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The Next Generation of Graphics APIs

From here ; http://www.techradar.com/news/compu...g-api-to-become-the-industry-standard-1218560

About going "Open"
It's a nice sentiment, but does that mean AMD is willing to allow an entity traditionally viewed from behind enemy lines make use of Mantle?
"It's hard to say," Hallock said. "If we want it to be an industry-wide API or inspire an industry-wide API, that would mean adoption from Nvidia in some way, shape or form. I can't speak from an architectural level what that would require of them to change."
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It's almost too easy to extrapolate Nvidia need to make technical changes.
Unless Bazza knows more than Hallock?
 
LtMatt said:
But we have multiple devs, not amd, saying that is not the case. I see no reason to doubt them.
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I have seen no statements from developers other than Josh Barczak claiming that "there are no technical hurdles" involved with standardizing Mantle. Maybe I'll have a search later to see if I can find anyone else saying something similar.
 
LtMatt said:
Mantle will become open, in time.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm not going to take that as gospel.
It's not just a tick box of be "open".

If it was open, it wouldn't just be GCN specific, the very fact that it has different results between GCN 1st gen and GCN 2nd gen factually shows this. If you want to bury your head in the sand, be my guest, ignoring the fact that it doesn't work on AMD's 6970 which is a crap ton closer to GCN than anything Nvidia have cooking.

As an aside, adding support (As in coding Mantle to "target" Nvidia's architecture) doesn't make it open either.

And that again is backed up by quote ;

Hallock explained that while it's currently dependent on GCN, Mantle "utilizes a certain level of meaningful hardware abstraction that could eventually allow it to be applicable to other architectures."
"Such applicability," he continued, "is necessary in an ecosystem we hope to grow as an industry standard in the years ahead."
Click to expand...
 
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It's blindingly obvious that it's currently tied into their architecture. Not to mention it's only available to GCN cards anyway currently. Not sure how anyone could think otherwise. Nvidia would have to spend copious man hours either adopting code to what I'd imagine work with Mantle as apposed to for it, or they'd have to make changes to their own architecture. Both of which is a huge expense. An unnessessary one now that large areas of DirectX are being rewritten for the same effect. Mantle is a dead end show as far as I'm concerned, and that's only being realistic.
 
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Martini1991 said:
From here ; http://www.techradar.com/news/compu...g-api-to-become-the-industry-standard-1218560

About going "Open"


It's almost too easy to extrapolate Nvidia need to make technical changes.
Unless Bazza knows more than Hallock?
Click to expand...

That neither confirms nor denies though Martini. I can dig up several different sources from AMD that state the future plans for Mantle and they all involve it being open and standardised once its finalised. I can probably get a reply from Robert Hallock as well if needed.
 
MjFrosty said:
It's blindingly obvious that it's currently tied into their architecture. Not to mention it's only available to GCN cards anyway currently. Not sure how anyone could think otherwise.
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Which is exactly what I was trying to explain to Matt :)

How can there be "no technical hurdles" if Mantle needs to be extended to other hardware architectures?
 
Quite simply because AMD say its not tied to GCN and they along with game developers created Mantle. Why would they say this if its not true? Who knows more, ocuk forum experts or people that created the API? It makes no sense. Multiple game devs using Mantle say the same. It can be adopted by other vendors. Its only GCN at the moment because Mantle is still in beta.

Slide from the Mantle presentation

iD5OJ1g.jpg
 
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Mantle from the moment it became available in Battlefield 4 is being marketed as beneficial to those who will gain from excessive CPU overhead, removing this results in a much smoother experience for them, and also improves frame latency. Things that are currently being worked on within DirectX 12. What pushed Microsoft to tackle this is of no concern, the fact is they're finally listening, and going back to drawing board with large parts of the API. From what I've been told from those who've had their hands on the development kits though, it does require extensive work on already existing engines (e.g. for example the recent UE4). Now why this is, is still unknown to me. I'm not a developer nor do I pretend to be. That said, I think it's a clear sign of massive restructuring. If Mantle is so easy to translate from DX11, then maybe it simply does not differ all that much from the API we currently already have, minus the strings that have been optimised for GCN and overhead improvements. Ones of which Nvidia have quite clearly demonstrated in their new driver branch.
 
LtMatt said:
<Slide from the Mantle presentation>
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That slide is a bit vague though, they say "Mantle is not tied to GCN" but as far as I'm aware AMD have not programmed for other architectures thus far (that would essentially require Nvidia approval, of course).

Also, "most Mantle functionality can be supported on today's modern GPUs", by that do they mean modern AMD GPUs based on the GCN architecture because Mantle definitely wouldn't work on Nvidia GPUs without a group of programmers doing quite a bit of work and collaboration.

See, my main issue here is with Barczak's statement more than anything, as I explained previously. I don't deny that Mantle could be extended to other hardware architectures with different vendors approval, but currently it does not work for them and to say there are no technical hurdles is erroneous.
 
So we're supposed to believe that if Nvidia said "OK" to Mantle AMD could flip a switch and have it working with no technical changes needed? It'd just work, just like that?
As I said, if this is the case it surprises me that someone hasn't just flipped that 'political' switch to make it work with AMD's non-GCN hardware. Matt any word from the people you believe as to why non-GCN cards don't support Mantle? If there are no technical reason for Nvidia not to support it then I can't believe it'd be a technical reason. So that leave political, gain. There's a political reason AMD won't let AMD cards work with Mantle?
Could it be financial? Maybe AMD want customer to buy new cards?
What am I saying, this is AMD who don't want our money do they?
 
There's a lot of speculation in this thread, so let me clear the air by stating the cold, hard facts:

1. Mantle is not specifically tied to Graphics Core Next, though it's obviously optimized in this direction.

2. Mantle has a meaningful, though thin, layer of abstraction that would permit it to be compatible with any modern, programmable (e.g. DX11-11.2) graphics architecture.

4. While Mantle is currently in closed beta for the purposes of rapid development, our intention to release a public SDK by the end of the year would open Mantle to the same extent as any other graphics API. Further adoption beyond that point would be limited only by a hardware vendor's willingness to do so. This would also permit a software vendor to optimize a Mantle render backend for other microarchitectures.

We fully support, and intend to pursue, any action that would broaden the adoption of Mantle and its philosophy of low-overhead game development. It is clear from the comments by Oxide, Firaxis, EA and other developers this is a worthwhile pursuit with clear and positive ramifications for the overall simplicity and robustness of game development.

The facts.

//edit: Added on sentence of clarification in the first paragraph of point #4.
 
Thracks said:
There's a lot of speculation in this thread, so let me clear the air by stating the cold, hard facts:

1. Mantle is not specifically tied to Graphics Core Next, though it's obviously optimized in this direction.

2. Mantle has a meaningful, though thin, layer of abstraction that would permit it to be compatible with any modern, programmable (e.g. DX11-11.2) graphics architecture.

4. While Mantle is currently in closed beta for the purposes of rapid development, our intention to release a public SDK by the end of the year would open Mantle to the same extent as any other graphics API. Further adoption beyond that point would be limited only by a hardware vendor's willingness to do so.

We fully support, and intend to pursue, any action that would broaden the adoption of Mantle and its philosophy of low-overhead game development. It is clear from the comments by Oxide, Firaxis, EA and other developers this is a worthwhile pursuit with clear and positive ramifications for the overall simplicity and robustness of game development.

The facts.
Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing that up. :cool:
 
Thracks said:
There's a lot of speculation in this thread, so let me clear the air by stating the cold, hard facts:

1. Mantle is not specifically tied to Graphics Core Next, though it's obviously optimized in this direction.

2. Mantle has a meaningful, though thin, layer of abstraction that would permit it to be compatible with any modern, programmable (e.g. DX11-11.2) graphics architecture.

4. While Mantle is currently in closed beta for the purposes of rapid development, our intention to release a public SDK by the end of the year would open Mantle to the same extent as any other graphics API. Further adoption beyond that point would be limited only by a hardware vendor's willingness to do so. This would also permit a software vendor to optimize a Mantle render backend for other microarchitectures.

We fully support, and intend to pursue, any action that would broaden the adoption of Mantle and its philosophy of low-overhead game development. It is clear from the comments by Oxide, Firaxis, EA and other developers this is a worthwhile pursuit with clear and positive ramifications for the overall simplicity and robustness of game development.

The facts.

//edit: Added on sentence of clarification in the first paragraph of point #4.
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What are you doing about Multi GPU support ?

None available in Thief

Quadfire is a mess in BF4
 
Kaapstad said:
What are you doing about Multi GPU support ?

None available in Thief

Quadfire is a mess in BF4
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Come on Kaap, ive explained both of those questions to you already in this thread. Do you think he will say anything different to what i did? Crossfire in Mantle cannot be implemented at driver level, its up to the game developer. As for quad fire problems in Mantle in BF4 at 4k, that's down to Dice as well. As you already said though, DX works perfectly, does it not? AMD were responsible for the multi gpu support in DX11, btw.
 
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