Re:
Call me a fanatic, but I want Mantle to die ASAP.
This is like saying you want your graphic cards to have less Frame Rate performance and crappier graphics.
In another point of view, anybody could argue that since AMD is coming out with Mantle, you wouldn't support it. On the other hand, if NVidia came out with the idea first, you'd probably be in support of the new low-level API.
A proprietary 3D rendering API just shouldn't exist - if, for instance, AMD bankrupts all those Mantle "powered" games won't run anywhere else ever again.
1. AMD Mantle isn't proprietary.
2. Since NVidia can use OpenGL/CL like AMD, NVidia can use AMD Mantle.
3. AMD Graphic Cards use GCN, NVidia uses CUDA. This is the software for the hardware. To some, it's a fancy word or gimmick. For others, it's an approach for the hardware and software languages to communicate more efficiently. Less time to process information between hardware and software equates to higher performance. Improve the process information being re-translated between GCN and Direcompute, or Cuda to D3D aka NVAPI.dll. AMD Mantle is more optimized for the GCN in that sense, and it will allow PC Games to be optimized in the same way. This is part of the reason why the draw calls will go up by a factor of 9 with the GCN Architecture.
Even though Glide didn't have enough time to live, we still a whole lot of games you won't be able to run because Glide is not supported.
3dFX GLIDE is dead, for lack of a better term, thanks to NVidia. If NVidia wanted to use it, or something similar, they would have just integrated GLIDE, rename it, and bank $$$ off it. I suspect MS didn't want this, and NVidia got paid not to use it. So D3D reigns as the law of the land besides OpenGL for a while.
Both XBO and PS4 will not support mantle,XBO will be DX 11.2 and PS4 will be Open GL.
XBone and PS4 have AMD Jaguar Cores. Basically, both of them have the same APU. It's similar to the Bobcat AMD APUs, but XBone Jaguar Cores are actually the left-over rejects that didn't become full Jaguar Cores. Both of them have the same GPU make up, and with that, they both use the same D3D APIs. Just that XBone can use D3D11.2, PS4 can use D3D11.1 if I am not mistaken. PS4 could probably use D3D11.2, on a hardware level, since I suspect it will use hUMA, but Sony probably opted not to use it. It could be for competition reasons with MS, and PS4 won't utilize it because the computing language isn't there.
AMD Mantle allows better porting of Consoles games to the PC, and that's pretty much it. In a way, it also means that there is less difficulty programming console games two work on the PC. Especially since the games will probably be more dependent on the AMD GCN then the CPU.
I still don't understand the hype behind Mantle. If it only makes games run better, but doesn't make better games I don't care even the slightest bit.
The hype behind AMD Mantle is that your FPS is going to go up. It won't go up because you got a new graphic card. It's going up because the low-level API is optimizing the AMD GPU more efficiently. Lets say in the perfect situation, you do experience 9x more draw calls. That means that the time it takes to utilizes the draw calls, goes down. Frames would be produced faster, because less time is needed to produce those frames. What happens is this. AMD Mantle will be optimized with the AMD GCN because of the way it processing the information and languages between the Core and the API.
Think of it from another point of view. What's so special about each new generation of graphic card that's released by AMD and NVidia. Performance. Performance goes up by roughly 15% a generation. Transistor count and frequencies go up. The processing work requires less and less time. This equates to FPS going up. So, work needed to accomplish the same task as the previous generations requires less time. The GPU can process the same task faster with more transistors.
If the time it takes to produce frames goes down, you can add in more things, more features to enhance the game-play with the engine. Add in more realism, add in more improved texture qualities. Push in-game rag-doll physics because it won't drop the FPS performance by much. Simply, AMD Mantle is a means for AMD to address an issue: Their GPUs aren't working efficiently enough to push better performance with the current situation. It's probably because the APIs don't take full use of the GPU's hardware capacity. So the low-level API is a means to correct that little problem with AMD Graphic Cards. AMD Mantle will be a supporting API besides D3D and OpenGL. It's like asking, would you want a Diablo Lambo driving at 20 mph, and you're putting the pedal to the floor--the transmission isn't working properly. No you wouldn't. It's holding the Diablo Lambo from performing at it's highest peak like the AMD GPU. So the question becomes, do you want AMD Mantle to fix that issue for the Diablo Lambo aka the AMD GPU... Do you want the AMD GPU to run faster so it could spits out frames quicker?
Also guess what engine Eidos using for Thief.
However, I do understand the reluctance with new things.
