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[AT]Understanding AMD's Mantle

13K views 129 replies 59 participants last post by  EastCoast 
#1 ·
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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
Sauce
 
#3 ·
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Originally Posted by Anand
When AMD first told us about their plans for Mantle, it was something we took in equal parts of shock, confusion, and awe. The fact that AMD would seek to exploit their console connection was widely expected, however the fact that they would do so with such an aggressive move was not. If our suspicions are right and AMD is bringing over the Xbox One low level API, then this means AMD isn't just merely exploiting the similarities to Microsoft's forthcoming console, but they are exploiting the very heart of their console connection. To bring over a console's low level graphics API in this manner is quite simply unprecedented.
Interesting, so the question is..how does one company go about doing this without a large share of the market (PC gaming wise) and not piss off the people not using their products? What it boils down to: will this lead to a performance hit for Nvidia? Or so it seems.
 
#4 ·
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Originally Posted by Blackops_2 View Post

Interesting, so the question is..how does one company go about doing this without a large share of the market (PC gaming wise) and not piss off the people not using their products? What it boils down to: will this lead to a performance hit for Nvidia? Or so it seems.
Not to mention people not running at least 7000 series AMD hardware. I thought it was said that Nvidia could take advantage of Mantle if they wanted? I don't see how that is possible given the way Anandtech is describing it.
 
#5 ·
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Originally Posted by TooBAMF View Post

Not to mention people not running at least 7000 series AMD hardware. I thought it was said that Nvidia could take advantage of Mantle if they wanted? I don't see how that is possible given the way Anandtech is describing it.
I saw that mentioned somewhere as well but didn't see any confirmation.
 
#6 ·
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Originally Posted by nitrubbb View Post

info about linux support (or not support) needed!
It's open source.I assume the market place will dictate that. Even Nvidia can use it,if they dare.
 
#7 ·
its open source but also says you need gcn to use it maybe later on it will be coded to work on all gpus who knows.
 
#9 ·
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Originally Posted by nitrubbb View Post

info about linux support (or not support) needed!
It's open source.... so it can be compiled assuming any other dependencies are available.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TooBAMF View Post

Not to mention people not running at least 7000 series AMD hardware. I thought it was said that Nvidia could take advantage of Mantle if they wanted? I don't see how that is possible given the way Anandtech is describing it.
NVIDIA could use the same API commands but they would end up implementing it to their hardware.

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Originally Posted by Bal3Wolf View Post

its open source but also says you need gcn to use it maybe later on it will be coded to work on all gpus who knows.
Then we would go back to an era of "capability bits" (aka cap bits). Developers would need to maintain spreadsheets of what GPUs have what features and would choose to include only certain features. Then have to spend more time for each of the possible paths.
 
#10 ·
well this answers some of my Qs about the xbone and this.
 
#13 ·
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Originally Posted by nicodemus View Post

wow. will AMD suddenly become the go-to GPU for linux gaming? that would flip the current paradigm on its head. very exciting if so. AMD in consoles, and maybe steam-box too?

maybe i'll buy my first AMD GPU next year.
Only works with titles that can use Mantle, and so far the only upcoming game supporting it is Battlefield 4. You won't see any support in older games.

This will most likely be used only in console ports, where Mantle is presumably used for the Xbox One. It's far easier to copy and paste existing code than it is to write completely new code. The significant portion of console ports are not on Steam, so it means very little for SteamOS and Steam-box.
 
#15 ·
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Originally Posted by Tsumi View Post

Only works with titles that can use Mantle, and so far the only upcoming game supporting it is Battlefield 4. You won't see any support in older games.

This will most likely be used only in console ports, where Mantle is presumably used for the Xbox One. It's far easier to copy and paste existing code than it is to write completely new code. The significant portion of console ports are not on Steam, so it means very little for SteamOS and Steam-box.
according to AMD it will work with any directx 11.1 game and hardware... so the 7xxx series radeons will all work with it. as will any older game with 11.1 directx programming.
 
#16 ·
The Mantle may have benefits over other API currently but once AMD introduces new architectures, the API will become bloated although maybe not to the levels of DirectX and such but still.

Console hardware is fixed forever. Not true for PC so there will never be a perfect solution.
 
#17 ·
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Originally Posted by TooBAMF View Post

Not to mention people not running at least 7000 series AMD hardware. I thought it was said that Nvidia could take advantage of Mantle if they wanted? I don't see how that is possible given the way Anandtech is describing it.
Time to request a refund for my BF4 order
 
#18 ·
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Originally Posted by DuckieHo View Post

NVIDIA could use the same API commands but they would end up implementing it to their hardware.
Sure? It seems like they intend it to be low level enough that it wouldn't make sense (or be possible) to implement it with different hardware. To do that you would need to add an abstraction later, and wasn't the entire point getting rid of that layer?
 
#19 ·
I see Carmack jumping on this, not to many others though. Would be nice to be proved wrong though.

Maybe not

John Carmack‏@ID_AA_Carmack2h
I won't be writing any Mantle code in the near future, since I'm not working on consoles now. OpenGL for PC, mac, linux, and mobile.
 
#21 ·
Okay lets look at the potential for a minute. By making a closer to silicon API you can get more speed out of the hardware. I think AMD said somewhere that it renders up to 9 times faster. It also, from what they said will reduce the CPU load, again a speed boost since you now have more CPU for other things. Next if it is hardware related that means the API should work the same on PS4, Xbox, Windows and Linux. This could mean the GPU base of the code used on the consoles should port pretty much as is with minor tweaking compared to today, less development time. The fact the API looks to be part of Linux makes game development on Linux easier for this same reason.

This has the potential to be an explosive announcement.
 
#22 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackops_2 View Post

Interesting, so the question is..how does one company go about doing this without a large share of the market (PC gaming wise) and not piss off the people not using their products? What it boils down to: will this lead to a performance hit for Nvidia? Or so it seems.
AMD will just be faster using Mantle enabled games. Using DX will still be a even playing field for Nividia. AMD will still support DX well into the future, but AMD owners will get an extra boost on games that also support Mantle.
 
#25 ·
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Originally Posted by Mopar63 View Post

This has the potential to be an explosive announcement.
I am guessing this is either going to be a massive win for AMD and a devastating blow to NVidia (considering the cross platform possibilities and amount of developers it will reach). Or it is going to just fade away after this gen of consoles (maybe before) and be a loss for AMD. I dont really see this coexsisting into the future with OpenGL and DirectX, something is going to give.
 
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