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

andybird123 said:
That isnt what I said. Mantle wont be handed off to Game Devs to control, DX is not controlled by Game Devs, it is controlled by Microsoft alone

Mantle would need to be handed off to a third party such as khronos (OpenGL)
There is no single coherent third party that represents Game Devs, so which devs do you hand it off to?
Surely not EA/Dice? that would be madness
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AMD will put the SDK up for download, as they do with all their SDK's, Dynamic 3D shadows, Dynamic lighting, TressFX to name a few.

As Sugarhell said Nvidia can take those SDK's and build their own execution layers into them, as they already have with the aforementioned AMD SDK's.

AMD said the same thing about those technologies, the same what they are saying about Mantle now.

There has never been a problem with AMD making any of their technology available to Nvidia so i don't see why it should be a problem now.

I just don't understand why this is such a big issue for you? you have no reason to be so concerned :)
 
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humbug said:
AMD will put the SDK up for download, as they do with all their SDK's, Dynamic 3D shadows, Dynamic lighting, TressFX to name a few.

As Sugarhell said Nvidia can take those SDK's and build their own execution layers into them, as they already have with the aforementioned AMD SDK's.

AMD said the same thing about those technologies, the same what they are saying about Mantle now.

There has never been a problem with AMD making any of their technology available to Nvidia so i don't see why it should be a problem now.

I just don't understand why this is such a big issue for you? you have no reason to be so concerned :)
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Im not concerned, I was just pointing out that you had made a fundamental mistake in your post(s)

As with this post - their other "technology" you mention are all Dx add ons, so nvidia hardware can run them because they use standard DX code
Nvidia cannot take the mantle SDK (software developers kit - example code on how to USE mantle to make a game) and use that to develop support for Mantle on their hardware - mantle itself contains no support for nvidia hardware

Im not saying this is good or bad, im not arguing with you or attacking anything, just pointing out some facts

An Sdk is like a manual for a DVD player, it tells you how to put a DVD in one end and get pictures out of the other, but it doesnt contain enough information to allow you to reverse engineer the DVD player to play BluRay's
 
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andybird123 said:
Im not concerned, I was just pointing out that you had made a fundamental mistake in your post(s)

As with this post - their other "technology" you mention are all Dx add ons, so nvidia hardware can run them because they use standard DX code
Nvidia cannot take the mantle SDK (software developers kit - example code on how to USE mantle to make a game) and use that to develop support for Mantle on their hardware - mantle itself contains no support for nvidia hardware

Im not saying this is good or bad, im not arguing with you or attacking anything, just pointing out some facts

An Sdk is like a manual for a DVD player, it tells you how to put a DVD in one end and get pictures out of the other, but it doesnt contain enough information to allow you to reverse engineer the DVD player to play BluRay's
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Well, AMD said they will add support in Mantle for all Harware, just as they did with all their other SDK's. :)
 
humbug said:
Well, AMD said they will add support in Mantle for all Harware, just as they did with all their other SDK's. :)
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No, they didnt. :rolleyes:
Mantle is a low level, close to metal API, AMD absolutely cannot add nvidia support to mantle without direct and active participation from nvidia (or a massive abstraction layer, defeating the purpose)

AMD didnt "add support" for nvidia to "their other SDK's", the other libraries are written using standard DX code, so they work on all hardware that supports DX, just as all Gameworks libraries work on all DX hardware

Sugarhell said:
I never claimed that mantle public sdk will be open source too.
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Im not sure if perhaps English isnt your first language, but that is exactly what you said :D
 
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Which is why although NV have adopted all of AMDs current technologies, they won't with Mantle. AMD know this, but part of me genuinely believes that they don't particularly care. Which is fine, right? Since when has Nvidia left any of it technologies open in the same fashion, never since I can remember. Plus leaving the doors closed for longer means they can gather a performance advantage, possibly even with the next generation of GPUS.

Excellent, and why not right? It's theirs, plus they've stated there is every intention of releasing the SDK publicly, albeit with no straight answer as to with what level of control, despite being asked in publication several times. But let's put that aside. NV won't adopt Mantle. NV has gone this long without ever drawing attention to the fact they do dip into AMDs cooking pot. It's never really a talking point as it's always just been there, albeit they've not really got many. Mantle is something that NV will undoubtably want to disappear, and although this is very bad for everyone, it's why AMD have probably out sold themselves as they've done on a few occasions. Couple that with having to spend man hours stripping low level code for their (NV) own architecture, it may transpire it just wouldn't perform as well on alternative hardware.

GDC I think will be key personnel speaking about their experience with GCN on XB1 low level and bringing those features to DX12 on all platforms, but who knows. People have every right to be cynical with Mantle, although 'Mantle is dead' is a little short sighted.
 
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I haven't seen anyone ask what level of control this apparently theoretical SDK will have. These are two entirely separate matters. The SDK AMD will release will be made and controlled by AMD, there is as yet no question of this, I've seen no one question it. Later on at some stage AMD may choose to pass this off to a third party to control, if they do or not we won't know till they do it. We have every reason to believe they will based off a history of doing such things that hurt them but help the industry(gddr of many types, lots of other small things that end up in DX, HSA).

In terms of who it gets handed off to, it doesn't have to be EA/Dice OR Khronos, OR MS, but no other options.

Historically when something like the HSA foundation gets passed off companies nominate someone internally to be their voice in such a foundation. Sometimes these people would say stay an AMD employee, have lots of other responsibilities at the company and the foundation and being their spokes person for it is just part of their job. Sometimes someone will leave said company for a foundation but have their best interests in mind. Sometimes groups of companies will nominate/vote for who gets to be on the board/control. There are loads of ways it could be sorted out and speculating now is frankly silly. The most likely situation is that Khronos is FAR too problematic to get them to add Mantle to what they control. I would say most likely a new group with some AMD, some Nvidia, some Intel(and I suspect they would be a less interested, involved but less interested) guys, some industry guys, some big names, maybe a Carmack, or Gabe, both, neither.

It's basically silly to speculate. By the time Mantle is ready, there may be a better solution, Nvidia may talk to AMD/Intel/some game dev's and say they want a new API , akin to openGL control structure but they refuse it to be Mantle, and a group start something new from the ground up.

They'll release a public SDK, because it's insane not to. They've said they will, the dev's involve expect them to and fundamentally, it's illogical to prevent more dev's being involved. If the end goal was to refuse to bring dev's on board, then every penny being spent on Mantle is a complete waste.

As and when FUTURE SDK releases happen, and under whose control is questionable. When these things happen such api's would usually be pushed into a working state before being handed off. expect a beta sdk, then a final sdk(their early tentative dates were around april/november for beta/final, which I would expect 2-3 months later on each), then IF it gets handed off, expect it to happen sometime after a final SDK is released.
 
drunkenmaster said:
In terms of who it gets handed off to, it doesn't have to be EA/Dice OR Khronos, OR MS, but no other options.
Click to expand...

you'll notice that what I actually said was "it will need to be handed off to a third party", I didn't say it had to be any of these options, my mentioning of khronos was purely as an example of an open (not open source) API that is controlled by a 3rd party that then has interactions with other parties in making and suggesting changes to the API

the person I was responding to said that DX was controlled by "Game Devs" which is patently not true, and that Mantle would also be controlled by these same "Game Devs", again, not possible without founding a new industry group
 
andybird123 said:
you'll notice that what I actually said was "it will need to be handed off to a third party", I didn't say it had to be any of these options, my mentioning of khronos was purely as an example of an open (not open source) API that is controlled by a 3rd party that then has interactions with other parties in making and suggesting changes to the API

the person I was responding to said that DX was controlled by "Game Devs" which is patently not true, and that Mantle would also be controlled by these same "Game Devs", again, not possible without founding a new industry group
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Why does a new industry group need to be formed for Nvidia to adopt Mantle?

Thats madness.
 
One doesn't need to be formed, but if it stays with AMD it would inevitably get messy. That's if they were to adopt it. If it goes anywhere it'll be Khronos imo. Microsoft won't adopt the API, it'll more likely be supersets from XB1 being adopted which all looks very nice on paper
 
MjFrosty said:
One doesn't need to be formed, but if it stays with AMD it would inevitably get messy. That's if they were to adopt it. If it goes anywhere it'll be Khronos imo. Microsoft won't adopt the API, it'll more likely be supersets from XB1 being adopted which all looks very nice on paper
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Microsoft will adopt the API if they want to compete with the PS4.

humbug said:
AMD want Mantle to be mainstream, by mainstream i mean widely used and fully compatible with Nvidia and Intel.

The thing is right now the PS4 is significantly more powerful than the XB1, people know this and its getting slaughtered in the sales by it.

Mircosoft need to respond fast, and cheaply, AMD hold the key to that, which puts them in a dictatorial position, what AMD can say to Miscrosoft is "Mantle in DX12 in its entirety on the Desktop or your on your own"

Which isn't actually a bad thing for MS to go along with, that would create 100% parity with the XB1 and the Desktop, Developers will love that and for Microsoft it puts one over on the PS4 as it would be the odd one out in development terms. Win Win Win.
Click to expand...
 
humbug said:
AMD want Mantle to be mainstream, by mainstream i mean widely used and fully compatible with Nvidia and Intel.

The thing is right now the PS4 is significantly more powerful than the XB1, people know this and its getting slaughtered in the sales by it.

Mircosoft need to respond fast, and cheaply, AMD hold the key to that, which puts them in a dictatorial position, what AMD can say to Miscrosoft is "Mantle in DX12 in its entirety on the Desktop or your on your own"

Which isn't actually a bad thing for MS to go along with, that would create 100% parity with the XB1 and the Desktop, Developers will love that and for Microsoft it puts one over on the PS4 as it would be the odd one out in development terms. Win Win Win.
Click to expand...

Excellent point.
 
Surely the problem with putting Mantle in DX12 doesn't overcome the lack of Intel or Nvidia support/take-up?
No real reason they'd be more likely to support it if it was renamed DirectX 12 than before, unless Microsoft get full control and AMD have no more input than they usually would with DirectX.

In some ways it'd be better if they did come up with their own as historically Nvidia (and Intel) have been more inclined to be compatible with DirectX.
 
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