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

shankly1985 · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:11

MjFrosty said:
Follow AMDs lead on what exactly? GCN?

Oh my lord - it's bad enough it's derailed into a Mantle thread. Nevermind the fact Kepler is super old and still dominates leader boards the world round. Begrudgingly wouldn't come close lol.

How it derailed? I clearly see Mantle in the thread title

Atm we all really don't know what Amd or even Microsoft will be doing. But it is very exciting stuff.

Silent_Scone · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:15

humbug said:
Lets not dumb this down to whose better "AMD vs Nvidia" its so depressing that a thread seemingly hasto be dragged so low into the gutter.

If Intel / Nvidia are not currently compatible with DX12 they may have to change their architecture, Normally this is done during DX development but on this occasion DX12 looks to be based on an existing architecture.

Its retrospective. Thats all i'm saying.

No, it's very relevant. Dumbing down doesn't even come close. Suggesting other vendors should follow in the foot steps of AMDs GCN is slightly hilarious. You're going from one extreme to the other from being tied into Direct3D to some thing else. I thought Mantles versatility meant that it can be adopted to suit any architecture.

TheRealDeal · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:16

shankly1985 said:
How it derailed? I clearly see Mantle in the thread title
Atm we all really don't know what Amd or even Microsoft will be doing. But it is very exciting stuff.

Yea it clearly says mantle is dead on arrival. If some of this recent speculation is true then the thread title is way off.

MjFrosty said:
No, it's very relevant. Dumbing down doesn't even come close. Suggesting other vendors should follow in the foot steps of AMDs GCN is slightly hilarious.

Yea Nvidia would not need to copy or get close to GCN as that AMD slide clearly says mantle is designed to be forward compatible and most of todays modern gpu's already support the majority of mantle functions.

Silent_Scone · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:23

Yes, I'd forgotten about the thread title

. But that's just WCCFT at their usual. Does explain the need for some to validate so much

Gregster · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:24

There is some proper chicken counting going on here before the eggs have even hatched. Speculation and guesswork is good but I can't believe the Microsoft will be side by side with AMD and nVidia will have to do the following.... Not gonna happen chaps

Edit:

I still hope Mantle is going to be used by nVidia but I hope to God that nVidia get to control it. I would pack up gaming if AMD were in charge of sorting out optimisations for nVidia users. And I am not joking.

humbug · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:28

MjFrosty said:
No, it's very relevant. Dumbing down doesn't even come close. Suggesting other vendors should follow in the foot steps of AMDs GCN is slightly hilarious. You're going from one extreme to the other from being tied into Direct3D to some thing else. I thought Mantles versatility meant that it can be adopted to suit any architecture.

I said they may have to, its my opinion based on an understanding, my opinion and understanding may be wrong.

Its Mantles architects and sponsors who are partnering with MS to develop DX12. Namely Dan Baker (Oxide), Johan Andersson (DICE) and Dave Oldcorn (AMD)
Add to that DX12 is also being developed for the xBox One, also an AMD architecture.

Given that Nvidia's architecture is quite different to AMD's its quite reasonable to speculate they may have to make some changes, Given that it is AMD and crew who are developing DX12 with MS its reasonable to suggest Nvidia may need input from them.

Its simply Horses for Courses.

TheRealDeal · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:28

Gregster said:
There is some proper chicken counting going on here before the eggs have even hatched. Speculation and guesswork is good but I can't believe the Microsoft will be side by side with AMD and nVidia will have to do the following.... Not gonna happen chaps

I am definitely taking all this speculation with a pinch of salt. If mantle does get into dx though Nvidia will have to support it as it would be in there best interests. It does not sound like they would have to do much to fully support it though and i doubt they would have to change there architecture much in the process.

Steampunk · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:30

Gregster said:
I still hope Mantle is going to be used by nVidia but I hope to God that nVidia get to control it. I would pack up gaming if AMD were in charge of sorting out optimisations for nVidia users. And I am not joking.

If Nvidia were in charge, it would likely be closed and tied to their own hardware only, like PhysX, CUDA or Gameworks. They wouldn't give away commercial benefits under any circumstances because they think they are big enough to go it alone. It's ironic given that they see themselves moving away from the PC gaming market, but they don't give up any advantage, ever.

Gregster · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:35

Steampunk said:
If Nvidia were in charge, it would likely be closed and tied to their own hardware only, like PhysX, CUDA or Gameworks. They wouldn't give away commercial benefits under any circumstances because they think they are big enough to go it alone. It's ironic given that they see themselves moving away from the PC gaming market, but they don't give up any advantage, ever.

Where have they ever hinted at moving away from the PC gaming market? It is their bread and butter.

Steampunk · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:35

TheRealDeal said:
I am definitely taking all this speculation with a pinch of salt. If mantle does get into dx though Nvidia will have to support it as it would be in there best interests. It does not sound like they would have to do much to fully support it though and i doubt they would have to change there architecture much in the process.

Nvidia wouldn't have to support it. Nvidia couldn't label their cards DX 12, but they could just ignore it and hope that developers would then ignore those features in AMD cards. They've done it before with DX10 and earlier stuff like SM 3.0.

The market it different today though. AMD having PC, XBone and PS4 hardware has given AMD a lot of leverage that makes it attractive for developers to use their hardware regardless of what Nvidia can supply (or not).

Steampunk · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:40

Gregster said:
Where have they ever hinted at moving away from the PC gaming market? It is their bread and butter.

Their bread and butter is the Quadro professional PC market. They see PC sales as falling, and have spent a lot of time in the last couple of years talking about moving to mobile (phones and tablets), and embedded products for vehicles. Nvidia don't do chipsets any more, Intel has taken the low end for graphics, AMD has the consoles, mining and a chunk of the gaming market. Nvidia owns the Quadro/pro market and makes a lot of cash from it.

Look at their financial calls and see where Nvidia see the PC market going and where they see the future markets/money coming from. PC gaming isn't the future for them. They are far more interested in Shield and Tegra running Android.

Gregster · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:43

Steampunk said:
Their bread and butter is the Quadro professional PC market. They see PC sales as falling, and have spent a lot of time in the last couple of years talking about moving to mobile (phones and tablets), and embedded products for vehicles. Nvidia don't do chipsets any more, Intel has taken the low end for graphics, AMD has the consoles, mining and a chunk of the gaming market. Nvidia owns the Quadro/pro market and makes a lot of cash from it.

I would like to see some proof of that, as every tech conference i have watched, nVidia have always claimed that the GPU gaming market is where their passion is and never once have I seen anything to make me think they are moving away from it.

Silent_Scone · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:47

All this scraping the barrel with console hardware is wearing thin.

As far as the PC is concerned, any relevance to consoles is null and void. Any marketing spin that Mantle is comparable due to architectural tie ins was quickly squashed by Microsoft last year. Both PS4s proprietary OGL API and Xbones DX are built specifically to cater for the hardware. Mantle has no relevance to these consoles other than AMDs brief interest arousing presentation slides and most likely a few abstract layers of code

Currently and for the forseable future, AMD having hardware in consoles means little to developers, it doesn't make them any more inclined to work with Mantle for cross platform development. Because Mantle isn't in consoles

humbug · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:49

MjFrosty said:
All this scraping the barrel with console hardware is wearing thin.

As far as the PC is concerned, any relevance to consoles is null and void. Any marketing spin that Mantle is comparable due to architectural tie ins was quickly squashed by Microsoft last year. Both PS4s proprietary OGL API and Xbones DX are built specifically to cater for the hardware. Mantle has no relevance to these consoles other than AMDs brief interest arousing presentation slides.

Currently and for the forseable future, AMD having hardware in consoles means little to developers, it doesn't make them any more inclined to work with Mantle for cross platform development.

And yet the evidence would seem to contradict that.

Its got Microsoft buttering up to Mantles proprietors, what that actually translates to should be reviled on the 20'th, Mircosoft are looking to change the XB1 API. they have made that clear.

Gregster · 13 Mar 2014 at 12:55

humbug said:
Its got Microsoft buttering up to Mantles proprietors, what that actually translates to should be reviled on the 20'th.

Sorry but that doesn't make sense to me

Are you saying that Microsoft are buttering up AMD to use Mantle?

shankly1985 · 13 Mar 2014 at 13:00

MjFrosty said:
All this scraping the barrel with console hardware is wearing thin.

As far as the PC is concerned, any relevance to consoles is null and void. Any marketing spin that Mantle is comparable due to architectural tie ins was quickly squashed by Microsoft last year. Both PS4s proprietary OGL API and Xbones DX are built specifically to cater for the hardware. Mantle has no relevance to these consoles other than AMDs brief interest arousing presentation slides and most likely a few abstract layers of code

Currently and for the forseable future, AMD having hardware in consoles means little to developers, it doesn't make them any more inclined to work with Mantle for cross platform development. Because Mantle isn't in consoles

It's been said countless times that the Code Devs use on the console is much the same as the PC code.

“What Mantle creates for the PC is a development environment that’s *similar* to the consoles, which already offer low-level APIs, close-to-metal programming, easier development and more (vs. the complicated PC environment). By creating a more console-like developer environment, Mantle: improves time to market; reduces development costs; and allows for considerably more efficient rendering, improving performance for gamers. The console connection is made because next-gen uses Radeon, so much of the programming they’re doing for the consoles are already well-suited to a modern Radeon architecture on the desktop; that continuum is what allows Mantle to exist.”

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/am...xclusive_to_pc_not_present_on_xbox_one,2.html

humbug · 13 Mar 2014 at 13:03

Gregster said:
Sorry but that doesn't make sense to me Are you saying that Microsoft are buttering up AMD to use Mantle?

I'm saying that MS forming a partnership with Mantles creators to change the XB1 API / update DX is a good indication that MS are looking to the expertise they have, this could mean the integration of Mantle into the XB1 API / DX12, be it partly, entirely or more advanced.

Either way Mantle, or a low level API in differing form, one way or another will be the end result.

Mantle is simply a low level API with a name, this could perform extra functions with some more development work, or not. whatever it may be its Mantle under another name.

Something that is very long over due.

Silent_Scone · 13 Mar 2014 at 13:08

Shanks, similar functionality doesn't imply similarity of code. Again, XBone uses derrived DX11.2 with superset instructions for the consoles hardware. I think this is where people get confused. Tiled resources for example, a feature of DX11.2 and something that Mantle is very much capable of. But the two APIs at a core level couldn't be further apart. Implying they are goes against everything people have been saying about Mantle being built from the core up for today's benefits and DX being the withered paper pile it is today.

Goes back to me saying don't believe everything an AMD representative tells you. The people behind the magic more often than not, wouldn't tell you anything close to what is on those slides. They're telling you what you want to hear. (NV are obviously just as susceptible to this)

AMD: "Here's our GPU, and some reasons why it will work very well for you"

MS: "Sweet, thanks. We'll tie these in with our console derived DX API".

Mantle:___________________________________________________________________________> All the way over here

The end.

shankly1985 · 13 Mar 2014 at 13:14

MjFrosty said:
Shanks, similar functionality doesn't imply similarity of code. Again, XBone uses derrived DX11.2 with superset instructions for the consoles hardware. I think this is where people get confused. Tiled resources for example, a feature of DX11.2 and something that Mantle is very much capable of. But the two APIs at a core level couldn't be further apart. Implying they are goes against everything people have been saying about Mantle being built from the core up for today's benefits and DX being the withered paper pile it is today.

AMD: "Here's our GPU, and some reasons why it will work very well for you"

MS: "Sweet, thanks. We'll tie these in with our console derived DX API".

Mantle:___________________________________________________________________________> All the way over here

The end.

I believe the code they talking about is what lies in GCN more so then the API. I have seen couple times AMD stating because of the GCN in the console is what helps development of Mantle on PC when porting games.

"In short, Mantle is a new and better way to bring the code developers are already writing for next-generation consoles to life on the PC. It achieves this by being similar to, and often compatible with, the code they are already writing for those platforms. The ultimate goal of Mantle is to give gamers the ultimate performance in compatible games, and doing that in such a way that developers are free to put forth whatever effort is required to ensure optimal performance for competing platforms."

http://community.amd.com/community/...0/17/the-four-core-principles-of-amd-s-mantle

humbug · 13 Mar 2014 at 13:18

MjFrosty said:
Shanks, similar functionality doesn't imply similarity of code. Again, XBone uses derrived DX11.2 with superset instructions for the consoles hardware. I think this is where people get confused. Tiled resources for example, a feature of DX11.2 and something that Mantle is very much capable of. But the two APIs at a core level couldn't be further apart. Implying they are goes against everything people have been saying about Mantle being built from the core up for today's benefits and DX being the withered paper pile it is today.

AMD: "Here's our GPU, and some reasons why it will work very well for you"

MS "Sweet, thanks. We'll tie these in with our console derived DX API".

The end.

Boomstick posted an article in this thread 'i think' about the fact that MS are looking to integrate DX12 into the XB1, described as a low level access API similar to Mantle, this was before the announcement thats it actually AMD and Mantles sponsors who are going to be working with Mircosoft on this.

AMD and crew are not going to do this if MS don't agree to cross platform the benefits of that, IE similar to Mantle low level access DX12 on the PC, their whole propose in this is to get a Mantle like API on the PC in the mainstream, it looks like they have found a way to get what they want.