Posted on 09/26/2013 9:33:50 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Wrapping up our AMD product showcase coverage for the week, AMD’s final announcement for the showcase was a very brief announcement about a new API called Mantle. Mantle is something of an enigma at this point – AMD isn’t saying a whole lot until November with the AMD Developer Summit – and although it’s conceptually simple, the real challenge is trying to understand where it fits into AMD’s product strategy, and perhaps more importantly what brought them to this point in the first place. So although we don’t have all of the necessary details in hand quite yet, we wanted to spend some time breaking down the matters surrounding Mantle as much as we reasonably can.
The best place to start with Mantle iis a high level overview. What is Mantle? Mantle is a new low-level graphics API specifically geared for AMD’s Graphics Core Next architecture. Whereas standard APIs such as OpenGL and Direct3D operate at a high level to provide the necessary abstraction that makes these APIs operate across a wide variety of devices, Mantle is the very opposite. Mantle goes as low as is reasonably possible, with minimal levels of abstraction between the code and the hardware. Mantle is for all practical purposes an API for doing bare metal programming to GCN. The concept itself is simple, and although low-level APIs have been done before, it has been some time since we’ve seen anything like this in the PC space.
(Excerpt) Read more at anandtech.com ...
fyi
The first game to use Mantle will be Battlefield 4,...
*******************************EXCERPT*****************************************
itchytimes - Thursday, September 26, 2013 - link
Amazing move AMD.
They are going for gold.
Game over nvidia...
******************************************EXCERPT*************************************
nathanddrews - Thursday, September 26, 2013 - link
I, for one, welcome our new AMD overlords.
I've got to give AMD credit here. They've been struggling in the desktop CPU space (Intel), aren't competitive in the mobile CPU space (Intel), didn't even show up to the tablet/smartphone space (Samsung, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Intel), in addition to losing a number of design wins against NVIDIA for GPU superiority. I mean, if their new flagship GPU can't consistently beat Titan (rumored)... ouch. Clearly, being the nice guy on the block doesn't pay off anymore:
http://www.ngohq.com/news/16519-amd-senior-manager...
This move to unite their multi-platform GCN architecture is a good move. I have a mix of NVIDIA and AMD GPUs under my roof (mostly NVIDIA), so I'm not completely excited about it if it means Mantle-enabled games don't play well on my non-GCN hardware. However, I assume the measurable, real-world performance will be a lot more like TWIMTBP and less like Glide for the first couple years.
Whoa
This sounds like it could shake up more than just NVidia.
This sounds like something AMD really needed to stay competitive. Or in this case, wipe out some competition.
More from the comments:
**************************************EXCERPT****************************************
ingwe - Thursday, September 26, 2013 - link
This is really fascinating.
I am not sure this will work out for AMD.
If it does though, they should make up a lot of ground in the market (I would think).
*****************************************EXCERPT*****************************************
Tams80 - Thursday, September 26, 2013 - link
It certainly explains why AMD where prepared to go for apparently such low margins on the consoles.
I wonder if Nvidia saw this coming?
***************************************EXCERPT******************************************
krumme - Thursday, September 26, 2013 - link You have to remember who said it was low margins:
Nvidia.
Did they see this comming.
Probably yes.
But they didnt have an x86 cpu.
Did amd knew nv didnt have a x86 cpu.
Well yes.
Is amd in a situation where they can do other than earn money for new products?
No.
They dont have any options.
Its good profit for consoles.
Its good profit for gpu.
It did take some years to get here.
More:
*********************************EXCERPT************************************************
*************************************EXCERPT****************************************
DanNeely - Thursday, September 26, 2013 - link
I'm not sure what you expect them to do?
MS banning AMD from offering anything beyond D3D in its drivers would be a huge anti-trust mess.
*******************************************EXCERPT*************************************
B3an - Thursday, September 26, 2013 - link
Err what do you expect MS to do here?
DirectX is a high level API, and it needs to be in order to work with all the different GPU's for PC. MS couldn't make something to compete with Mantle, as it is a low level API specifically designed for AMD's GCN architecture.
Neither DX or OpenGL could ever compete with a low level graphics API when it comes to performance and getting the most out of a GPU.
Even if games use Mantle, they will also HAVE to continue having DX support as well, in order for them to work on Nvidia and Intel GPU's.
MS already made improvements in Win8 to the desktop, including new DX versions in both 8 and 8.1, with 8.1 having the same DX 11.2 version as the Xbox One. So don't mention that typical uninformed BS about MS focusing just on Metro, because Win8 has more desktop improvements over Win7 than 7 had over Vista.
****************************************EXCERPT******************************************
klagermkii - Thursday, September 26, 2013 - link
There have been some improvements to the desktop in Windows 8, but it's clearly being treated as a legacy environment and Microsoft sees the future as being Modern/Metro. That's why we have Surface, why all of their platforms are taking their interface cues from Modern/Metro (X1/WP/W8). That's where the focus is. The traditional PC desktop is no longer seen as a growth market.
"Neither DX or OpenGL could ever compete with a low level graphics API when it comes to performance and getting the most out of a GPU."
Sure, and that's always been the case. So how did interoperability win out before, when performance would have been more important when it was older, weaker hardware?
"Even if games use Mantle, they will also HAVE to continue having DX support as well, in order for them to work on Nvidia and Intel GPU's."
Yeah, so you have Mantle and DX, one of those two ends up being the primary platform it gets developed towards and it gets ported to the other. If you played Glide and DirectX games you remember how rubbish the DX versions were. I remember Wing Commander: Prophecy when I sold my Voodoo 1 to get a TNT2, and it looked terrible afterwards. Part of that is how immature DX was, but also the developer is only going to go to put in so much work to support a less popular platform.
"Err what do you expect MS to do here?"
What I expect is for them to have developers for the Xbox One write to DirectX rather than writing to Mantle just like they have for all their previous consoles. It allows for easier ports to standard Windows and gives DirectX traction over Mantle. They certainly have control over that as part of their certification process, but from the tone of this article it sounds like they're making Mantle a core API on the console itself.
You say developers would "HAVE to continue having DX support", but that DirectX support could get pretty poor. Sure of the total game playing market on PC, AMD and NVIDIA may be 30% of the market each with Intel being the other 40% (thumb suck numbers), and based on that the developer would split their resources between DX and Mantle. But if they're targeting Xbox One, PS4 and PC the non-AMD portion of that starts looking very small and the amount of work they do on the DX path could correspondingly suffer.
If a Linux computer could have an X-Box type graphics card, do you think games could follow?
Perhaps this new offering to PC and other platforms will prove to be a success. AMD sure taint ready to roll over.
There are a lot of wheels turning in all of this.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.