Thursday, March 22nd 2018
AMD Announces Radeon Rays and Radeon GPU Profiler 1.2 at GDC 2018
AMD announced at GDC widened support for Radeon Rays with Unity Lightmapper. Its open-source, high efficiency, high performance GPU-accelerated ray tracing software helps game developers to achieve higher visual quality and stunningly photorealistic 3D images in real-time. Radeon ProRender now supports real-time GPU acceleration of ray tracing techniques mixed with traditional rasterization-based rendering, to combine the value of ray tracing with the interactivity of rasterization.
For gaming, ray tracing is in its early stages. For professional applications, however, real-time ray tracing is a well-established rendering technique. Today, AMD is announcing ProRender support for real-time GPU acceleration of ray tracing techniques mixed with traditional rasterization based rendering. Now built on Vulkan, ProRender is continuing to enable developers to deliver interactive photorealistic graphics. We are actively engaging with professional developers to make real-time visualization a reality.
To find out more, please read our blog here: gpuopen.com/announcing-real-time-ray-tracing/
For More information on Real Time Ray Tracing, check out the following video:
Announcing Real Time Ray Tracing
AMD also discussed new technologies and partnerships to help developers squeeze more performance from their hardware and optimize for low-level APIs, including:
Introducing Radeon GPU Profiler 1.2: AMD released the next iteration of its ground-breaking low-level optimization developer tool, Radeon GPU Profiler (RGP) 1.2, bringing compatibility with RenderDoc, integrated frame debugging and profiling, barrier reason codes and improved frame overview. With RGP 1.2, developers can also generate RGP profiles from RenderDoc replays, select events in RGP and view them in RenderDoc, or vice versa.
Radeon GPU Profiler is the first PC graphics tool which allows for low level, built-in hardware thread tracing and provides detailed timing and occupancy information on Radeon GPUs. The release of Radeon GPU Profiler 1.2 brings exciting new features including: RenderDoc interop, detailed barrier codes and improved frame overview.
For More information on Radeon GPU profiler, check out the following video:
Support for the new Vulkan 1.1: AMD worked closely with The Khronos Group for the release of Vulkan 1.1 to develop a conformant driver. This major upgrade to the API will delight the existing Vulkan community and continue to broaden the user base. Any AMD APU or Radeon GPU based on the Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture is already Vulkan-compliant.
Compressonator 3.0 from AMD which allows designers to compress both 2D textures and 3D meshes in one simple UI. Compressonator supports all common file formats and codecs and can display compressed 3D models in DX12, Vulkan and OpenGL. Compressonator also allows in-depth customization of individual assets or batch compression of multiple assets. Users can visually and analytically compare the original and compressed files at each stage of the process.
Last but most certainly not least, AMD announced the latest development to their ReSX program. A recently announced a special initiative inside the Radeon Software group, Project Radeon eSports Experience focuses on delivering gameplay optimizations to the world's most popular eSports titles.
Adding to previously announced optimizations for PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Overwatch and Dota 2, AMD has another set of impressive performance gains with today's Radeon Software release: From the launch of Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition till today, Fortnite has improved frames-per-second (8%), 99th percentile frame times (7%) and click-to-response (13%), delivering an extraordinary eSports experience.
For gaming, ray tracing is in its early stages. For professional applications, however, real-time ray tracing is a well-established rendering technique. Today, AMD is announcing ProRender support for real-time GPU acceleration of ray tracing techniques mixed with traditional rasterization based rendering. Now built on Vulkan, ProRender is continuing to enable developers to deliver interactive photorealistic graphics. We are actively engaging with professional developers to make real-time visualization a reality.
For More information on Real Time Ray Tracing, check out the following video:
Announcing Real Time Ray Tracing
AMD also discussed new technologies and partnerships to help developers squeeze more performance from their hardware and optimize for low-level APIs, including:
Introducing Radeon GPU Profiler 1.2: AMD released the next iteration of its ground-breaking low-level optimization developer tool, Radeon GPU Profiler (RGP) 1.2, bringing compatibility with RenderDoc, integrated frame debugging and profiling, barrier reason codes and improved frame overview. With RGP 1.2, developers can also generate RGP profiles from RenderDoc replays, select events in RGP and view them in RenderDoc, or vice versa.
Radeon GPU Profiler is the first PC graphics tool which allows for low level, built-in hardware thread tracing and provides detailed timing and occupancy information on Radeon GPUs. The release of Radeon GPU Profiler 1.2 brings exciting new features including: RenderDoc interop, detailed barrier codes and improved frame overview.
For More information on Radeon GPU profiler, check out the following video:
Support for the new Vulkan 1.1: AMD worked closely with The Khronos Group for the release of Vulkan 1.1 to develop a conformant driver. This major upgrade to the API will delight the existing Vulkan community and continue to broaden the user base. Any AMD APU or Radeon GPU based on the Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture is already Vulkan-compliant.
Compressonator 3.0 from AMD which allows designers to compress both 2D textures and 3D meshes in one simple UI. Compressonator supports all common file formats and codecs and can display compressed 3D models in DX12, Vulkan and OpenGL. Compressonator also allows in-depth customization of individual assets or batch compression of multiple assets. Users can visually and analytically compare the original and compressed files at each stage of the process.
Last but most certainly not least, AMD announced the latest development to their ReSX program. A recently announced a special initiative inside the Radeon Software group, Project Radeon eSports Experience focuses on delivering gameplay optimizations to the world's most popular eSports titles.
Adding to previously announced optimizations for PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Overwatch and Dota 2, AMD has another set of impressive performance gains with today's Radeon Software release: From the launch of Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition till today, Fortnite has improved frames-per-second (8%), 99th percentile frame times (7%) and click-to-response (13%), delivering an extraordinary eSports experience.
72 Comments on AMD Announces Radeon Rays and Radeon GPU Profiler 1.2 at GDC 2018
So, I'll wait til next season I guess.
#Notgivingitup
They're not cross compatible per say but the code required for the jump is not as extreme as in prior cases.
Those who pah pah this fail to see the difference between Nvidia's stranglehold in GPGPU compute (which is difficult to move away from because your code stops working) from creative industries (who most don't give two shits as long as the specific plugins they need are supported, which has seen a heavy shift away from CUDA due to Apple dropping Nvidia a few years ago).
Just b/c AMD developed it with limited partners doesn't make it proprietary. It was clearly stated that Nvidia could develop for it...they sneered (for obvious reasons). Did Nvidia lovers expect AMD to add support themselves? Lololololol
Or I guess AMD just went on stage at events and lied about Mantle being an open API.
Also, it was never open source and never open. AMD said it would eventually be but things never progressed this far.
Although, I guess Vulkan could be considered what Mantle was supposed to be. But that owes a lot to OpenGL legacy rather than Mantle's technical aspects.
For further reference;
linustechtips.com/main/topic/60597-amds-mantle-api-is-not-open-source-compatible-only-with-amd-gpus/
www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/mantle
www.extremetech.com/gaming/219434-amd-finally-unveils-an-open-source-answer-to-nvidias-gameworks
If your argument is that it wasn't open, b/c it was still in beta....that's pretty flimsy.
I would link the AMD presentation video, but the link is dead.
I'm tellin ya, revisionist history.
Since the video is gone, I guess this will have to do linustechtips.com/main/topic/249881-amd-releasing-public-mantle-sdk-this-year-encourages-nvidia-and-intel-to-use-it-for-free/
Too bad it links to wccftech LOL, but I can't seem to find the vid.
I guess you can win on a technicality, since it wasn't released, but that wasn't the intention. The industry killed it.
You are correct in that they promised to have an open API and open source. Eventually. This never materialized.
To this day I can't figure out if Microsoft was resisting this and AMD used Mantle to strongarm them or AMD wanted to get a headstart and rushed into a doomed project.