AMD: More Mantle Games Are On The Way

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Hello PC gaming fans! With the recent announcement of widespread availability of the entire AMD Radeon™ R9 Series graphics lineup at original suggested list prices, there could hardly be a better time to get your game on with AMD. This week we’re focusing on one of the AMD Radeon R9 Series graphics cards’ most compelling attributes: Mantle API support. Mantle is already enjoying rapid industry adoption, but there are a few recent developments that are once again causing Mantle to make news in the media:

  • On March 19 we announced a technology partnership that will add Mantle support to CRYENGINE® — the game engine behind blockbuster titles like Crysis and FarCry.
  • On March 20 Microsoft announced DirectX® 12, the next major evolution of its own game API. This is terrific news because it really draws attention to the value of low-level programming and Mantle’s leading contribution. With DirectX 12 games still over 18 months away and no alternatives in sight for Linux gamers, Mantle’s future looks bright.
  • On April 14 we announced that the upcoming release of Sid Meier’s Civilization®: Beyond Earth will support Mantle. In case you’re not familiar with the series, the current iteration is Civilization V, which, despite being nearly four years old, remains the sixth most played game according to Steam1. With Mantle in its arsenal, the next installment could be even bigger.
  • On April 16 we published a Mantle whitepaper, giving developers and enthusiast gamers a deep, technical insight into the technology. Have a look to find out how Mantle delivers such dramatic performance increases.
  • On May 1 we launched the Mantle SDK beta, which made Mantle available to a much greater number and variety of game developers. That should help accelerate the proliferation of Mantle-enabled game titles.
  • On June 9 EA announced that three of its upcoming games would support Mantle: Battlefield Hardline, Dragon Age Inquisition and Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare. Each of these brings new features, maps and gameplay to already-popular franchises. If the results we saw with Mantle in Battlefield 4 are anything to go by, these games should absolutely fly on AMD Radeon™ hardware.
 
On March 20 Microsoft announced DirectX® 12, the next major evolution of its own game API. This is terrific news because it really draws attention to the value of low-level programming and Mantle’s leading contribution. With DirectX 12 games still over 18 months away and no alternatives in sight for Linux gamers, Mantle’s future looks bright.
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How is it good that Linux doesn't have Mantle?
 
More Mantle Games Are On The Way

Like the sound of that! 3 more games on the way, looking like good ones too!


Now AMD says something cryptic ... "With DirectX 12 games still over 18 months away and no alternatives in sight for Linux gamers, Mantle’s future looks bright."


Hmm... Steam just releases Civilization V for SteamOS. (through Aspyr)

Firaxis is liking Mantle, a lot!.

I'd wager a good group of people are working very, VERY hard porting an API! :)
 
hah good luck getting AMD cards to WORK at all on *nix os
 
Fuck Mantle. Runs like shit on my twin 290 Xfire setup. I get LOWER frames in mantle in BF4 then I do using Direct X. I was all over Mantle like crazy last year. Now I wont touch it with a ten foot poll.
 
Elios said:
hah good luck getting AMD cards to WORK at all on *nix os
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Yeah, I fully agree.
They do "work", but the drivers are horrendous and completely unstable for anything beyond 2D or very basic 3D.

For *NIX OSes, NVIDIA and Intel are the way to go for GPU hardware and drivers.
 
AMD: With the recent announcement of widespread availability of the entire AMD Radeon™ R9 Series graphics lineup at original suggested list prices
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Oh I'm sorry were you concerned some of your customers may have walked away after letting your products be gouged across the internet? Had I been in upgrade territory I would have switched to Nvidia, and who knows how much more of their product I may have decided to depend on. Dumb move letting your loyal fanbase get squeezed out of the market AMD.

Lucky for you I'll probably buy an R9 anyway now :D
 
Red Falcon said:
Yeah, I fully agree.
They do "work", but the drivers are horrendous and completely unstable for anything beyond 2D or very basic 3D.

For *NIX OSes, NVIDIA and Intel are the way to go for GPU hardware and drivers.
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My AMD graphics card works fine in Linux. I even use the open source drivers.
 
BF4 is a bad game to use as a comparison. My friends and I have had bad experiences with it regardless of the API we were using.
 
And this is why I can't feel sorry for AMD about NVIDIA working out partnership deals on GameWorks enabled titles. AMD is trying to intentionally push API-level fragmentation onto the PC market.
 
DirectX 12 can’t come soon enough to put this whole Mantle thing in the ground and let developers focus on making their games, not making their games twice. Or, you know, we could just try to get AMD to care about OpenGL for once in its life instead of deciding it needs to be a special snowflake.
 
DPI said:
And this is why I can't feel sorry for AMD about NVIDIA working out partnership deals on GameWorks enabled titles. AMD is trying to intentionally push API-level fragmentation onto the PC market.
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It's not a fragmentation. It's not hardware specific and can be used across platform.

Only if nVidia allows it to run on their hardware, that's their problem.
 
The 290X left a bad taste in my mouth. 3 rma's and the problems got worse each time, went with a 780ti and wish now I would have bought it in the first place. So buttery smooth, and the DX performance is just as good as mantle from what I've seen. I sold the working r9 290x the second i got it back. Thanks for selling me on the asus dcII, the card is a buggy POS.
 
shansoft said:
It's not a fragmentation. It's not hardware specific and can be used across platform.

Only if nVidia allows it to run on their hardware, that's their problem.
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Bullshit. Only way Nvidia could only “adapt” their new cards to work with it would be reverse engineering AMD’s architecture. Which would in turn leave them constantly a step behind because AMD was setting the de facto standard by controlling the API. It would be GeForce 5xxx’s all over again, with ATI’s Radeon 9800 setting the gold standard implementation of DirectX 9, leaving developers ignoring features Nvidia was trying to implement (like double precision, which was actually pretty cool but nobody wanted to use it because they’d been coding the engine on 9800′s for months or a year by that point).

Fortunately Mantle isn't really gaining any traction, and that doesn't appear like its going to changed.
 
DPI said:
Bullshit. Only way Nvidia could only “adapt” their new cards to work with it would be reverse engineering AMD’s architecture. Which would in turn leave them constantly a step behind because AMD was setting the de facto standard by controlling the API. It would be GeForce 5xxx’s all over again, with ATI’s Radeon 9800 setting the gold standard implementation of DirectX 9, leaving developers ignoring features Nvidia was trying to implement (like double precision, which was actually pretty cool but nobody wanted to use it because they’d been coding the engine on 9800′s for months or a year by that point).
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Mantle, like DirectX 12 has an abstraction layer and as such it can work on any highly programmable graphics architecture. The only thing NVidia needs is the Mantle SDK and they could write a driver for it.

Also, keep in mind that designing Mantle for GCN only would mean major work whenever they change the graphics architecture. It would be stupid.

DPI said:
Fortunately Mantle isn't really gaining any traction, and that doesn't appear like its going to changed.
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Mantle is now on track to exceed DX11's 1st year adoption.
 
I would like to add I have had a flawless experience with Mantle on BF4 using dual 290's. Smooth and sexy framerates in the 100+ range on my overclocked 1440p monitor are the norm. Just chiming in to let people know not everyone is having problems.
 
McFry said:
Oh I'm sorry were you concerned some of your customers may have walked away after letting your products be gouged across the internet?
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At least AMD doesn't charge $1,000- $3,000 MSRP for their flagship single GPU cards. So you're mad that market forces drove up the going rate for 290's.... when nVidia tells you to your face they're going to rape you. Pretty ironic.
 
I guess this is good for AMD and everything, but I think the last thing anyone wants to think about in the summer when it's all yucky hot is turning on a dinosaur-sized desktop with an obnoxiously huge graphics card in it that will emit tons of unnecessary heat. I don't even wanna turn on a full sized laptop and am using my netbook most of the time. Hopefully, Mantle will make a difference in their lower end CPUs with integrated graphics like the E-series stuff because not many people care in the least to have a full sized laptop, let alone touch dead end technology like desktops that require more than 100 watts just to open an e-mail.
 
cdr_74_premium said:
That's why I have a gaming monster (per local standards) and a AMD C-60 desktop.
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I'd like to get one in laptop form factor. :) They're a pretty big upgrade form a single core Atom with a GMA 950/3150 and only need like 9 watts of power. In the US there are a lot of 15.6 inch laptops around with C-series processors in them, but I'd much prefer something around 11-12 inches that's easier to carry. It's mostly me being picky that's stopping me from finding one on ebay to replace my netbook.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
I guess this is good for AMD and everything, but I think the last thing anyone wants to think about in the summer when it's all yucky hot is turning on a dinosaur-sized desktop with an obnoxiously huge graphics card in it that will emit tons of unnecessary heat. I don't even wanna turn on a full sized laptop and am using my netbook most of the time. Hopefully, Mantle will make a difference in their lower end CPUs with integrated graphics like the E-series stuff because not many people care in the least to have a full sized laptop, let alone touch dead end technology like desktops that require more than 100 watts just to open an e-mail.
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Considering the different power saving modes built into most hardware and OS's this seems a bit over the top. Granted, a desktop is always going to draw more than a netbook. And since when have desktops become "dead end technology"?
 
Ashbringer said:
My AMD graphics card works fine in Linux. I even use the open source drivers.
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Define "works fine", are you able to actually do anything 3D intensive with them?
As I said, they work for 2D and very basic 3D.
 
pcjunkie said:
Yes, I play D3 and a couple other OpengL fps games...keep trying to bash it though.
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I'm not trying to bash it, just stating the obvious.
If they work for you, that's great, I'm happy for you.

It's just that I've seen those drivers actually break quite a few systems, and have never seen that with NVIDIA or Intel GPU drivers.
AMD is doing a nice job in the GPU market, but their Linux GPU drivers leave a lot to be desired.
 
No issues with Open Source or proprietary AMD drivers on Linux. The problem I had was browsers that did not want to enable acceleration because it was unstable, but I forced them to and they are rock solid.
 
In my limited ventures into Linux, I never had an issue with AMD drivers either. As more AAA titles make their way to Linux, things should get even better!
 
Red Falcon said:
I'm not trying to bash it, just stating the obvious.
If they work for you, that's great, I'm happy for you.

It's just that I've seen those drivers actually break quite a few systems, and have never seen that with NVIDIA or Intel GPU drivers.
AMD is doing a nice job in the GPU market, but their Linux GPU drivers leave a lot to be desired.
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nvidia drivers just tend to burn up your gpu and kill it.
 
no alternatives in sight for Linux gamers
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OpenGL 4.4 (which was announced before Mantle) runs just fine on Linux. AMD marketing is so full of hot air they could be the Hindenburg.
 
Sweet, thanks for the info, guys.
I will have to look into it further.
 
Red Falcon said:
Define "works fine", are you able to actually do anything 3D intensive with them?
As I said, they work for 2D and very basic 3D.
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The AMD Linux open source drivers work fine for both 2D and 3D. Even with graphically intensive games. Performance is lower than with the proprietary driver, and they do not support the latest OpenGL features though.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_cat144_hd56 found that the open source driver currently reaches about 60-80% of the proprietary driver's fps.

PRIME1 said:
no alternatives in sight for Linux gamers
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OpenGL 4.4 (which was announced before Mantle) runs just fine on Linux. AMD marketing is so full of hot air they could be the Hindenburg.
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The statement specifically talked about low-level programming. OpenGL 4.4 does not achieve this.
 
It goes like this with nvidia fanbois:

TWIMTBP game: see? AMD has no power over developers,developers,developers!!!! Nvidia has the power and the dough, so it's more than fair to go the extra mile and get an advantage!

Mantle game: FCUK AMD YOU SHOULD SUPPORT OPENGL INSTEAD
 
Red Falcon said:
I'm not trying to bash it, just stating the obvious.
If they work for you, that's great, I'm happy for you.

It's just that I've seen those drivers actually break quite a few systems, and have never seen that with NVIDIA or Intel GPU drivers.
AMD is doing a nice job in the GPU market, but their Linux GPU drivers leave a lot to be desired.
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Odd
nVidia drivers ended up F'ing up my HDD when they had the bug in Dark Age of Camelot that would reset your PC in the middle of anything graphically intensive.

Lets not forget the overheating GPU killing ones
on and the 8800 GTS days where they would restart your pc as well.
 
shad0w4life said:
Odd
nVidia drivers ended up F'ing up my HDD when they had the bug in Dark Age of Camelot that would reset your PC in the middle of anything graphically intensive.

Lets not forget the overheating GPU killing ones
on and the 8800 GTS days where they would restart your pc as well.
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Or how pretty much every laptop with an 8000 or 9000 series dedicated nVidia chip would fail due to the cracked solder at the die-substrate connections. My brother's ASUS ROG laptop with one of those didn't last two years, and I even warned him when he bought it.

Also, I don't know why so many people claim to have issues with AMD's drivers. If you have problems, roll back and try another version. nVidia certainly has their share of random bugs in their drivers and the solution is always the same. Compared to AMD's gpu drivers, I've had more problems with non-intel ethernet and realtek/via audio - those should be much simpler than a graphics driver but they still don't get it right.
 
Red Falcon said:
Define "works fine", are you able to actually do anything 3D intensive with them?
As I said, they work for 2D and very basic 3D.
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Played Portal 1 & 2 start to finish. Playing Mass Effect 1 through Wine. World of Warcraft through Wine.

Again, latest open source drivers on a Radeon HD 6370M. Not even using Catalyst.
 
Ashbringer said:
Played Portal 1 & 2 start to finish. Playing Mass Effect 1 through Wine. World of Warcraft through Wine.

Again, latest open source drivers on a Radeon HD 6370M. Not even using Catalyst.
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Good to know.
I'm glad things are working well across the board for everyone.

I'll have to give their newest drivers a try.
 
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