Mantle API presentation by AMD, DICE and Oxide - AMD Summit 2013

[Frag_Maniac]

You guys have a preconditioned view that AMD is using DICE as PR, and also, it's developers who wanted Mantle, which pretty much invalidates everything you're trying to say; not the other way around. If Mantle was nothing and there weren't big developers involved I would have detected PR spin a long time ago, basically I have no interest in discussing this, you're wrong, it doesn't work this way, you're mixing things around, Frostbite is not being exploited for PR, it could be any engine that happened to be the first one implemented, you guys are spinning this around Nothing what you have said makes sense considering everything we've heard, I suggest you go back to page 1 and check out all the links.

Total BS.

We're not saying or even implying it's locked to Frostbite or can only work well on Frostbite, but to ignore that DICE did most of the non AMD development is to ignore that Johan and team made damn sure it was well suited to Frostbite. All I said earlier is that more devs using other engines need to step up and PROVE it's also easy to develop and game on THEIR engines, and so far we're really not seeing much of that.

You talk as if we're spinning a PR nightmare against AMD, but it's pretty clear when all the talk at their dev summit comes back to the testing done so far by DICE, that they need to extend themselves beyond the strictly controlled EA IPs to prove it's worth. Everyone knows that, it's not BS and it's not misleading, it's just a matter of simple proof of concept.

This is how the industry works. No matter how much something is requested or talked about, those involved at the development end want proof of concept.

 

[xenocide]

what i'm expecting is that if the consoles support this (mostly XB1 i assume) then all the console ports (and their engines which we all known will get reused a lot) support mantle, then its going to take off massively.

Microsoft already said it wouldn't support Mantle (citing that it supports DX 11.2) and I believe AMD had said this round of consoles would not, but looking forward they might.

Source: http://mygaming.co.za/news/hardware/59296-mantle-is-not-in-next-gen-consoles-amd.html

 

[Frag_Maniac]

These 2 statements contradict each other.

Not really, an updated build of the same engine is far from being an entirely different engine. Typically in fact it's the same thing with a few added features.

Microsoft already said it wouldn't support Mantle (citing that it supports DX 11.2) and I believe AMD had said this round of consoles would not, but looking forware they might.

I've read that just MS are boycotting it, obviously because they prefer devs use their own Direct3D, but if anyone knows, I'd like to get some feedback on the details of that, because some are implying games developed on Xbone and ported to PC would not be affected by it. I don't see how.

When you say "this round of consoles" are you including PS4? Seems odd that Sony would block Mantle for the entire life of their new system.

 

[jboydgolfer]

I may be a pessimist , or just a realist, either way I have A LOT of difficulty imagining CPU/GPU manufacturer's developing, and/or lying still while ANY company develops a method in which PC owners, and Console player's will No longer Need the TOP of the line CPU/GPU/System to run the Markets MOST current titles @ the highest setting's. I feel like this is equal to an engine that runs on 20% of the gasoline that current engines run on. AMD , Intel ,and Nvidia would stand to Lose SO much in Hardware sales due to gamers NOT needing the Most current or powerful CPU/GPU/console any longer to get the "optimal" gaming experience, or to play @ all. And let's be honest, if Their claims are Even 30% true, that WOULD be the case for ALL mantle incorporated Games, and Systems.

For example, I bought My GPU (HD 6950 1Gb) 1 year ago, give or take. Now I am getting to the point where I am hitting a crossroad where I need to make a upgrade in the next year or so , to be able to play @ the settings I prefer.

Now imagine that this Mantle technology applied to My GPU( I KNOW it doesn't), By their own claims, I wouldn't need to make My upgrade for Possibly another year or MORE. I DO understand that the OP stated that in game content COULD be increased both in graphic quality, and in Over all effects, So that the FPS increase wouldn't be such a Noticeable difference, but STILL, My point is valid, and TRUST me I would LOVE to see this come to fruition, but I think I'll leave the dreaming , and Hoping to those with Better imaginations than myself. And , Hopefully it WILL be reality @ some point, and I can Eat My doubt's, but till then I can do no more than lift a brow.


P.S.

Why am I a "New Member"? I JUST noticed under My Icon that it say's New member, but I created this account over a year ago.....Is it anything less than 2 years....Not that it matter's, but I was just curious is all. Great topic BTW, thanks OP.

 

[RoutedScripter]

Not really, an updated build of the same engine is far from being an entirely different engine.

I've never said that, I sad new engine, newer version of cryengine with mantle. What I care about is gameplay, I have no interest in other crytek's games.

 

[xenocide]

When you say "this round of consoles" are you including PS4? Seems odd that Sony would block Mantle for the entire life of their new system.

Judging from their quote in the article I linked it sounds as though they had never intended for Mantle to be used for consoles, but just used consoles as an example of what they were aimming for--that is, a relatively easy to use "To The Metal" API for PC's.

 

[ShiBDiB]

I stand by my prediction that mantle will be in niche engines by the end of 2014 and no more than that

 

[Frag_Maniac]

I've never said that, I sad new engine, newer version of cryengine with mantle. What I care about is gameplay, I have no interest in other crytek's games.

You said Crysis 1 remastered with a "new engine". You didn't say a merely updated engine, so what I said applies.

 

[RoutedScripter]

You said Crysis 1 remastered with a "new engine". You didn't say a merely updated engine, so what I said applies.

looks like i might not need a CPU upgrade after all

Well by the increased optimizations, they might be able put more enemies on the screen, more happening, more Ai, background mingling etc. But still, it's a massive improvement so that won't cost as much. So you might not see the effect, just get the games working, which is fine, still don't have to upgrade but this gap will close down in future.


I kind of regret posting this in gaming now, walk the damn talk, I should have posted it in general GPU stuff

I stand by my prediction that mantle will be in niche engines by the end of 2014 and no more than that

Just like that without taking any of the discussions into account, the breakdown of it, I did it over several pages because I just didn't want to commit taking 5 hours all at once to make an initial post, ofcourse this means you ignore all the speculation that I always noted where it is.

The analysis is not really tied to this event at all, developers were craving for this for years, you can go look it up, as a matter of fact I've posted the links to several of those, you know I'm not going to re-link it again, get off your lazy butts and do it your self, but it's just amazing it happend this soon when I totally forgot it. This is the biggest surprise in 2013 around tech, period.


Speaking of periods ... I think I believe I am more credible than him to say that, I wouldn't say this if I wouldn't be sure.

 

[KainXS]

Judging from their quote in the article I linked it sounds as though they had never intended for Mantle to be used for consoles, but just used consoles as an example of what they were aimming for--that is, a relatively easy to use "To The Metal" API for PC's.

well at least sony is backing trueaudio, maybe theres at least a glimmer of hope for mantle support(if devs are willing)
But I can understand why ms would block it completely

 

[RoutedScripter]

well at least sony is backing trueaudio, maybe theres at least a glimmer of hope for mantle support(if devs are willing)
But I can understand why ms would block it completely

To be honest, this wasn't mean to be for console at all, in any way shape or form, and also, doesn't even matter, developers will eventually use the better approach. And if you ask me personally, I don't really give a damn what microsoft does or says or thinks.


Speaking of CPU optimizations with Mantle. Here is a good example. I was recently playing a custom Starcraft 2 map, and as you know SC2 is heavily CPU bound to begin with, and when you have 8 of the hardest AIs with a ton of units against you, it gets boggy and that's Sandy Bridge-E i7 2500, but when I use 150 Mutalisks to attack the armies, even if a ton of units are destroyed in the same time, the sheer amount of projectiles my units spew out at the same time basically brings the CPU to it's knees and the whole game is incredibly slow, almost 3 seconds of delays and freezing almost, all because of the projectiles having to be drawn, now with Mantle, you could have even more units and the Ai stuff that normally takes CPU resources, and if I would fire all my 150 Mutalisks, those projectiles will not produce any lag whatsoever. To give a perspective how huge of an impact will this make.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

To be honest, this wasn't mean to be for console at all, in any way shape or form, and also, doesn't even matter, developers will eventually use the better approach. And if you ask me personally, I don't really give a damn what microsoft does or says or thinks.

The problem is, if they block it holistically at the Xbone OS level, that isn't just going to affect consoles, it's going to also affect games developed on Xbone and ported to PC. Need I remind you that the bulk of ported games last gen came from
the 360?

In a perfect world, we wouldn't HAVE to care about what MS "does or says or thinks", but the reality is they have a big enough stake in the industry between PC OSes and multi plat game development that we can't really just ignore them and hope they go away.

 

[RoutedScripter]

The problem is, if they block it holistically at the Xbone OS level, that isn't just going to affect consoles, it's going to also affect games developed on Xbone and ported to PC. Need I remind you that the bulk of ported games last gen came from
the 360?

You really have no idea what you're talking about. We've already been through the discussion, PC and PS4 are going to drive the industry from now on, Xbone is irrelevant,but exclusive devs might make it quasi-relevant but that's just apparent, nor real. But it won't be like before, when a console was limiting what PCs could do, now, PS4 is going to dominate the technology on consoles, PC will totally spin-off into it's true glory.

There will be no such ports anymore, ofcourse the line will not be fixed, it's a gradual transition, DX will still be fallback option for some time, the rendering pipeline will look similarly to how engines are written on PS4, however, the porting of low-level optimization code will be only temporairly possible because of the console's and PC current GPU similarity, this will no longer be the case when PCs evolve to a newer architecture, but by then Mantle will be something normal, fast porting might not exist, but it will still be light years better than DX or OGL anyways.

It is totally clear to me now, why PCs were a big downfall, it actually wasn't only the console sales, it's the fact that PC development is absolutely catastrophic undertaking compared to how it is on consoles, what I'm referring to are development hurdles such as random driver crashes, continious chat with GPU Vendors, it's a total hellhole and I cannot thank Johan more, I understand how huge it is from an outside perspective, I cannot COMPREHEND how on earth were all these developers hanging in this trainwreck and how absolutely ignorant all the yappies and twitter twatter mantle-haters are, they live in a god damn cave, they can't see how ridicolous it is, they're inside it for so long they get almost adapted to it, kind of a stockholm syndrome, when a victim starts to develop psychological defence mechanism which casuses the victim to start liking the abuser and rationalizing his actions, That's excatly what these indoctrinated self-proclaimed "AAA" developers (he worked on some web game and calls it AAA) do, they defend microsoft like it's some king on a pedestal that has to monitor the industry.


Personally, I don't care about anything microsoft or xbox, what ports, what games, I don't play them, I don't follow them, but I still explained, since It's analysis, and my personal stuff has nothing to do with it, but I basically put an effort into this, I think I did a good job getting the key people informed, so, you'll just have to study this a bit more, no offense, but I really don't have the temper to spoonfeed with all the other things you need to know before even can you understand this discussion, when I already explained everything there can be said without watching all the streams, I'm exhausted, and also out of time, I've already switched my focus right now on non-gaming stuff, for example JFK 50th anniversary - liberty push against the lockdown and mainstream media propaganda, so my posts right now are only from my good heart, I really don't want to repeat all the stuff, however, it's probably the last one about that, i've already said the above paragraphs before a few pages ago.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

You really have no idea what you're talking about. We've already been through the discussion, PC and PS4 are going to drive the industry from now on, Xbone is irrelevant,but exclusive devs might make it quasi-relevant but that's just apparent, nor real. But it won't be like before, when a console was limiting what PCs could do, now, PS4 is going to dominate the technology on consoles, PC will totally spin-off into it's true glory.

You come off as pretty hostile and stubborn for someone that doesn't even get that AMD was intentionally using DICE and their use of Mantle on Frostbite for PR. We're having a mere discussion here, you keep going agro with a defensive attitude, it's not necessary or constructive.

All x86 architecture on next gen consoles really means is more games being able to be put on them, and by extension more ported to PC. That process is still subject to how efficiently they're coded for PC, and Mantle can help a lot there.

And it's not like PS4 will suddenly become THE console to port from. The primary factors which influence how popular a console is to develop on is editing tools and the teams that make games for them. The power of the system itself is secondary to that.

 

[TRWOV]

I may be a pessimist , or just a realist, either way I have A LOT of difficulty imagining CPU/GPU manufacturer's developing, and/or lying still while ANY company develops a method in which PC owners, and Console player's will No longer Need the TOP of the line CPU/GPU/System to run the Markets MOST current titles @ the highest setting's. I feel like this is equal to an engine that runs on 20% of the gasoline that current engines run on. AMD , Intel ,and Nvidia would stand to Lose SO much in Hardware sales due to gamers NOT needing the Most current or powerful CPU/GPU/console any longer to get the "optimal" gaming experience, or to play @ all. And let's be honest, if Their claims are Even 30% true, that WOULD be the case for ALL mantle incorporated Games, and Systems.

For example, I bought My GPU (HD 6950 1Gb) 1 year ago, give or take. Now I am getting to the point where I am hitting a crossroad where I need to make a upgrade in the next year or so , to be able to play @ the settings I prefer.

Now imagine that this Mantle technology applied to My GPU( I KNOW it doesn't), By their own claims, I wouldn't need to make My upgrade for Possibly another year or MORE. I DO understand that the OP stated that in game content COULD be increased both in graphic quality, and in Over all effects, So that the FPS increase wouldn't be such a Noticeable difference, but STILL, My point is valid, and TRUST me I would LOVE to see this come to fruition, but I think I'll leave the dreaming , and Hoping to those with Better imaginations than myself. And , Hopefully it WILL be reality @ some point, and I can Eat My doubt's, but till then I can do no more than lift a brow.

AMD would surely love to cut R&D costs by leveraging a 3 year product cycle instead of the yearly arms race they're running now, Mantle could very well guarantee them that. Heck, the 7000 series is entering its third year in the market as we're speaking. although that's related to stagnated development more than anything. Would that lead to slower hardware sales? Not necessarily, not everyone goes and buy the high end GPUs, there would always be some room for upgrades.

Still, all that depends on Mantle doing well but I see AMD severely mishandling it. Mantle won't be ready for prime time for another 5 months, BF4 is a test case as it stands now and every speculation just promises more and more (where at what? 300% improvement over DX?). It's like Bulldozer all over again.


If I was AMD, I would have DICE release the BF4 mantle renderer as a patch, then AMD would release the Mantle driver in a regular CCC package and a quick "Improved performance in BF4 with GCN cards" in the release notes. If Mantle performs as good as it's supposed to people would find out in their own, articles would be written and everyone would love Mantle. Then AMD comes out and says, "you know? The new FB engine will have a Mantle renderer too!" and everyone would come and lit up a cigarette. But no, what AMD has gained now are a few (short term) points in their market index and lots of bickering on forums.

 

[The Von Matrices]

Speaking of CPU optimizations with Mantle. Here is a good example. I was recently playing a custom Starcraft 2 map, and as you know SC2 is heavily CPU bound to begin with, and when you have 8 of the hardest AIs with a ton of units against you, it gets boggy and that's Sandy Bridge-E i7 2500, but when I use 150 Mutalisks to attack the armies, even if a ton of units are destroyed in the same time, the sheer amount of projectiles my units spew out at the same time basically brings the CPU to it's knees and the whole game is incredibly slow, almost 3 seconds of delays and freezing almost, all because of the projectiles having to be drawn, now with Mantle, you could have even more units and the Ai stuff that normally takes CPU resources, and if I would fire all my 150 Mutalisks, those projectiles will not produce any lag whatsoever. To give a perspective how huge of an impact will this make.

Starcraft II is a horribly threaded and optimized game, but GPU compute or reducing GPU renderer overhead is not a panacea for its problems. Starcraft II uses 1-2 CPU cores of a system, so a quad-core CPU will rarely if ever hit 50% utilization in that game. There are plenty of other RTS games that can handle massive combat much better than Starcraft II because they separate the functions outside of the combat system (e.g. the UI and renderer) into separate threads. Starcraft II could perform much better without any renderer changes if the developers had taken the time to do this, but at this point such a change would require pretty much a fresh rewrite of the game code so I wouldn't expect it to occur without a whole new revision of the game.

However, the limitation in performance of RTS games is in the computation of unit interactions, which is a single threaded process. In fact, you can't have a parallel process for this and get repeatable results. To use an example, in two-unit battles with units of equal strength, you could create two threads where each thread tracked one unit's attack. The problem is that you can't synchronize these threads' execution rate while still remaining faster than a single thread (the order of attacks could change depending on things like operating system functions using CPU time on one core and slowing down one thread). So the outcome of the battle would be pretty much random, and this would make the game involve more luck and less skill. The needs to be a serial process, and scaling this up to hundreds of units at a time is a major challenge because the number of unit interactions doubles with each unit added to the battle.

And by the way, how were you controlling 150 mutalisks? Even if you had no workers you could only build 100 of them with the supply cap. And then a THOR or seeker missile comes along and they're all dead in about 3 seconds. Build diversity FTW.

 

[RoutedScripter]

You come off as pretty hostile and stubborn for someone that doesn't even get that AMD was intentionally using DICE and their use of Mantle on Frostbite for PR. We're having a mere discussion here, you keep going agro with a defensive attitude, it's not necessary or constructive.

All x86 architecture on next gen consoles really means is more games being able to be put on them, and by extension more ported to PC. That process is still subject to how efficiently they're coded for PC, and Mantle can help a lot there.

And it's not like PS4 will suddenly become THE console to port from. The primary factors which influence how popular a console is to develop on is editing tools and the teams that make games for them. The power of the system itself is secondary to that.

Look, I don't have to have this discussion, I look forward to what comes on the PC, and from an analysis standpoint, I don't cover speculation that is a waste of time, PR or not PR, mantle is a real thing, real proven thing, lower level you go, better will it be, there's no debate about it, the only thing we don't know is how low-level will it be can what stuff will AMD unlock on their GPU, I said I did this thread to point out stuff that needed to be, I am well over that, I've gone into making a speculation-ridden Multi-Device chart, other than that I have no more time nor interest since for my self I already know the whole story, you find someone else to sit down with you and talk about PR and consoles all day you want, I know Xbox has zero relevance, if it has, then those developers are either exclusives or they're stupid. I don't care about the mainstream and "other developers", there are only like 10-20 of the top developers, they will all have to do the switch because they won't be able to compete against the ones who have Mantle already, I play 3 games, starcraft 2, company of heroes 2, battlefield 3, I don't care about anything else, I am practically almost out of gaming, I haven't followed squat this year, I don't care about the next gen, from consoles I only care is zelda and metroid, that's it. I could be a market analyst and get paid, in that case I would have stuck here and keep explaining on all the other stuff I don't personally care, but in this case, this analysis is personally driven, I am very excited about mantle, I am interested in this tech discussion, so that's why I did it.

The AMD Mantle announcement was big enough to get me injected into this for 1 week, I had the time because I was planning for this ofcourse since the inital announcement, I did what I wanted with this thread, I provided the arguments, if it wasn't a real thing, i would have detected PR spin a long time ago.

For example, G-SYNC, I've taken a look into it, it turns out it's irrelevant for me with 144hz monitor and hardly playing any games that need high FPS, BF3 i normally goof around, I don't play FPS games seriously anymore, I don't care about the stats and scores and crap like that, those were COD2 times. Then is the personal factor, I don't care about visuals, I care about performance, I don't mind the slight tearing that is practically non-existant on +12+hz monitors, so for me, G-SYNC is not an interest, because of that I don't have interest to make a negative thread about it, but I could go in and type 3 walls of texts and explain in detail why I think so, I just chosen not to, I just bought a new monitor, I have no intention replacing any time soon.

Objectively, from the analysis, Xbox One has no play in this game, if it is anyone it could be PS4 because of GDDR5 making some influence or advantage over PC in some post-process effect, that's all there is, but with Multi-Device configs, PC's might come up on top again, because of the way Mantle manages memory and multi-threading. That's as far as this goes, we don't know no more, that's going to be known when SDK get's released to see the specification.

So, you understand, that this is personally motivated, Mantle was a big enough thing I took the time to do this. If there are legitimate criticisms from the community about this being a , my point was specifically to point out that it's mostly the ones who don't really know that are making ; I don't know who the hell were the idiots who made up rumors about Mantle being proprietary, it's been said many times over the month it's not, these developer twitter twatter bloger people, I don't know what is inside their heads, they clearly don't think straight when they just spew BS out and this is why I mostly left gaming scenes because I don't want to hang out with sheeple, gaming communities are one of the most unhealthy ignorant cave-lifestyle of eating doritos and mountain dew, I just don't want waste much time, because at the bottom of it, I don't care about some virtual world fantasy fake reality, i've completely grown up out of gaming, it's like on a far side, so I guess you can understand I don't have time for kindergarden.

The people who understood, they know, there are many people who don't understand and will take time to, there are other people who never understand, I am not a paid doctor to sit down and explain to everyone on a per-case basis, kapish.

Hopefully this gives you an insight. As long as there is progress on PC, I don't care about the petty problems for others, if they like DX and OGL so much, why don't they shove it up their butt and shut up?

If they make crysis 1 with mantle, that's all I would like to see to play the damn game in 120FPS, other than the ones I mentioned before, i don't care about anything else from the gaming world, period. I simply don't care about entertainment anymore, do you get it, I don't watch movies, I don't watch TV, I don't care about the industry of making entertainment, I don't care about mainstream complaining. But you know, those are deeper truths, you are not supposed to make that influence you when doing objective analysis, so that's why I emphaized why it's important to keep things separate.

Even if you might be correct, this is simply a very low priority issue for me to consider spending extra more time to get to the bottom of it, it's not life-important.

But simply making this post, just going way out of what this thread is, you know, that says something I do actually care about the accuracy of things and making people informed and I don't want to be the guy blamed for half-assed explanations and confusions, I also don't like being a scammer or a bullshitter, I like to provide quality, that's what people should inspire to, I rather do it good or not do it at all. But you see, my effectiveness is only to a point, you 2 guys with xenocide simply didn't get on board before, I spend a fixed amount of time for the most effectiveness it will have, now it's getting bascially non-effective anything I say, and that's not a problem with me, you are only one of the great ignorant masses out there, it's not worth my time, sorry.

The good news is, you have ability to research on your own without any help, if you put effort into it, skills will come.

Starcraft II is a horribly threaded and optimized game, but GPU compute or reducing GPU renderer overhead is not a panacea for its problems. Starcraft II uses 1-2 CPU cores of a system, so a quad-core CPU will rarely if ever hit 50% utilization in that game. There are plenty of other RTS games that can handle massive combat much better than Starcraft II because they separate the functions outside of the combat system (e.g. the UI and renderer) into separate threads. Starcraft II could perform much better without any renderer changes if the developers had taken the time to do this, but at this point such a change would require pretty much a fresh rewrite of the game code so I wouldn't expect it to occur without a whole new revision of the game.

However, the limitation in performance of RTS games is in the computation of unit interactions, which is a single threaded process. In fact, you can't have a parallel process for this and get repeatable results. To use an example, in two-unit battles with units of equal strength, you could create two threads where each thread tracked one unit's attack. The problem is that you can't synchronize these threads' execution rate while still remaining faster than a single thread (the order of attacks could change depending on things like operating system functions using CPU time on one core and slowing down one thread). So the outcome of the battle would be pretty much random, and this would make the game involve more luck and less skill. The needs to be a serial process, and scaling this up to hundreds of units at a time is a major challenge because the number of unit interactions doubles with each unit added to the battle.

And by the way, how were you controlling 150 mutalisks? Even if you had no workers you could only build 100 of them with the supply cap. And then a THOR or seeker missile comes along and they're all dead in about 3 seconds. Build diversity FTW.

Blizzard isn't famous for their engines anyways, it's quite way behind ...


People on the outside just need to realize there are many types of developers, only a fraction is responsible for the core engine.
And as we have enthusiasts and hardcore people in the communities, that's how there are really good and informed developers, which also means you have the mainstream and noobs too, one of the biggest things in mainstream developers is that they think they know better if they have a job in one of the studios, they think they automatically possess higher understanding, in actuality, they just do what they're told, they don't really research anything, they focus on their little bubble they are interested in, the worse part is, arrogance, they think they know everything around tech, they probably programmed UI in Java for some web game, then they come out to make outrageous claims about APIs. The big thing is, realizing there is a bigger world and you never know everything, that's why you don't claim and make opinions before you research it to be sure what it is about.

But this is a general problem with people, it's the general degeneracy of society, nothing to do with tech or gaming, it's everywhere, they rather spew BS instead of admitting they really don't know to make a valid opinion. Arrogance, they think they achieved some godly status or something, "oh I work for a developer who sold many millions of copies, I know everything, even tho I was mostly responsible for taking the trash out every day, and I happend to spot a few lines on the monitors, hihi hoho I'm so pro, I got my stupid twitter twatter chatter account for my 15 year old fanboys to post to, hi hi ho ho, my opinions get referenced in many publications, even tho those are also mostly stupid blogger basement dwellers, hi hi hoho, check out my stupid facebook, hi hi ho, im a developer, im so famous"

Most of these "developers" have been manufactured by the indoctrination camps you call Universities, they have been spoonfed and babysit from the very beginning, their minds are hardwired, programmed to carry out the work in this closed virtual environment they're trapped in, a perception of sorts, they don't possess vision or optimism for something better, they don't aspire to, they are the gatekeepers of status quo, these are arrogant selfish people, from these waters come the people who made up false rumors and unbased claims and conclusions, and I have striken back at them full force. Ofcourse not from TPU, but this will get out to some of them as random people find this thread via search later, etc.

Just look around, every of those college dropouts and those that self-learned are the top developers now to this day. Valve guy, didn't finish, Carmack, didn't finish.


Last paragraph: Custom game, supplies modified. (it's public and I call it "SwxImproved: Antiga Shipyard Zerg Test 2.0" , it's nothing special, just a map where i goofed around with editor years ago)

To admit ... there are moments of boredom and that's the time I play games Thankfully these moments have been diminishing constantly.

That's enough for the morning, this rant is over for good.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Geez dude, chill out. No one in their right mind strikes up a tech discussion thread about something like this then just goes off on a tantrum when people merely point out facts that are being misinterpreted or glossed over.

Honestly, I didn't read much of that wall of text because in fact AMD hasn't really proven Mantle yet, that's what everyone is waiting to see. You can believe it's proven all you want, but until it's in the hands of consumers there's no real way to tell how it performs on a multitude of systems, and that's not even counting a multitude of games, and it will be some time before that becomes a reality, if it ever even does.

 

[RoutedScripter]

Geez dude, chill out. No one in their right mind strikes up a tech discussion thread about something like this then just goes off on a tantrum when people merely point out facts that are being misinterpreted or glossed over.

Honestly, I didn't read much of that wall of text because in fact AMD hasn't really proven Mantle yet, that's what everyone is waiting to see. You can believe it's proven all you want, but until it's in the hands of consumers there's no real way to tell how it performs on a multitude of systems, and that's not even counting a multitude of games, and it will be some time before that becomes a reality, if it ever even does.

They don't need to prove anything, and they can't anyways, developers will. It's proven because it provides an environment already on consoles and other devices, it's not a new type of product, it's just a "brand" name.

 

[Mussels]

i appreciate all the starcraft talk, it makes me happy.

what this boils down to is optimism or pessimism for mantle, and thats all we can have til it comes out.

 

[xenocide]

You really have no idea what you're talking about. We've already been through the discussion, PC and PS4 are going to drive the industry from now on, Xbone is irrelevant,but exclusive devs might make it quasi-relevant but that's just apparent, nor real. But it won't be like before, when a console was limiting what PCs could do, now, PS4 is going to dominate the technology on consoles, PC will totally spin-off into it's true glory.

Xbox One is not irrelevant, and being a little more civil would get you a long ways. PS4 may dominate on consoles, but the issue is it won't be using Mantle anyway, AMD already confirmed it. Mantle is intended to offer a console-esque development environment for PC developers, but it's going to face an uphill battle where Developers are now going to have to develop DirectX/OpenGL and Mantle versions should they chose to for PC, and even then I would imagine you won't see massive improvements because they want to keep the gameplay experience level across all hardware--will probably be a lot of games with Mantle support that just run a little better (as in lower resources).

There will be no such ports anymore, ofcourse the line will not be fixed, it's a gradual transition, DX will still be fallback option for some time, the rendering pipeline will look similarly to how engines are written on PS4, however, the porting of low-level optimization code will be only temporairly possible because of the console's and PC current GPU similarity, this will no longer be the case when PCs evolve to a newer architecture, but by then Mantle will be something normal, fast porting might not exist, but it will still be light years better than DX or OGL anyways.

Actually porting games from Xbox 360 to PC was pretty streamlined, it was one of the things Microsoft worked tirelessly on because they have a large stake in both markets. I can't speak for OpenGL since almost nobody uses it these days (largely due to slow update cycles). And there will always be ports, good and bad. The console market cannot be ignored, so to think because of Mantle developers would start focusing exclusively on PC is absurd. PS4 reportedly sold 1m units on day 1, developers aren't going to avoid numbers like that. There are plenty of games that were ported well and had their own teams for PC; Grand Theft Auto 4, Sleeping Dogs, Borderlands 2, obviously Battlefield 3.

It is totally clear to me now, why PCs were a big downfall, it actually wasn't only the console sales, it's the fact that PC development is absolutely catastrophic undertaking compared to how it is on consoles, what I'm referring to are development hurdles such as random driver crashes, continious chat with GPU Vendors, it's a total hellhole and I cannot thank Johan more, I understand how huge it is from an outside perspective, I cannot COMPREHEND how on earth were all these developers hanging in this trainwreck

It was not a trainwreck. There is a reason a majority of Indie Development is done on PC--it has a lower barrier to entry and more advanced options. Programming for consoles on the other hand, is a god damn nightmare, especially towards the end of the life cycle. You see wacky stuff like developers embedding texture files in weird spots just to get them into the memory without crashing the system--and this is a pretty common thing, enough that Gamasutra has several pages of high profile devs revealing the crazy stuff they did. There's also the fact that PC hardware is always substantially better than Consoles, which means you can be a little lazier when it comes to things like texture compression because you're developing for a platform where people are using 2-4-16GB of RAM versus 256MB.

Personally, I don't care about anything microsoft or xbox, what ports, what games, I don't play them, I don't follow them

You might not, but guess who does--Game Publishers. Do you think they want to pay for games that are going to ignore a massive market? The answer is no, it was a rhetorical question.

you'll just have to study this a bit more, no offense, but I really don't have the temper to spoonfeed with all the other things you need to know before even can you understand this discussion

And every time we've raised facts you've said we were wrong or stupid without actually addressing the issue. I stopped posting because whenever a valid point was made you dismissed it and harassed the person asking without ever answering the question. I believe Frag Maniac knows exactly how Mantle is intended to work, and any criticism he has of the proposed technology has been pretty reasonable.

Geez dude, chill out. No one in their right mind strikes up a tech discussion thread about something like this then just goes off on a tantrum when people merely point out facts that are being misinterpreted or glossed over.

Let's talk about this new technology!

...

Your opinions are bad and you should feel bad!!!

Honestly, I didn't read much of that wall of text because in fact AMD hasn't really proven Mantle yet, that's what everyone is waiting to see. You can believe it's proven all you want, but until it's in the hands of consumers there's no real way to tell how it performs on a multitude of systems, and that's not even counting a multitude of games, and it will be some time before that becomes a reality, if it ever even does.

Which is essentially what I've been saying but it seems to be falling on deaf ears. It's going to be a hard sell to get every game developer behind Mantle to ensure its survival when most games are multiplatform, and one of the two major players is already stating they won't use it.

They don't need to prove anything, and they can't anyways, developers will. It's proven because it provides an environment already on consoles and other devices, it's not a new type of product, it's just a "brand" name.

Yes, they do have to prove stuff. If they market a product and then it ends up being just a proof of concept they essentially mislead consumers. PC's are not consoles, and even something as small as the difference between say an HD7770 and HD7850 is pretty significant when you're coding to the metal. The reason the low-level approach works so well on consoles is because the hardware is always identical--a PS3 is a PS3 is a PS3--so you can spend time you would normally spend optimizing it for various chipsets on going deeper (Programception).

 

[Frag_Maniac]

And every time we've raised facts you've said we were wrong or stupid without actually addressing the issue. I stopped posting because whenever a valid point was made you dismissed it and harassed the person asking without ever answering the question. I believe Frag Maniac knows exactly how Mantle is intended to work, and any criticism he has of the proposed technology has been pretty reasonable.

Exactly, and it negates any good intentions of making such a thread when the author himself derails it with denial of his own naivety and senseless hostility.

Proof of concept is key in the tech industry, but you also need prove it to consumers. Otherwise it would be like politics, where mere talk easily misleads people. They can show us charts all day and have big name devs up on stage with lofty claims, but until we see it for our own eyes it is not proven to those whom matter most, the ones that generate the cash flow.

And this isn't merely a matter of creating a better API, perhaps that's where the argument escalated. It's a matter of implementing it without creating a rift between AMD and Nvidia customers the likes of which could very well be off putting to devs considering using Mantle.

Even if they were to prove Mantle could increase performance noticeably on Nvidia spec, if AMD customers get quite a bit more increase, there's still going to be Nvidia customers crying foul saying AMD created Mantle to boost their own performance and cripple Nvidia's.

So at the end of the day, this is not just about creating a better API, it's about improving gaming in general on a level that all gamers can accept. If they can't accomplish that with Mantle, which is a monumental task really, it very well could die out quickly like Glide did, even WITH the extra debugging features.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Some of you are not getting what mantle is about at all, its an Api yes but it is still compatible with dx11.x (the render bits anyway and no doubt dx compute) anyway so any code written for dx11.2 shaders and optimised for dx11.2 can itself be ported onto mantle which in itself is easier then porting bare metal redering optimisations for last gen console into the dx api with its probably intentional restrictions on things(draw calls for eg).
fine microsoft wont use mantel, but that which is made for direct xbox will actually be doable with mantle(due to gcn) as opposed to a Api that WONT allow it at all therein requiring an alternate code write or further adjustment and all the while trying to have the game look and feel the same.

It does not matter if neither console EVER uses mantle, the mear fact they both use GCN means anything coded to work well using GCN arch can then be ported to a mantle running game engine without as much stress.

bare metal api to me means we might actually get what we feckin pay for in a top end gpu without M$ limiting my games to make their console look good, there's the nut kick no ones mentioning(30000 draw calls max wtf little better then a ps2s poly count, NO LIMITS pls)

 

[the54thvoid]

Elephant in room.

The devs need to code specifically for Mantle to work. That much we know. It's more work for them. So it really comes down to who pays to, ahem, 'help' develop the game. Such games as Assassins Creed (purely as an example) where Nvidia provided tech assistance. If Nvidia choose to ignore Mantle, they will certainly not allow developer cooperation on games they sponsor.

AMD will need to encourage devs to write it into the code. If MS and Nvidia don't want that to happen, it'll be a blatant development bribery generation. I don't think Mantle will get very far across the gaming spectrum unless all three companies concerned sit down and talk about it.

We can hype Mantle as much as AMD want us to but it needs developer support and if Nvidia want to buy in to the bigger AAA titles, well, we know what'll happen.

 

[RoutedScripter]

Xbox One is not irrelevant, and being a little more civil would get you a long ways. PS4 may dominate on consoles, but the issue is it won't be using Mantle anyway, AMD already confirmed it. Mantle is intended to offer a console-esque development environment for PC developers, but it's going to face an uphill battle where Developers are now going to have to develop DirectX/OpenGL and Mantle versions should they chose to for PC, and even then I would imagine you won't see massive improvements because they want to keep the gameplay experience level across all hardware--will probably be a lot of games with Mantle support that just run a little better (as in lower resources).

I don't care about multi-platform games and other console ports at all, this probably won't hold, but even if it would, i don't care, it's their problem, I care what happens on PC, if there is no PC game, there is nothing for me, I don't want to have a NSA box in my house and I don't care what they have to offer at all, I do not play FPS games much, and I certainly won't play FPS games on a controler, I am so glad RTS games cannot be cheaply adapted to controllers, so glad that even the dumbest of mainstream circles admit it's a bad idea.

Actually porting games from Xbox 360 to PC was pretty streamlined, it was one of the things Microsoft worked tirelessly on because they have a large stake in both markets. I can't speak for OpenGL since almost nobody uses it these days (largely due to slow update cycles). And there will always be ports, good and bad. The console market cannot be ignored, so to think because of Mantle developers would start focusing exclusively on PC is absurd. PS4 reportedly sold 1m units on day 1, developers aren't going to avoid numbers like that. There are plenty of games that were ported well and had their own teams for PC; Grand Theft Auto 4, Sleeping Dogs, Borderlands 2, obviously Battlefield 3.

Because console ports were so great! Right.

You clearly don't understand that I don't give a damn about console developers and their issues and opinions and justifications and rationalization to not develop on PC on any other issue than API. Now that Mantle is here, with mantle all that genuine issues will go away that only a fraction of developers talk about and actually do something about it, others are, the only thing will be financial, studio resources and skills barring them to develop good games on PC.

"The console market cannot be ignored" I don't care about their financial shit, I don't care about corporations, I don't care about their arrogance, I don't care about them being hungry for profit, I don't care about capitalism, they can all go to hell, do you understand, I don't care what it takes, bring me great PC games or go the heck away. The problems can be ultimately traced down to the social and the fractional reserve debt slave financial system that is in control of the modern society, tear it down and make a better one, then you can make great PC games, don't say it can't be done, it can, give me a month, we organize 1 million sized protest across 100 cities, the capitalism falls, we make a better system, politely awake the society to become less corrupt and decadent, corporations like we know today wouldn't exist anymore, there would be no such thing as "return on investment", etc etc etc, there, and we start making our great PC game, It can be done, find a way to make it happen, be unique, be original, stop following suits, stop being just a sheep in herd, develop something new, find a better business model, challenge the status quo.

It was not a trainwreck. There is a reason a majority of Indie Development is done on PC--it has a lower barrier to entry and more advanced options. Programming for consoles on the other hand, is a god damn nightmare, especially towards the end of the life cycle. You see wacky stuff like developers embedding texture files in weird spots just to get them into the memory without crashing the system--and this is a pretty common thing, enough that Gamasutra has several pages of high profile devs revealing the crazy stuff they did. There's also the fact that PC hardware is always substantially better than Consoles, which means you can be a little lazier when it comes to things like texture compression because you're developing for a platform where people are using 2-4-16GB of RAM versus 256MB.

That has little to do with APIs, sure the higher-level API provides faster development and less skills required. But you're totally mixing stuff up, those are console-exclusive issues, PS3 development was a trainwereck because of the hardware it self, and even those console issues aren't as big as the development on PC when it comes to performance and efficiency.

You might not, but guess who does--Game Publishers. Do you think they want to pay for games that are going to ignore a massive market? The answer is no, it was a rhetorical question.

If you didn't yet got the message from all those posts, excuse my expression: I don't give a rats ass about game publishers, what they think, what they say, they do nothing, they are a consolidation of wealth, they are nothing but profit driven corporations, they don't provide anything good, I don't care what problems and issues will they have as a result of Mantle, as a matter of fact, I wish there would be a snowden-type guy exposing some of the shady stuff on them and do as much damage as possible. That's what I would do if I was employed at EA, I would seriously apply for a job just for this. But ... you know, my effectiveness is limited, game publishers are nothing compared to the pharmaceutical industrial complex and military industrial complex or financial complex or for that matter corporate intelligence complex, I would rather use my abilities on them.

And every time we've raised facts you've said we were wrong or stupid without actually addressing the issue. I stopped posting because whenever a valid point was made you dismissed it and harassed the person asking without ever answering the question. I believe Frag Maniac knows exactly how Mantle is intended to work, and any criticism he has of the proposed technology has been pretty reasonable.

Yes, because you're making something out of nothing.

The people who do understand as much as I do, probably are asking them selfs why do I still keep coming back and replying, unless it starts to eat into my nerves and time I don't have, then I don't mind it, but we all have our limits.

Which is essentially what I've been saying but it seems to be falling on deaf ears. It's going to be a hard sell to get every game developer behind Mantle to ensure its survival when most games are multiplatform, and one of the two major players is already stating they won't use it.

I don't care about multi-platform games. Especially those which are PC derivatives designed on consoles and brought back to the PC through a console port. (post-IW COD Modern Warfare is a nice example)

Yes, they do have to prove stuff. If they market a product and then it ends up being just a proof of concept they essentially mislead consumers. PC's are not consoles, and even something as small as the difference between say an HD7770 and HD7850 is pretty significant when you're coding to the metal. The reason the low-level approach works so well on consoles is because the hardware is always identical--a PS3 is a PS3 is a PS3--so you can spend time you would normally spend optimizing it for various chipsets on going deeper (Programception).

AMD Provides the API to developers. Developer 1 makes a bad game. Developer 2 makes a great game. Developer 3 makes a great game. Developer 4 makes a great game. Developer 5 makes a great game. Who's fault it is ?

Otherwise it would be like politics, ...

Everyone with a brain knows what Mantle's agenda is. It is not something that fate of a nation will depend on. One of the biggest things to learn when fighting for truth is to not make up conspiracies where there aren't any.

So at the end of the day, this is not just about creating a better API, it's about improving gaming in general on a level that all gamers can accept. If they can't accomplish that with Mantle, which is a monumental task really, it very well could die out quickly like Glide did, even WITH the extra debugging features.

That sounds authoritarian.

So you hope, that Mantle is a way to collectivize everyone to a single type of game standards, one for all, no choice, no freedom. You are insane.


That said, you have now been exposed to be nothing but a gatekeeper for the status quo, unknowingly helping the companies who clearly benefit from no-mantle on PC, I know well enough about paid shills and trolls hired by companies, I don't want to go that far right now, but I mention it to point out that is always a possibility, I'm not accusing you anyways, but it is not designed for your ideas, it is designed to get the hardcore PC market away from the chains of a company that clearly blocks innovation and progress.


I really am sorry it taken me that far, I am finished with you in this thread, because, I don't want it end, you guys go ahead and discuss your self now, I'll just rather observe ...


Let me go back and point out that you guys have a fair point about not having any proof, that is indeed the case, but your lack of understanding makes you go into assuming problems that probably not going to be real, there might be some other unknown problem for mantle getting traction, that possbility is not out. What I'm saying is that you guys think that mantle needs to dominate or else it's useless, that's the point, mantle doesn't have to dominate all the PC space, and if your game is not mantle-ready, it's not AMD's problem, it's not Mantle's problem.

It's more work for them.

The work they always wanted.

Which pretty much invalidates everything else you said.