DirectX and OpenGL will start offering low-level access in order to reduce draw overhead

Steampunk · 8 Mar 2014 at 11:30

Calin Banc said:
here you go buddy - http://forums.bistudio.com/showthre...ort-possible&p=2619606&viewfull=1#post2619606

One of the Bohemia devs finally came forward and gave a straight answer.

So why do you think there is a long term problem here? It's not unusual for people/companies to be denied alpha access to products that are not finished. I can't just call any company and demand access to their unfinished products, and this is no different. It's hardly surprising when you consider that AMD is targeting engine makers above all else, and Bohemia is just a small company with ARMA being their only significant title.

I guess AMD just don't see any benefit to dealing with small developers at this point in the lifecycle of Mantle, the same as other companies that have closed alpha/beta periods. Bohemia will no doubt get the SDK when it's done and available.

LtMatt · 8 Mar 2014 at 11:55

Encouraging to see that other devs are looking to work with and use Mantle. I think it makes sense to keep it to a select few for now though until it moves out of Alpha stage.

Calin Banc · 8 Mar 2014 at 12:16

Steampunk said:
So why do you think there is a long term problem here? It's not unusual for people/companies to be denied alpha access to a products that are not finished. I can't just call any company and demand access to their unfinished products, and this is no different. It's hardly surprising when you consider that AMD is targeting engine makers above all else, and Bohemia is just a small company with ARMA being the only significant title.

I guess AMD just don't see any benefit to dealing with small developers at this point in the lifecycle of Mantle, the same as other companies have closed alpha/beta periods. Bohemia will no doubt get the SDK when it's done and available.

Actually, their engine is one of the most complex out there and most definitely would be best fitted to show of Mantle. They have ArmA, Day Z, Take On (Helicopters, Mars) and VBS, which is the "pro" part of the business, selling it to US Army and others, wining against Cry Engine for instance.

I'm not saying it's bad, I've just gave you a link that AMD is currently very tight about it. Thief I wouldn't say it requires Mantle, but ArmA is, so perhaps, they need to get their priorities straight... a little bit

. On the other hand, Bohemia seems to be more with nVIDIA, so who knows...

Boomstick777 · 8 Mar 2014 at 12:24

If DX12 really does lower CPU overhead think I would get away with keep using this Xeon 1230v2? Seems to cope with all the current stuff and I love the fact it has such a low TDP of 69w. Power use VS performance is ideal, would be happy to hang onto to this setup right through 2015 and skip over Haswell -E maybe upgrade to Skylake later on if that was the case..

Steampunk · 8 Mar 2014 at 12:29

Calin Banc said:
Actually, their engine is one of the most complex out there and most definitely would be best fitted to show of Mantle. They have ArmA, Day Z, Take On (Helicopters, Mars) and VBS, which is the "pro" part of the business, selling it to US Army and others, wining against Cry Engine for instance.

Well currently there are massive complaints of slow performance down to the engine doing AI on the server, so I'm not sure Mantle will help when the bottleneck is elsewhere.

DayZ is a total conversion on the ARMA engine, and the rest are small games. Take On Helicopters isn't exactly a triple-A graphical showcase.

Calin Banc said:
I'm not saying it's bad, I've just gave you a link that AMD is currently very tight about it. Thief I wouldn't say it requires Mantle, but ArmA is, so perhaps, they need to get their priorities straight... a little bit . On the other hand, Bohemia seems to be more with nVIDIA, so who knows...

We could argue as to whether ARMA is more or less worthy then Thief for having early access to Mantle, but that's just a strawman argument. For whatever reasons, AMD doesn't consider working with Bohemia on Mantle at this time as a good idea, and we don't know why. Maybe no one at AMD speaks Czech, or maybe there is too much timezone difference. I'm sure there are lots of devs that will not get the alpha version of Mantle, but will get the SDK when it's available.

Trying to use this to support the idea that AMD will never release a Mantle SDK just makes no sense. There simply isn't the evidence to support what you're claiming, and it would be impossible for Mantle to progress far without an SDK for developers

Silent_Scone · 8 Mar 2014 at 12:38

Because Thief uses UE3 which is by all means fairly old now, and has fairly basic and linear level design. Where as Arma 3's engine is a vast landscape which could benefit from high LOD and big draw distances and various other effects...

Strawman it is not. Thief does not really benefit anyone by having Mantle.

On the other side of the fence, it's the same as Batman AO which has huge amounts of tessellation and NV plastered effects...it's not really fooling anyone

Steampunk · 8 Mar 2014 at 12:52

MjFrosty said:
Because Thief uses UE3 which is by all means fairly old now, and has fairly basic and linear level design. Where as Arma 3's engine is a vast landscape which could benefit from high LOD and big draw distances and various other effects...

Strawman it is not. Thief does not really benefit anyone by having Mantle.

On the other side of the fence, it's the same as Batman AO which has huge amounts of tessellation and NV plastered effects...it's not really fooling anyone

That really doesn't change your original assertion that there will never be a Mantle SDK, and that isn't backed up just because Bohemia didn't get on the alpha access.

As I said there are probably many other reasons (none of which we are privy to) as to why one company gets chosen to work with AMD on Mantle's first iterations, and another one doesn't. Maybe you are right and Bohemia are tied too closely in to Nvidia. Maybe it's because the engine isn't very suitable for re-engineering. Maybe it's a thousand other reasons.

It's certainly going to have no impact on the release of a Mantle SDK when it's finished, so you can't really tie the two together.

Calin Banc · 8 Mar 2014 at 12:58

Exactly Frosty, the ArmA series has a lot of rendering to do, even Take On Helicopters. AI bottleneck is just one, but the rendering is there as well. Just up the view and object distance and the FPS and GPU usage drops. Overall, I think ArmA is the BEST example they could have used. Of course, they might have looked at sells as well, not just functionality: Thief and BF would sell more than ArmA which equals better exposer.

As an idea, I've got 99% usage on the GPU and about 45fps in BF4 in a certain situation under DX while Mantle gave me close to 65-68fps at the same 99%. Just a mention to show that although your GPU or CPU might be used, it most certainly doesn't mean it's used efficiently.

Silent_Scone · 8 Mar 2014 at 13:11

Steampunk said:
That really doesn't change your original assertion that there will never be a Mantle SDK, and that isn't backed up just because Bohemia didn't get on the alpha access.

As I said there are probably many other reasons (none of which we are privy to) as to why one company gets chosen to work with AMD on Mantle's first iterations, and another one doesn't. Maybe you are right and Bohemia are tied too closely in to Nvidia. Maybe it's because the engine isn't very suitable for re-engineering. Maybe it's a thousand other reasons.

It's certainly going to have no impact on the release of a Mantle SDK when it's finished, so you can't really tie the two together.

Money, why else.

Steampunk · 8 Mar 2014 at 13:46

MjFrosty said:
Money, why else.

Another meaningless one line response from you. One that still makes no sense.

How is AMD going to make money by stunting the growth of one of their product's major unique selling points? One that they are actually using to leverage their otherwise low-performing CPUs/APUs into performance parity with Intel for gaming?

Do you even know what kind of chaos can be caused to a product by releasing an unfinished and changing API out to the main marketplace? No company in their right mind would screw themselves over that way, yet you're claiming by not doing this it proves some sort of undefined doom and gloom for the future.

At this point, you're just spreading FUD and trolling.

LtMatt · 8 Mar 2014 at 13:48

Steampunk said:
At this point, you're just spreading FUD and trolling.

Par for the course with that user.

Ian Evey · 8 Mar 2014 at 14:12

LtMatt said:
Par for the course with that user.

No one more so than yourself mate.

LtMatt · 8 Mar 2014 at 14:21

Ian Evey said:
No one more so than yourself mate.

I help others as much as i can here.

Ian Evey · 8 Mar 2014 at 14:33

LtMatt said:
I help others as much as i can here.

So do most people, I was just quoting you as your not that innocent in posting on things you believe strongly towards, albeit anything to do with amd being shown in the best light.

Silent_Scone · 8 Mar 2014 at 15:11

Steampunk said:
Another meaningless one line response from you. One that still makes no sense.

How is AMD going to make money by stunting the growth of one of their product's major unique selling points? One that they are actually using to leverage their otherwise low-performing CPUs/APUs into performance parity with Intel for gaming?

Do you even know what kind of chaos can be caused to a product by releasing an unfinished and changing API out to the main marketplace? No company in their right mind would screw themselves over that way, yet you're claiming by not doing this it proves some sort of undefined doom and gloom for the future.

At this point, you're just spreading FUD and trolling.

Makes perfect sense. You know what corporations thrive on, right? You went off on a tangent there didn't you lol. It's all about investment why would they want Arma when it only sold 20,000 copies before DayZ. It's a niece genre. However the engine would still greatly benefit from Mantle. Hell of a lot more than Unreal Engine 3.0

Gregster · 8 Mar 2014 at 15:11

Keep it friendly Steampunk and Matt please. Debates are good

Steampunk · 8 Mar 2014 at 15:16

MjFrosty said:
Makes perfect sense. You know what corporations thrive on, right? You went off on a tangent there didn't you lol. It's all about investment why would they want Arma when it only sold 20,000 copies before DayZ. It's a niece genre. However the engine would still greatly benefit from Mantle. Hell of a lot more than Unreal Engine 3.0

And how does that prove there's never going to be a Mantle SDK as you claim? How is it more beneficial for AMD to deal with Bohemia for an alpha product still in development, when instead they could deal with someone using one of the most popular middleware engines? How does it help the majority of AMDs customers when even you state ARMA a niche game and hasn't sold many copies?

Calin Banc · 8 Mar 2014 at 15:30

MjFrosty said:
Makes perfect sense. You know what corporations thrive on, right? You went off on a tangent there didn't you lol. It's all about investment why would they want Arma when it only sold 20,000 copies before DayZ. It's a niece genre. However the engine would still greatly benefit from Mantle. Hell of a lot more than Unreal Engine 3.0

Actually ArmA 2 sold like 1 million before Day Z and 1 million more in roughly 2-3 months after the mod came out. Stand Alone should be anywhere between 1-2 million at the moment. Considering it runs like pants, Mantle would improve a lot.

Silent_Scone · 8 Mar 2014 at 15:41

Steampunk said:
And how does that prove there's never going to be a Mantle SDK as you claim? How is it more beneficial for AMD to deal with Bohemia for an alpha product still in development, when instead they could deal with someone using one of the most popular middleware engines? How does it help the majority of AMDs customers when even you state ARMA a niche game and hasn't sold many copies?

Unreal Engine 3 has already been superseded. And how would it benefit? You're aware of how alpha testing works I take it? And the fundamental reasoning for it?

If you're so sure you can simply pipe down and hold me to my bet

.

tommybhoy · 8 Mar 2014 at 16:18

Lol, arguing over who should get access to Mantle, it's as simple as GE partners get access to Mantle regardless whether it's Frostbite/UE3 or whatever, Bohemia aren't GE partners, simple.

I enjoy reading how Mantle is **** in the one hand but would improve something else that can't get access-from the very same people, funny funny fart times indeed.

Eidos have other titles in development that use other engines than UE3, I'm guessing Thief Mantle integration is simply Nixxes first introduction with Mantle, then they will be good to go for future Mantle intregation.

Yes A3 would benefit Mantle-or not if your a hard core fanboi as they keep informing that it's rubbish/broken/dead.

Mantle isn't going to bring anything to the table in Thief for 290 series users to make it any more playable as it's silly fps in the first place- probably nothing much for 7 series users either.

It will probably only be of real benefit to apu/lower powered GCN users with Thief.