AMD's Revolutionary Mantle Graphics API Adopted by Various Developers

[btarunr]

AMD today announced three new game developer partnerships for Mantle, its highly acclaimed, groundbreaking graphics API. Cloud Imperium Games, Eidos-Montréal, a part of the Square Enix Group, and Oxide Games are the latest game developers to join AMD in optimizing the way PC games are developed to extract maximum performance from a modern graphics architecture that spans desktop PCs, notebooks and consumer devices like tablets.

"AMD is proud to play an instrumental role in transforming the world of game development with Mantle," said Ritche Corpus, director of ISV gaming and alliances, AMD. "With the support and close collaboration between AMD and industry-leading game developers like Cloud Imperium, Eidos-Montréal and Oxide, Mantle can maximize optimization for highly anticipated PC titles, bringing an unparalleled gaming experience for players."

Cloud Imperium Games is currently developing "Star Citizen," the highly anticipated, crowd-funded PC space simulator from legendary game designer Chris Roberts.
"AMD's Mantle will allow us to extract more performance from an AMD Radeon GPU than any other graphics API," said Chris Roberts, CEO, Cloud Imperium Games. "Mantle is vitally important for a game like Star Citizen, which is being designed with the need for massive GPU horsepower. With Mantle, our team can spend more time achieving our perfect artistic vision, and less time worrying about whether or not today's gaming hardware will be ready to deliver it."

Eidos-Montréal is the studio behind "THIEF," an upcoming first-person stealth adventure set for release in February 2014. Eidos-Montréal also developed "DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION," an AMD Gaming Evolved title.

"Mantle lets you use AMD Radeon GPUs the way they are meant to be used, unlocking many new opportunities and increased CPU and GPU performance," said David Anfossi, studio head, Eidos-Montréal. "Because of this, Mantle is one of the most important changes to PC graphics in many years."

Helmed by industry veterans, Oxide Games is designing the new "Nitrous" engine for 64-bit, multi-core processors.

"AMD's Mantle technology lets us get more out of the hardware than any other solution available," said Dan Baker, co-founder, Oxide Games. "Adding Mantle support to our multi-platform, 64-bit Nitrous engine realizes significant gains in performance on Mantle-enabled hardware without adding enormous development overhead."

Cloud Imperium Games, Eidos-Montréal and Oxide Games will join AMD and DICE in speaking about Mantle architecture and implementation at the AMD Developer Summit (APU 13), running Nov. 11-14 in San Jose, Calif. In addition, Oxide Games will be showing a public sneak preview of Mantle performance at the event.

For those interested, complimentary access to all APU 13 keynote sessions is available by registering online, in limited numbers while quantities last. Notable keynote speakers include: Dr. Lisa Su, senior vice president and general manager, Global Business Units, AMD; Johan Andersson, technical director, DICE; Dominic Mallinson, vice president, research and development, Sony; and Mark Papermaster, chief technology officer, AMD.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[HisDivineOrder]

Nothing surprising there, right? I'd be more likely to notice if they'd won over the Unreal Engine or even the Crytek Engine. Hell, even the Unity Engine.

I think given the longstanding relationship between AMD and Square-Enix, I'd have been more shocked had they NOT been Mantle than if they were.

This is one of those cases where AMD might have been better served NOT saying anything rather than saying something and seeming to prove they're actually lacking the widespread support they claimed they had.

Plus, Oxide's engine is... used by what exactly? AMD's goal is to get engines on board, but they need engines that the developers are actually using. Then they have to convince the publishers themselves to support developers using said engines. Lots of money is going to have to flow and so far it doesn't seem like AMD has the cash to make it happen...

Meanwhile, nVidia and especially Intel's coffers overflow with cash.

 

[john_]

"Mantle lets you use AMD Radeon GPUs the way they are meant to be used"

 

[RCoon]

"Mantle lets you use AMD Radeon GPUs the way they are meant to be used"

Reminds me of some company, can't quite remember which one

 

[Fourstaff]

This is good news for everyone except engine devs, they will have more work infront of them.

 

[birdie]

Call me a fanatic, but I want Mantle to die ASAP.

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.

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.

Mantle is not good news for anyone - even for AMD since they are dumping a sh*tload of money into the technology which will have a time span of several years tops, and which won't be supported by up to 75% of x86 GPUs (yeah, I count Intel too - since a lot of people buy laptops or desktops without discrete graphics) - ARM solutions will likely never support it at all.

 

[Roph]

Call me a fanatic, but I want Mantle to die ASAP.

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.

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.

Mantle is not good news for anyone - even for AMD since they are dumping a sh*tload of money into the technology which will have a time span of several years tops, and which won't be supported by up to 75% of x86 GPUs (yeah, I count Intel too - since a lot of people buy laptops or desktops without discrete graphics) - ARM solutions will likely never support it at all.

In each case, isn't mantle only an option? It's not like old times where a game might ONLY run on Glide.

 

[john_]

Call me a fanatic, but I want Mantle to die ASAP.

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.

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.

Mantle is not good news for anyone - even for AMD since they are dumping a sh*tload of money into the technology which will have a time span of several years tops, and which won't be supported by up to 75% of x86 GPUs (yeah, I count Intel too - since a lot of people buy laptops or desktops without discrete graphics) - ARM solutions will likely never support it at all.

I really want to read your opinion about PhysX and CUDA.

 

[RCoon]

I really want to read your opinion about PhysX and CUDA.

Physx is pointless and obsolete. If they actually cared about immersion, they would take their Physx, utilise it along with their water particle technology, and then every game would have amazingly realistic water effects. Then they'd need to make it open to everyone (which they won't because NVidia are scum).
CUDA has genuine uses outside of gaming though, universities love CUDA.

 

[sweet]

Call me a fanatic, but I want Mantle to die ASAP.

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.

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.

Mantle is not good news for anyone - even for AMD since they are dumping a sh*tload of money into the technology which will have a time span of several years tops, and which won't be supported by up to 75% of x86 GPUs (yeah, I count Intel too - since a lot of people buy laptops or desktops without discrete graphics) - ARM solutions will likely never support it at all.

Damn fanatic
XBO/PS4/WiiU and GCN cards are enough for Mantle to avoid Glide's fate. And thanks to Mantle, there won't be shitty ported games anymore, win-win for everyone
Oh wait, maybe green camp will still suffer poor optimized ported games just like at this moment. Not really a big deal. You have a GCN card? Best optimization. Don't have? Still acceptable. For example, GTA4 was a big hit on PC despite of how bad it was ported. People can live with that level of optimization

 

[Nordic]

I'd be more likely to notice if they'd won over the Unreal Engine or even the Crytek Engine.

Cloud Imperium games, or more specifically star citizen, uses cryengine.

Indeed, Crytek's R&D technical director, Michael Glueck, said 'yes, that would appeal to us

Crytech has not come out saying they will fully support mantle but they definitely are not ignoring it.

 

[Fourstaff]

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.

One day when Microsoft goes bankrupt and we can no longer play DX based games, is that grounds to ban DX?

 

[Jack1n]

Damn fanatic
XBO/PS4/WiiU and GCN cards are enough for Mantle to avoid Glide's fate. And thanks to Mantle, there won't be shitty ported games anymore, win-win for everyone
Oh wait, maybe green camp will still suffer poor optimized ported games just like at this moment. Not really a big deal. You have a GCN card? Best optimization. Don't have? Still acceptable. For example, GTA4 was a big hit on PC despite of how bad it was ported. People can live with that level of optimization

Both XBO and PS4 will not support mantle,XBO will be DX 11.2 and PS4 will be Open GL.

 

[sweet]

Both XBO and PS4 will not support mantle,XBO will be DX 11.2 and PS4 will be Open GL.

But their hardware belong to AMD, that is the point. With the similarity of hardware, Mantle allows a code written for PS4/XBO be recycled on PC and vice versa, and that reduces a lot of workload for developers. Fewer workload for them and better optimization for us, who can ask for more?

 

[NeoXF]

Physx is pointless and obsolete. If they actually cared about immersion, they would take their Physx, utilise it along with their water particle technology, and then every game would have amazingly realistic water effects. Then they'd need to make it open to everyone (which they won't because NVidia are scum).
CUDA has genuine uses outside of gaming though, universities love CUDA.

Yeah, and that way, nVidia would have their logo on a lot more titles... instead of having it there just because they bullied/payed dev X and Y to use it and (ofc, optimize it for their hardware, in the process that they (nVidia) also get backlash for such things...).

Either way, Mantle isn't a lock for being proprietary... so hold on to your guns just yet.

One day when Microsoft goes bankrupt and we can no longer play DX based games, is that grounds to ban DX?

Exactly, killer point.


Either way, PC gamers are spoiled into being able to play whatever they desire, no matter how old it is (or proprietary)... Try playing some obscure SNES game on Wii U... or a hidden gem from PSX era, on PS4... yeah, you get the point.

 

[DeOdView]

Any willingness support from the software is a win win, whether it's AMD or NV, ultimately us, the customers. Hardware is nothing if software can not utilized <-- Microsoft, do you hear that?

Here how I looked at it. If it free! Hell, yes! Please...

If it not... putted on the table and see what it can do, than justified it... BTW: that's how we'd been advancing through the years. And if it is just another Glide, PhysicX, Cuda... or whatever, give me a called... I had my butcher knife sharped and safe. Until than, let it shines to it full potential. Same thing with GSync... Errr.. My butcher knife is not safe at this point.

We are living in the USA, right? ... Right?!

 

[Sagia86]

I really want to read your opinion about PhysX and CUDA.

Well, first i assumed you are not games developer and maybe you didn't that around 500+ games using physx. Also, physx CAN RUN on CPU, only certain effect will need GPU assisted, well, even then developer can decide to run it on CPU or GPU.

But their hardware belong to AMD, that is the point. With the similarity of hardware, Mantle allows a code written for PS4/XBO be recycled on PC and vice versa, and that reduces a lot of workload for developers. Fewer workload for them and better optimization for us, who can ask for more?

First, you need to know that each api have there own code/call/etc which are different from each other. Even porting Xbox One games to PS4 will take sometime. For mantle thought, we still didn't know much about it

 

[HisDivineOrder]

Cloud Imperium games, or more specifically star citizen, uses cryengine.



Crytech has not come out saying they will fully support mantle but they definitely are not ignoring it.

Tim Sweeney's not ignoring it either. He's outright hostile to it. Since the majority of games use Unreal Engine (or Unity), what does that say to you?

I suspect Crytek will come out in favor of Mantle, though. I say this based on the fact that Crytek is closely tied to EA still, Crytek had a deal with AMD for Crysis 3 (moving from nVidia for Crysis 1 and 2 and Far Cry before that), and didn't Crytek help build the Ruby demo for AMD?

So yeah. I suspect Crytek will have had the work done for them by AMD and so it will be done. That, I would be impressed by, as I said.

I guess my point is that the "news" here wasn't really news at all. It makes Mantle look like they're just scraping up support rather than being definitive and strong. This isn't AMD bringing together three of the engine geniuses together in one room to talk about how great their tech is.

This is just them throwing a bunch of maybe's in one press release. Lest we forget, Star Citizen has made a lot of money, but it ain't even close to a real game yet. Meanwhile, Thief 4 is getting nothing but "eeesh" vibes since the articles discussing how horribly it was coming together a few months back. I'm not sure if that game's going to be one to be crowing about. And Oxide... who?

 

[Eagleye]

I guess my point is that the "news" here wasn't really news at all. It makes Mantle look like they're just scraping up support rather than being definitive and strong. This isn't AMD bringing together three of the engine geniuses together in one room to talk about how great their tech is.

This is just them throwing a bunch of maybe's in one press release. Lest we forget, Star Citizen has made a lot of money, but it ain't even close to a real game yet. Meanwhile, Thief 4 is getting nothing but "eeesh" vibes since the articles discussing how horribly it was coming together a few months back. I'm not sure if that game's going to be one to be crowing about. And Oxide... who?

Its pretty obvious Devs are waiting for performance numbers before they commit. If i was going to choose an engine for my game, guess which one am likely to choose since Mantle will be faster than any API out there?

Game Engines that do not support Mantle will slowly die off, so they either join or get left behind.

Edit: InB4 anyone says more work, since its actually less overhead

 

[Eagleye]

Physx is pointless and obsolete. If they actually cared about immersion, they would take their Physx, utilise it along with their water particle technology, and then every game would have amazingly realistic water effects. Then they'd need to make it open to everyone (which they won't because NVidia are scum).
CUDA has genuine uses outside of gaming though, universities love CUDA.

Problem is nobody ever says that when people are recommended cards, Cuda and PhysX is actually painted as a plus. We now also have G-Sync and shadow :shadedshu

 

[Nordic]

Lest we forget, Star Citizen has made a lot of money, but it ain't even close to a real game yet.

Star citizen is an alpha. I don't expect a real game yet. It is expected out 2015. Mantle is new. If mantle even gets its foot in the door it will be a few years before anything becomes common, maybe by 2015.

I am not saying I support mantle. I just dislike some of the things you are using to make points.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

But their hardware belong to AMD, that is the point. With the similarity of hardware, Mantle allows a code written for PS4/XBO be recycled on PC and vice versa, and that reduces a lot of workload for developers. Fewer workload for them and better optimization for us, who can ask for more?

AMD has already said Mantle is not being used on the consoles. Its strictly for PCs.

 

[FrustratedGarrett]

Tim Sweeney's not ignoring it either. He's outright hostile to it. Since the majority of games use Unreal Engine (or Unity), what does that say to you?

I suspect Crytek will come out in favor of Mantle, though. I say this based on the fact that Crytek is closely tied to EA still, Crytek had a deal with AMD for Crysis 3 (moving from nVidia for Crysis 1 and 2 and Far Cry before that), and didn't Crytek help build the Ruby demo for AMD?

So yeah. I suspect Crytek will have had the work done for them by AMD and so it will be done. That, I would be impressed by, as I said.

I guess my point is that the "news" here wasn't really news at all. It makes Mantle look like they're just scraping up support rather than being definitive and strong. This isn't AMD bringing together three of the engine geniuses together in one room to talk about how great their tech is.

This is just them throwing a bunch of maybe's in one press release. Lest we forget, Star Citizen has made a lot of money, but it ain't even close to a real game yet. Meanwhile, Thief 4 is getting nothing but "eeesh" vibes since the articles discussing how horribly it was coming together a few months back. I'm not sure if that game's going to be one to be crowing about. And Oxide... who?

Oh, we have an Nvidia troll from techreport here! Tim Sweeny, in an Nivida conference, will not tell you that using Mantle, you can write code that runs on both the two new consoles and half the PC with very little to no modification of the code. It makes developing cross-platform games a breeze, and everyone benefits from this except for Nvidia, and in a way Microsoft that loves exclusives, as they call them on their XBOX.

Correction: The majority of crappy games today use UT3 and the majority of the upcoming crappy games will be using UT4.

We have major game studios endorsing Mantle. So we're going to have over half the big engines developed today supporting Mantle.

 

[sweet]

AMD has already said Mantle is not being used on the consoles. Its strictly for PCs.

Seriously, please read my post again. Mantle transform PC to a console similar machine, that is the point.

 

[Valdez]

Call me a fanatic, but I want Mantle to die ASAP.

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.

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.

Mantle is not good news for anyone - even for AMD since they are dumping a sh*tload of money into the technology which will have a time span of several years tops, and which won't be supported by up to 75% of x86 GPUs (yeah, I count Intel too - since a lot of people buy laptops or desktops without discrete graphics) - ARM solutions will likely never support it at all.

I think Mantle is the best option (for you, if you're using AMD). And there should be a nVidia and an Intel API along with Mantle for the best experience for the user (for you).