. Big BIG things in the next few years will be stacked memory, and for AMD unified memory, HSA, things that will be taken advantage of first/most fully via Mantle. Though MS has been quite proactive with HSA support and unified memory for Kaveri and future applications if they can add support, or maybe more to the point significant optimisation via DX12 when Nvidia won't have those features is questionable.

So lets say AMD/Nvidia add stacked ram and have 1tb/s bandwidth on package for 8gb mem from 2016, and DX12 launched in 2015. What new features can game dev's use with that much bandwidth, because ultimately they'll need/want to find a way to use that bandwidth. When will the next DX update be with support for new features another 3 years away? When will Mantle add support for a brand new epic feature on AMD gpu's... be ready for release with them knowing about it years in advance and being able to work on the API support for it ready for launch.
 
Gregster said:
Excellent news for AMD owners but as it came from AMD themselves, I will take it with a massive pinch of salt.
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Like providing low level api access 18 months ahead of MS... yeah take it with a pinch of salt they can react and support things quicker because there is precisely no evidence(like Mantle games being out already) that AMD will be quicker to react.
 
Sick of off topic spam in non AMD/Mantle threads (know I am not alone).

I am going to fix this issue for myself right now with a few clicks.
 
I haven't read all the thread so...

By what i've read:

Currently Nvidia have the upper hand.

The majority of amd gfx cards won't support dx12 but the majority of nvidia cards do support dx12.

Currently mantle is not supported in many windows applications whereas most support directx

I feel AMD are not being smart on how they are doing business...
 
It does get tiring, Mantle has been the talking point since September last year and now that the industries centre fold is finally making progress, they're all jumping for the lime light and looking to make it seem more relevant.

We've got a Mantle Benchmark in Thief, it's not really got me all that excited personally as it stands, albeit it's a great feature for people on GCN cards to go the extra mile. But it is tiring watching the same people not only report posts in a massive explosion of irony, but move away from topic in thread after thread and mention ******* Mantle over and over again :D.

I'm all for industry advancement but If I want to read/discuss Mantle, I'll go in one of the 1,500 Mantle threads! Obviously Mantle is going to crop up occasionally as it's going to be in almost direct competition with DirectX, but to post cobble from the press saying "mine is bigger than yours" when we've not even really seen Mantle, let alone DirectX12, is taking the biscuit.

Enough.



As for the TechReport article, the proof will obviously be in the results, albeit we are a way off. It's hard to make any direct comparison. We've got drivers from NV improving performance when Thief is pretty NV dominant anyway. Mantle so far hasn't proven itself to be vastly better than DX11, so I'll reserve judgement on anything else for now.
 
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