Mantle Interview With AMD's Guennadi Riguer

[HardOCP News]

PC Perspective sat down today with AMD's chief architect for Mantle and ask him a handful of questions.

The current Mantle solution relies on the same shader generation path games the DirectX uses and includes an open-source component for translating DirectX shaders to Mantle accepted intermediate language (IL). This enables developers to quickly develop Mantle code path without any changes to the shaders. This was one of the strongest requests we got from our ISV partners when we were developing Mantle.

 

[Ashbringer]

Unless AMD does something to open up the API, it won't take off. If you're a developer, the more hardware that supports the API, the better. Right now it's a tool to extend the already aging GCN hardware. Remember, AMD rebranded the 7000 series cards as R7's and R9's. Why, other then to confuse people and prevent prices from dropping? So to further justify this re-branding, they created Mantle. Which does create a substantial performance increase, given that you have a very fast GPU, and given that your cpu is shit.

Worse yet, Mantle doesn't even support their HD 5000/6000 cards. They made it clear that Mantle doesn't require GCN architecture, so why no driver? If the API can be used by Nvidia, then GCN is obviously not required.

Doesn't matter cause most benchmarks show that only the fastest of fastest graphic cards will benefit from Mantle. CrossFire seems to benefit the most. That's not going to make me buy a GCN based graphics card. If you own a 5850/6850 or higher, then there's no good reason to upgrade.

 

[RobT]

Doesn't matter cause most benchmarks show that only the fastest of fastest graphic cards will benefit from Mantle. CrossFire seems to benefit the most. That's not going to make me buy a GCN based graphics card. If you own a 5850/6850 or higher, then there's no good reason to upgrade.

Today's fastest graphics card is the next generation's mid range. With CPU speeds going nowhere in a hurry Mantle will become more important with each new generation.

 

[Meeho]

Right now it's a tool to extend the already aging GCN hardware. Remember, AMD rebranded the 7000 series cards as R7's and R9's. Why, other then to confuse people and prevent prices from dropping? So to further justify this re-branding, they created Mantle.

Really?

 

[dook43]

Unless AMD does something to open up the API, it won't take off. If you're a developer, the more hardware that supports the API, the better. Right now it's a tool to extend the already aging GCN hardware. Remember, AMD rebranded the 7000 series cards as R7's and R9's. Why, other then to confuse people and prevent prices from dropping? So to further justify this re-branding, they created Mantle. Which does create a substantial performance increase, given that you have a very fast GPU, and given that your cpu is shit.

Worse yet, Mantle doesn't even support their HD 5000/6000 cards. They made it clear that Mantle doesn't require GCN architecture, so why no driver? If the API can be used by Nvidia, then GCN is obviously not required.

Doesn't matter cause most benchmarks show that only the fastest of fastest graphic cards will benefit from Mantle. CrossFire seems to benefit the most. That's not going to make me buy a GCN based graphics card. If you own a 5850/6850 or higher, then there's no good reason to upgrade.

A resounding "No" to your entire post.

 

[Lorien]

Unless AMD does something to open up the API, it won't take off.

It has already taken off with more than 20 games currently in development for it. Huge stablished AAA franchises (Battlefield, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge, Star Wars: Battlefront and more) plus greatly anticipated new ones like Star Citizen (the greatest AAA crowd funded game in history, just today it hit $38 million in funding and over 380 thousand pledgers), Thief, Star Control and 2 more games based on Oxide's Nitrous engine, etc.

As for the rest of your post, no

 

[The Mac]

Unless AMD does something to open up the API, it won't take off. If you're a developer, the more hardware that supports the API, the better. Right now it's a tool to extend the already aging GCN hardware. Remember, AMD rebranded the 7000 series cards as R7's and R9's. Why, other then to confuse people and prevent prices from dropping? So to further justify this re-branding, they created Mantle. Which does create a substantial performance increase, given that you have a very fast GPU, and given that your cpu is shit.

Worse yet, Mantle doesn't even support their HD 5000/6000 cards. They made it clear that Mantle doesn't require GCN architecture, so why no driver? If the API can be used by Nvidia, then GCN is obviously not required.

Doesn't matter cause most benchmarks show that only the fastest of fastest graphic cards will benefit from Mantle. CrossFire seems to benefit the most. That's not going to make me buy a GCN based graphics card. If you own a 5850/6850 or higher, then there's no good reason to upgrade.

Wow, dude, lay off the drugs.

i also give this an emphatic no.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

Unless AMD does something to open up the API, it won't take off. If you're a developer, the more hardware that supports the API, the better. Right now it's a tool to extend the already aging GCN hardware. Remember, AMD rebranded the 7000 series cards as R7's and R9's. Why, other then to confuse people and prevent prices from dropping? So to further justify this re-branding, they created Mantle. Which does create a substantial performance increase, given that you have a very fast GPU, and given that your cpu is shit.

Worse yet, Mantle doesn't even support their HD 5000/6000 cards. They made it clear that Mantle doesn't require GCN architecture, so why no driver? If the API can be used by Nvidia, then GCN is obviously not required.

Doesn't matter cause most benchmarks show that only the fastest of fastest graphic cards will benefit from Mantle. CrossFire seems to benefit the most. That's not going to make me buy a GCN based graphics card. If you own a 5850/6850 or higher, then there's no good reason to upgrade.

there isn't a single thing you got right in that entire post but it was a nice effort..

 

[Cr4ckm0nk3y]

Right now it's a tool to extend the already aging GCN hardware. Remember, AMD rebranded the 7000 series cards as R7's and R9's. Why, other then to confuse people and prevent prices from dropping?

What? 290 & 290(x) are a rebrand now? Didn't know Hawaii was part of the southern islands.

Worse yet, Mantle doesn't even support their HD 5000/6000 cards.

AND? 4+ year old tech?

AMD made it clear they would not invest money in supporting old tech that was being phased out. Mantle is new and AMD spent R&D money to ensure it worked on current/new cards on the market. That makes complete sense.

Sorry you feel dejected but why would a company spend time/money on bringing new improvements to 4+ year old tech?

NV did the same thing with G-Sync and Shield streaming.

They made it clear that Mantle doesn't require GCN architecture, so why no driver? If the API can be used by Nvidia, then GCN is obviously not required.

Who made it clear? You know that is a slide from Dice's presentation correct? That was not AMD.

From the coding Dice and Nixxes reviewed they said the tech could work on other GPU's but it would require AMD to allow it. Key is could. Thus the ? on the top of the slide.

As of now it is designed and built for GCN only.

Mantle is currently proprietary to AMD and one day may be opened up. That is why you don't see a driver for NV and probably won't for a year or more, if ever!

 

[Ashbringer]

Today's fastest graphics card is the next generation's mid range. With CPU speeds going nowhere in a hurry Mantle will become more important with each new generation.

Let me know when every graphics card uses 256bit memory bandwidth. Why are mid range graphic cards still sold with 128bit memory, when it's a matter of wiring to the memory? This has been going on since Radeon 9700 days. Otherwise a Radeon 5850 or higher is still just as good as any R7. We're talking about tech made in 2009.

DX11 hardware is still DX11 hardware. No Mantle or technobabble is going to change that. CPU speeds are faster, but they're just badly underutilized. People have had quad core CPUs for how long, and how many games use that? Not freakin many.

It has already taken off with more than 20 games currently in development for it. Huge stablished AAA franchises (Battlefield, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge, Star Wars: Battlefront and more) plus greatly anticipated new ones like Star Citizen (the greatest AAA crowd funded game in history, just today it hit $38 million in funding and over 380 thousand pledgers), Thief, Star Control and 2 more games based on Oxide's Nitrous engine, etc.

A 290X sees a 5%-10% speed increase, at best. The R9 280X gets a 3 fps increase with mantle, max settings 1080P in BF4.

Mantle isn't a bad idea, but the implementation is the problem. They haven't opened it up yet, and for some reason they skipped support for their previous generation of hardware.

 

[gordon151]

Mantle isn't a bad idea, but the implementation is the problem. They haven't opened it up yet, and for some reason they skipped support for their previous generation of hardware.

I have a 7970 and I saw a huge increase in BF4. Minimum FPS shot up at least 50%.

 

[Sodapopjones]

What? 290 & 290(x) are a rebrand now? Didn't know Hawaii was part of the southern islands.

2 out of the 9 cards in the R7/R9 lineup are new, he had a point on that one, I guess it was just his mistake for not being clearer...

 

[Yakk]

Well the "Mantle solution relies on the same shader generation path games the DirectX uses and includes an open-source component for translating DirectX shaders to Mantle" this just clinches it right there...

Free CPU gains along with creating rock solid FPS with little work + makes console porting much less work. Now imagine when they'll be adding some tweaking as experience using Mantle grows! Not to mention all the new possibilities with the spare CPU cycles now.

Yeah, I can see devs being very happy with this indeed!

 

[The Mac]

A 290X sees a 5%-10% speed increase, at best. The R9 280X gets a 3 fps increase with mantle, max settings 1080P in BF4.

flat out wrong.

it has little to do with the gpu, and everything to do with the cpu.

a 290x and a midrange AMD cpu will see a MASSIVE increase

 

[Ebernanut]

Unless AMD does something to open up the API, it won't take off. If you're a developer, the more hardware that supports the API, the better. Right now it's a tool to extend the already aging GCN hardware. Remember, AMD rebranded the 7000 series cards as R7's and R9's. Why, other then to confuse people and prevent prices from dropping? So to further justify this re-branding, they created Mantle. Which does create a substantial performance increase, given that you have a very fast GPU, and given that your cpu is shit.

Worse yet, Mantle doesn't even support their HD 5000/6000 cards. They made it clear that Mantle doesn't require GCN architecture, so why no driver? If the API can be used by Nvidia, then GCN is obviously not required.

Doesn't matter cause most benchmarks show that only the fastest of fastest graphic cards will benefit from Mantle. CrossFire seems to benefit the most. That's not going to make me buy a GCN based graphics card. If you own a 5850/6850 or higher, then there's no good reason to upgrade.

Wow, where to start...

I fully expect AMD to try and get Nvidia on board with this, whether they will succeed or not is debatable but the improvements seem good enough that it would be a mistake for Nvidia to ignore it and hope it goes away. GCN is also not a single "aging" architecture it's only been used for 2 generations and is on version 2.0, Nvidia has also used Kepler for 2 generations. Both companies have rebadged cards(re-branding would be selling under a different brand name), this used to bother me but if they usually tweak them a little(increased performance and/or cheaper parts) so selling under the old name would be dishonest. I also fail to see how it's a maneuver to keep prices high when they rebadge high end cards as midrange and midrange as low end and sell them for less.

AS the owner of a 6950 it doesn't bother me at all that it's not supported, I've had it for over 3 years and would have already replaced it except I'm at 1080p and really don't need more power. Your comment about needing a fast GPU and a shitty CPU to see much benefit is also way off but I'm not going to bother getting into that.

The only party of your post that I even halfway agree with is the comment that there isn't much reason to upgrade from a 5850/6850, personally that's a little less power than I would want even at 1080 since my 6950 is starting to get to the lower end of what I consider acceptable at that res and would be way to weak for 1440p+.

 

[WBurchnall]

Doesn't matter cause most benchmarks show that only the fastest of fastest graphic cards will benefit from Mantle. CrossFire seems to benefit the most. That's not going to make me buy a GCN based graphics card. If you own a 5850/6850 or higher, then there's no good reason to upgrade.

Wow, this has to be one of the worst statements made I've seen in a while.

A moderately fast card that was bottlenecked by an old CPU receives a huge performance boost. Some ppl with Q6600 overclocked with a 7870 for example are going from 20fps on bigger maps like Shanghai(barely running) to a more pleasant 35+ fps where its a ...playable-ish experience. Now, a 7870 in that case benefits from Mantle and a 7870 is HARDLY a Fastest of Fastest graphics card. You made the false assumption that everyone has an very fast, expensive CPU.

Really, Mantle is attractive for that reason too. If I can buy a R9-290X's successor and not be bottlenecked with an i7-930 overclocked, then I won't be needing to upgrade my CPU for a year or two more. In that case, I won't need to spend $200 on a motherboard and $350 on a processor and money on the new graphics card. As a result, I'll upgrade my video card sooner and more often using the money I can potentially save on processors.

I'm not entirely sure how you guys are feeling but honestly, I'm finding most applications with an i7-930 + ssd respond and open nearly instantaneously that I use on a regular basis like Chrome, Skype, Media Players, PDFs, Office suite, Matlab/Mathematica. If my games are running fine off my i7-930 and its not a bottleneck now with Mantle. I feel I'll be pretty content with this processor for a while. Short of an amazing reason to get Windows '9' and Windows 9's new features being CPU hogs or something akin to that.

I'll agree with Ashbringer on the fact they didn't bring this to the 6k card series is a bit...stingy it feels. The 5000 series I can agree/get behind as that card is probably a solid 4 years old. the 6000 series to me feels like its 2.5 to 2 years old. I can see why they would end of line support for it but it still feels slightly cheap. If someone bought an xfire pair of top end 6970s, that would still be viable I'd imagine. I'd be itching to upgrade for sure if I had a 5k series card though. That's 4 solid generations ago.

 

[The Mac]

They actually cant.

According to a tweet by one of the AMD guys, mantle needs dynamically allocable shaders which anything prior to CGN doesnt have. Nvidia's kepler does have it, so they would be able to use it as well.

 

[mesyn191]

Unless AMD does something to open up the API, it won't take off.

Its already "open enough". Intel and Nvidia are the only major GPU vendors left in the PC business, its up to them to implement it and if they don't its not AMD's fault.

That being said AMD has an advantage here that previous competing API's didn't have: massive software support and compatibility due to their hardware, and only their hardware, being in all of the new consoles which will be around for years. Until 2019 at a minimum, most likely we won't see new consoles until 2020 or afterwards really.

Right now it's a tool to extend the already aging GCN hardware.

Both Nvidia and AMD have been reusing the same or similar GPU architectures for years now due to most of the "low hanging fruit" being long gone. Its not the 90's or early 2000's anymore where a new clean sheet arch. was required every other year or so to get a major performance boost + add new features.

Worse yet, Mantle doesn't even support their HD 5000/6000 cards. They made it clear that Mantle doesn't require GCN architecture, so why no driver?

Its not really reasonable to expect such old GPU's to get new feature support, especially since Mantle requires hardware features that they don't have. They can no more add Mantle support to those cards than they could a Radeon 9700.

Doesn't matter cause most benchmarks show that only the fastest of fastest graphic cards will benefit from Mantle.

Obviously untrue. Mantle helps best in CPU constrained situations and benefits low/mid end GPU's quite well.

Either you've totally bought into the FUD or you're a NV shill. Impossible to tell the difference with your post.

 

[LordEC911]

2 out of the 9 cards in the R7/R9 lineup are new, he had a point on that one, I guess it was just his mistake for not being clearer...

That isn't true either.

Let me know when every graphics card uses 256bit memory bandwidth. Why are mid range graphic cards still sold with 128bit memory, when it's a matter of wiring to the memory? This has been going on since Radeon 9700 days. Otherwise a Radeon 5850 or higher is still just as good as any R7. We're talking about tech made in 2009.

If you have no idea why GPUs under 160mm2 are still using a 128bit bus you have no place to talk about Mantle's effectiveness nor anything else for that matter regarding advancing GPU technology.

 

[Pieter3dnow]

Interview is kinda large word for 6 and a half questions+answers.

for Ashbringer:
http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/mantle/Pages/mantle.aspx

 

[Ashbringer]

I fully expect AMD to try and get Nvidia on board with this, whether they will succeed or not is debatable but the improvements seem good enough that it would be a mistake for Nvidia to ignore it and hope it goes away.

As of right now Mantle is not open. It's much like CUDA.

Both companies have rebadged cards(re-branding would be selling under a different brand name), this used to bother me but if they usually tweak them a little(increased performance and/or cheaper parts) so selling under the old name would be dishonest.

It's much like how ATI made the Radeon 8500 and then made the 9000. After that, they made the 9200. The 9200 though was a re-branded 8500. One of the complaints 8500 had was the inability to use pixel shader to render video. Now ATI claimed it couldn't be done on the 8500, but flash a 9200 bios on a 8500 and long and behold it works.

But AMD now does this on a massive scale. All the R7 R9 cards are re-branded 7000 cards, except for the R9 290X and R9 290. But how are you going to get people excited to buy graphic cards that is a minor upgrade for most people? MANTLE!

I also fail to see how it's a maneuver to keep prices high when they rebadge high end cards as midrange and midrange as low end and sell them for less.

Nobody re-brands things to sell for less. But considering how many people posted claiming I'm wrong, the re-branding seems to be working. It's meant to confuse people. Nvidia does the same thing too, but it doesn't make it any better.

AS the owner of a 6950 it doesn't bother me at all that it's not supported, I've had it for over 3 years and would have already replaced it except I'm at 1080p and really don't need more power.

Doesn't matter to me cause I know where Mantle will end up. Especially because I plan to go Linux anyway. I don't see Linux getting Mantle anytime soon.

 

[Digital Viper-X-]

Unless AMD does something to open up the API, it won't take off. If you're a developer, the more hardware that supports the API, the better. Right now it's a tool to extend the already aging GCN hardware. Remember, AMD rebranded the 7000 series cards as R7's and R9's. Why, other then to confuse people and prevent prices from dropping? So to further justify this re-branding, they created Mantle. Which does create a substantial performance increase, given that you have a very fast GPU, and given that your cpu is shit.

Worse yet, Mantle doesn't even support their HD 5000/6000 cards. They made it clear that Mantle doesn't require GCN architecture, so why no driver? If the API can be used by Nvidia, then GCN is obviously not required.

Doesn't matter cause most benchmarks show that only the fastest of fastest graphic cards will benefit from Mantle. CrossFire seems to benefit the most. That's not going to make me buy a GCN based graphics card. If you own a 5850/6850 or higher, then there's no good reason to upgrade.

Who cares about the 5000/6000 series? how many people are still gaming on it? AMD doesn't have unlimited resources, I'd rather they skip the 5/6000 series and concentrate on getting a more concrete product going forward.

 

[Pastuch]

Doesn't matter to me cause I know where Mantle will end up. Especially because I plan to go Linux anyway. I don't see Linux getting Mantle anytime soon.

Seriously? So you think DirectX is going to be the next big breakthrough in Linux gaming? Mantle is your only hope of true multiplatform gaming and you shit all over it... I don't understand.

In all honesty, what do you like about Direct X? It's just another Microsoft tool that they dangle over gamers to force OS adoption. I love Windows 8 but the fact that DX 11.2 isn't supported in Windows 7 is shameful.

 

[Ashbringer]

Seriously? So you think DirectX is going to be the next big breakthrough in Linux gaming? Mantle is your only hope of true multiplatform gaming and you shit all over it... I don't understand.

In all honesty, what do you like about Direct X? It's just another Microsoft tool that they dangle over gamers to force OS adoption. I love Windows 8 but the fact that DX 11.2 isn't supported in Windows 7 is shameful.

I mention Linux gaming and you point out my love for Direct X? What where when how and why? There is no Direct X for Linux, beyond a State Tracker for Wine that's for Windows compatibility, and that barely works.

Did OpenGL ever occur to you at some point?

 

[serious]

This type of API is not new, and Nvidia has PhysX for quite some time now but never rocketed for a very simple reason, not everyone can use it. AMD's PR had their spin on it and branded PhysX as "proprietary" goods while it really isn't.

Years later AMD finally realized having something like PhysX for themselves is actually the way to go, so they hired the guy behind PhysX, and not long after that, Mantle was developed. Well, judging from PhysX, which is more or less the same thing, it won't even if it has noticeable performance gain. Just like PhysX, Mantle is proprietary, but they call it "open". I fail to see what is so "open" about it. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source, "Open source" means:

a) universal access via free license to a product's design or blueprint, and b) universal redistribution of that design or blueprint, including subsequent improvements to it by anyone.

Clearly, Mantle is not "Open source", so what is so "open" about it?

Lets go back to performance gain. I guess programmers have found ways to run some code on GPU instead of CPU and many brand lovers see it as the second coming. This bare 2 important questions: a) Why is there a CPU bottleneck at the first place? b) Is this not possible without Mantle(or somehow Mantle made it easier)? I have yet seen anyone capable of answering this 2 questions. According to AMD's official site, they claim that Mantle allows developers' code to talk directly to GPU, and thus reducing the load off CPU. Wow, that sounds great, but why was their heavy load on CPU the first place and why only Mantle can fix that but not DirectX or a driver patch? Seriously, who with the right mind will put few high end GPUs into their system for gaming where the CPU is crappy? Y U NO mine?

As of now, I see it as BF4 had a patch that optimizes GPUs that actually supports Mantle via drivers, what does it mean? Like Ashbringer said, only a few high end AMD video cards benefit from it. I found that sounded more like a joke as not only it does nothing to Nvidia/Intel GPUs, but even most AMD GPUs. This is very different from what people believe Mantle can do. Yes, things will get better in the future, as good as PhysX to Nvidia.

The current Mantle solution relies on the same shader generation path games the DirectX uses and includes an open-source component for translating DirectX shaders to Mantle accepted intermediate language (IL).

Here the word "open-source refers to the component that translates DX shaders to something Mantle accepts. Nice wording. I wonder why the interviewer don't ask him: "Okay, so which part of Mantle is open to video cards that does not support Mantle?"

Arguably, mobiles are in the most need for solution like Mantle because of the high efficiency of the API and its lower CPU requirements.

Déjà vu! Why was this not important before and so important now? Didn't he got the demo that Tegra isn't doing well?

Our response came from Guennadi Riguer, the chief architect for Mantle. In it, he discusses the API's usage as a computation language, the future of the rendering pipeline, and whether there will be a day where Crossfire-like benefits can occur by leaving an older Mantle-capable GPU in your system when purchasing a new, also Mantle-supporting one.

Is that why people can't use an old Nvidia card to run PhysX?

Unless AMD/Nvidia join forces to create a new API, DirectX will always be the spoiled kid that gets everything and none of this vendor/GPU specific APIs is going to go far. Developers won't go crazy with Mantle or PhysX other than adding a few candies with it as otherwise they will lose all the potential customers that don't have the hardware to see them. I guess it is a good thing that some AMD users get Mantle favored candies while Nvidia users get PhysX favored candies.

 

[Meeho]

^^^ That is so full of wrong, I wouldn't know where to begin.

 

[Pastuch]

I mention Linux gaming and you point out my love for Direct X? What where when how and why? There is no Direct X for Linux, beyond a State Tracker for Wine that's for Windows compatibility, and that barely works.

Did OpenGL ever occur to you at some point?

I know there is no DX for Linux, sarcasim is a lost art on the internet. Open GL "occured" to me about 15 years ago. Sadly, it hasn't really gone anywhere since. It's also got all the same draw call limitations that DX has.

 

[PureBooYah]

Who cares about the 5000/6000 series? how many people are still gaming on it? AMD doesn't have unlimited resources, I'd rather they skip the 5/6000 series and concentrate on getting a more concrete product going forward.

It's like being angry at Nvidia for the 200/400 series not supporting Gsync

 

[Ashbringer]

It's like being angry at Nvidia for the 200/400 series not supporting Gsync

The point you're all missing is that Mantle is not a game changer. Neither is CUDA or Physx or Gsync. All this tech is because Directx has stagnated at DX11. Nothing in that API has changed since 2009. It's all bullcrap tech that's meant to get people excited to go and buy a new graphics card.

Whenever graphics api tech gets slow, both Nvidia and ATI would create their own. TressFX and Truform are good examples of this. ATI's 3Dc was eventually adopted by Nvidia and is pretty much standard, but it was open.

DX11.1 offers nothing, and DX11 is nearly 5 years old. AMD even said there's no DirectX 12 anytime soon.

Direct3D 11.1 adds 3d-stereoscopic functionalities, more general-purpose programming capabilities, some optimization for low-end GPUs (like IGPs and ARM devices), ARM support (note that most ARM device can run code only on feature_level_9_1 or feature_level_9_3 modes), enhanced WARP mode (that is a software emulation layer for D3D usually used in debugging) and other little optimizations.

So it makes sense to go ahead and create their own API. DirectX has always been the main selling point to go out and buy a graphics card. Even though we've been stuck with DX9 graphics for some time now, thanks to Xbox 360 and PS3. Of course there's always OpenGL, and Linux seems to be the next big thing for gaming.

 

[Rizen]

a bunch of rubbish

Please just stop posting. Literally nothing you wrote is accurate.

 

[Rizen]

The point you're all missing is that Mantle is not a game changer. Neither is CUDA or Physx or Gsync. All this tech is because Directx has stagnated at DX11.

You should really stop posting too. CUDA is for GPGPU and has nothing to do with gaming, DirectX is completely irrelevant in that context. GSync is a hardware solution to an issue with how monitors work, that also has nothing to do with DirectX. Unless you have some sort of idea what you are actually talking about, stop spreading nonsense.

 

[serious]

Please just stop posting. Literally nothing you wrote is accurate.

Things I stated as facts are things that I quoted and others are my opinions. What exactly do you mean nothing that I have written is accurate? And why should I stop posting again?

 

[rinaldo00]

This bare 2 important questions: a) Why is there a CPU bottleneck at the first place? b) Is this not possible without Mantle(or somehow Mantle made it easier)? I have yet seen anyone capable of answering this 2 questions. According to AMD's official site, they claim that Mantle allows developers' code to talk directly to GPU, and thus reducing the load off CPU. Wow, that sounds great, but why was their heavy load on CPU the first place and why only Mantle can fix that but not DirectX or a driver patch?

The answers come from here
http://lucca.hardforum.com/rewrite/...spx&id=1&match=1&source=none&destination=none

1. Why is there a CPU bottleneck at the first place?
From a game developer’s point of view, creating games for the PC has never been especially efficient. With so many combinations of hardware possible in a PC, it’s not practical to create specialized programming for every possible configuration. What they do instead is write simplified code that gets translated on-the-fly into something the computer can work with.

Just as when two people communicate through a translator, this works, but it isn’t efficient. And it’s the CPU that has to do all this extra work, translating and queuing data for the graphics card to process. PCs are meant to be the ultimate gaming platform — they have the power — but all this translation slows things down, and game developers approached AMD asking for something better.

2. Is this not possible without Mantle(or somehow Mantle made it easier?)

What Mantle does

Mantle is the harmony of three essential ingredients:
1.A driver within the AMD Catalyst™ software suite that lets applications speak directly to the Graphics Core Next architecture

Mantle reduces the CPU’s workload by giving developers a way to talk to the GPU directly with much less translation. With less work for the CPU to do, programmers can squeeze much more performance from a system, delivering the greatest benefits in gaming systems where the CPU can be the bottleneck

 

[Pieter3dnow]

Seriously? So you think DirectX is going to be the next big breakthrough in Linux gaming? Mantle is your only hope of true multiplatform gaming and you shit all over it... I don't understand.

In all honesty, what do you like about Direct X? It's just another Microsoft tool that they dangle over gamers to force OS adoption. I love Windows 8 but the fact that DX 11.2 isn't supported in Windows 7 is shameful.

Yeah Ashbringer is not making any sense in any of his replies.

Mantle has a good change of making it to Linux and the beauty is no more microsoft needed for gaming.

I can see this being announced before then end of 2014.

 

[Ashbringer]

You should really stop posting too. CUDA is for GPGPU and has nothing to do with gaming, DirectX is completely irrelevant in that context. GSync is a hardware solution to an issue with how monitors work, that also has nothing to do with DirectX. Unless you have some sort of idea what you are actually talking about, stop spreading nonsense.

Again, THE POINT IS TO GET YOU TO BUY A GRAPHICS CARD. Whether it has to do with gaming or not is not Nvidia's or AMD's concern. Not everyone goes and buys a graphics card for gaming. I know, shocking right? Further more, how is CUDA not related to gaming? Indirectly, PhysX runs on top of it. Can't use PhysX on the GPU without it? GSync is also indirectly related to gaming. It's meant to fix tearing and stuttering in video games. It's not DirectX related, but the point is to throw out tech that gets you to buy a graphics card, because Microsoft took a break from DirectX development.

Unless you know what you're talking about and can provide unbiased proof, then stop posting. My suggestion is to not go out and buy a graphics card for Mantle, because it's not open and not supported by Nvidia, Intel, or even AMD's older generation HD 5000/6000 cards. It'll likely never see the light of day on Linux with SteamOS.

 

[Ashbringer]

Mantle has a good change of making it to Linux and the beauty is no more microsoft needed for gaming.

OpenGL? Why are we forgetting about OpenGL? We never needed Microsoft to begin with. OpenGL was before D3D, and will be around after D3D.

 

[Pieter3dnow]

Things I stated as facts are things that I quoted and others are my opinions. What exactly do you mean nothing that I have written is accurate? And why should I stop posting again?

You don't understand the difference between DirectX and Mantle , DX is high level and Mantle is low level.

Where you write about fixing DirectX is how you demonstrate you are not serious about this. If there was such a thing you forget that DX does not do optimizations for specific hardware that is handled by the driver of the vendor(Nvidia/AMD/whomever).

Now for you to understand the rest is something which may be to hard for me to explain.

 

[mesyn191]

OpenGL? Why are we forgetting about OpenGL? We never needed Microsoft to begin with. OpenGL was before D3D, and will be around after D3D.

Because its hardly used at all anymore, tends to get 2nd rate support from the IHV's, and has as much backwards compatibility cruft in it as DX which causes excessive overhead for the CPU/GPU.

 

[Pieter3dnow]

OpenGL? Why are we forgetting about OpenGL? We never needed Microsoft to begin with. OpenGL was before D3D, and will be around after D3D.

I'm not forgetting Open-GL and it is something that does not have the same impact for writing code where Mantle allows DX Shader language to be "ported" which in it self is pretty convincing way of saving time instead of porting to Open-GL.

And the benefit is that there no optimizations needed because it is already optimized.

 

[Ashbringer]

Because its hardly used at all anymore, tends to get 2nd rate support from the IHV's, and has as much backwards compatibility cruft in it as DX which causes excessive overhead for the CPU/GPU.

I'm not forgetting Open-GL and it is something that does not have the same impact for writing code where Mantle allows DX Shader language to be "ported" which in it self is pretty convincing way of saving time instead of porting to Open-GL.

And the benefit is that there no optimizations needed because it is already optimized.

You guys throw OpenGL away because it's not extensively used? On a Windows machine yes, but Android, iOS, Linux? Valve's SteamOS is going to run OpenGL, are they naive for doing so?

If you plan to make a OSX, Linux, and Windows port of your game, then wouldn't OpenGL make sense? Given that PS4 and Xbone don't use OpenGL, but SteamBox will.