AMD Releases Mantle Programming Guide and Reference API

[btarunr]

AMD announced that it published the complete 450-page programming guide for its Mantle 3D graphics API, and the reference API itself. The two can be accessed from here. In the run up to its GDC 2015 presentation, in a blog post written by the company's top technology exec Raja Koduri, the company said it will talk about the future of Mantle in its GDC presentation. The company intends to develop, maintain and support Mantle and its eco-system, while maintaining that it will participate in the development and support of industry-standard APIs such as DirectX 12 and GLnext (the next major version of OpenGL).



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[btarunr]

Many Thanks to okidna for the tip.

 

[Assimilator]

So after all the hullabaloo about Mantle, they're essentially canning it in favour of DX12 and glNext. Bet all the games companies that wasted months on writing Mantle render paths in their engines, instead of fixing bugs (*cough* Dice / BF4) are going to be THRILLED.

Well, that's what you get for being dumb enough to go with a proprietary API.

Also, inb4 "Mantle prompted DirectX 12 to be closer to the metal". No it didn't, do proper research before you fanboy.

 

[ZoneDymo]

So after all the hullabaloo about Mantle, they're essentially canning it in favour of DX12 and glNext. Bet all the games companies that wasted months on writing Mantle render paths in their engines, instead of fixing bugs (*cough* Dice / BF4) are going to be THRILLED.

Well, that's what you get for being dumb enough to go with a proprietary API.

Also, inb4 "Mantle prompted DirectX 12 to be closer to the metal". No it didn't, do proper research before you fanboy.

Not quite sure how you are reading that into it

 

[renz496]

pop corn time?

 

[arbiter]

Not quite sure how you are reading that into it

AMD wrote it their blog post, AMD is pretty much canning mantle and pushing the game dev's to focus on DX12

The Mantle SDK also remains available to partners who register in this co-development and evaluation program. However, if you are a developer interested in Mantle "1.0" functionality, we suggest that you focus your attention on DirectX® 12 or GLnext.

Source: http://community.amd.com/community/...g/2015/03/02/on-apis-and-the-future-of-mantle

No SDK for anyone but partners.

 

[RCoon]

No SDK for anyone buy partners

It was never going to be open source anyway. They're 3 months late, and even if they had released it on time (December), nobody was going to use it unless AMD paid them handsomely.

Mantle has done its job and prompted improvements to DX that may have had to happen anyway (I'm looking at those 8 jaguar cores in consoles).

 

[john_]

You can't go more open source than that. Mantle did it's job and now steps aside and let's OpenGL next and DirectX 12 to take the wheel. That's the best decision for the consumer.

 

[RejZoR]

How anyone still treats OGL as a player? They basically don't exist in the PC realm anymore. It's only used for professional tools and mobile devices. The rest is strictly DirectX powered stuff. The last game with OGL was Id's Rage and that was it. Which is a shame, but that's how it is.

 

[alwayssts]

You can't go more open source than that. Mantle did it's job and now steps aside and let's OpenGL next and DirectX 12 to take the wheel. That's the best decision for the consumer.

That's how ATi/AMD do.

Truform (tesselation), CTM (OpenCL/DirectCompute), HDR (implementation into pixel shader 2.0), and the list goes on and on and on and on and on...

The difference is this time they got people to practically use the programming set (primary associated with draw calls in this case) earlier, when they first supported them rather than waiting for implementation in directx, which pushed faster adoption by the entire industry. They deserve praise for not only implementing the feature-set and getting it out there, but their execution which resulted in pushing the entire industry forward.

It seems to me Mantle will still serve as a platform where (future) features supported by hardware but not yet directx will allow developers to implement them. That is incredibly smart, imho. Imagine if we come across another tesselation/GPGPU/HDR/etc feature, the developer no longer has to wait to implement it (especially through greater abstraction/generic implimentation).

How anyone still treats OGL as a player? They basically don't exist in the PC realm anymore. It's only used for professional tools and mobile devices. The rest is strictly DirectX powered stuff. The last game with OGL was Id's Rage and that was it. Which is a shame, but that's how it is.

I think to some people, the dream is still alive that many games will somehow either be ported, or somehow simultaneously compiled in OPENGL because SteamOS. I totally get where you're coming from, but I would argue that is it's relevance outside mobile.

 

[Octopuss]

How anyone still treats OGL as a player? They basically don't exist in the PC realm anymore. It's only used for professional tools and mobile devices. The rest is strictly DirectX powered stuff. The last game with OGL was Id's Rage and that was it. Which is a shame, but that's how it is.

Farming simulator runs on OGL and I hate everything about it. Crappy engine and OGL=better go get drunk instead.

 

[qubit]

Farming simulator runs on OGL and I hate everything about it. Crappy engine and OGL=better go get drunk instead.

Sounds more like a problem with a badly written Farming Simulator than the API.

 

[Octopuss]

Definitely, that's why I mentioned the engine as well. But OGL is most probably largely ignored by driver teams in both companies, which surely wouldn't help much either. It all adds up.

 

[Tallencor]

Am I reading it wrong?
"The company intends to "develop", maintain and support Mantle and its eco-system, while maintaining that it will participate in the development and support of industry-standard APIs"
From what I am reading it looks like they are supporting other a.p.i.'s while taking mantle on a diff path Mantle1.1?
"Mantle must take on new capabilities and evolve beyond mastery of the draw call. It will continue to serve AMD as a graphics innovation platform available to select partners with custom needs"

 

[PLAfiller]

pop corn time?

 

[qubit]

Definitely, that's why I mentioned the engine as well. But OGL is most probably largely ignored by driver teams in both companies, which surely wouldn't help much either. It all adds up.

Yeah, I've been wondering how much effort is made to ensure OGL works properly in the drivers when it's not used that much. Those FS problems could be a combination of both, I guess.

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

I think some are reading it wrong. It states that if developers want only "Mantle 1.0" functionality they are suggested to focus on DX12 or GLnext. What I gather from that is if you want more then Mantle 1.0 functionality to not focus on Dx12 or Glnext and stay with Mantle as they are improving it and moving to the future. Atleast this is what I got from it.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

How anyone still treats OGL as a player? They basically don't exist in the PC realm anymore. It's only used for professional tools and mobile devices. The rest is strictly DirectX powered stuff. The last game with OGL was Id's Rage and that was it. Which is a shame, but that's how it is.

erm...did you completely forget about wofenstein the new order? that game was entirely openGL as well. And the over 900 games on linux, or mac osx, or any game made for android. Unreal engine 4 can also run completely in openGL. Also, games on playstation 3 and 4 are openGL as well.
so yeah, quite a bit still uses openGL.

EDIT: ps4, according to naughty dog, does not use openGL. It has its own API

 

[Disparia]

Cool. Though it doesn't appear to be in the downloads section yet?

 

[Octopuss]

erm...did you completely forget about wofenstein the new order? that game was entirely openGL as well. And the over 900 games on linux, or mac osx, or any game made for android. Unreal engine 4 can also run completely in openGL. Also, games on playstation 3 and 4 are openGL as well.
so yeah, quite a bit still uses openGL.

EDIT: ps4, according to naughty dog, does not use openGL. It has its own API

Please name 10 most popular games ouf of the 900. I'm really curious whether anyone ever heard of them.

P.S. I hope you are joking with bringing cell phone games up to this discussion. Noone gives a flying f.. about that.

 

[Casecutter]

Windows OS seems so marginalized anymore to me, they seem to have disconnected so much of the supporting eco-systems (tools) that gave folks a love for the overall OS, Outlook, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, etc; So much of that can/is today supplanted with web based App’s you don’t need lean on M-S like we once had to.

Gamer’s and DirectX is still the one niche that draw to their OS. Lose that and what is Windows, seems like the emperor has no cloths. What if a Low level API could arise and running with Lunix, how may gamers would be purchasing a copy (worse yet subscription based) of Win10? I almost see the without Dx12; M-$ would have nothing much left to cause people to purchase their OS.

 

[theGryphon]

From what I understood, they will naturally support DX12 since it will be the next "standard" but they will keep Mantle alive and use it as a development platform for new features, etc.

Something has to be seen: MS is not that innovative and if things were left just to them, I'm 100% certain DX12 wouldn't be what it is and will be. Every gamer owes AMD thanks for pushing the boundaries and setting the stage for what will come with DX12.

If they can keep doing this with future iterations of Mantle, they can help enable other interesting features and capabilities become part of future iterations of DX12 and DX in general.

So, kudos to AMD, is all I can say.

Which came first, Mantle or DX12?, is an inconsequential question. What matters is that things are progressing in DX, and it would be just unfair to deny the role of AMD's efforts in that.

 

[64K]

There's some strange voodoo going on with DX12. It's supposed to allow a Nvidia card and an AMD card working together in the same PC to render frames. Both GPUs being treated as one super GPU and split frame rendering which would no longer mean 4GB+4GB=4GB like we had with alternate frame rendering in the past.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-directx12-amd-nvidia,28606.html

 

[Patriot]

Let us not forget that AMD gave Kronos the Mantle code and said use it as you please for GLnext...

 

[xfia]

what better way to give intel the middle finger than to make what cpu you have nearly pointless for gaming haha

yeah they have been for a long time.. like tomb raider among many other games will run nearly the same on a 750k as a i7.

like they just took optimizations from the best game engines then baked them into mantle and got everyone to follow with cool next gen marketing.

lots of hype for things many developers where already doing with dx11 but yeah I think I can agree that gamers owe a little thanks to amd for setting a better standard.