AMD Halts Optimizations for Mantle API

[Relayer]

and hopefully amd will not continue releasing underperforming graphics hardware.. (or at least showcases how it can prevail over the competition setup at least in some scenarios..)

Not too off topic.

 

[Relayer]

I don't think there is any Mantle code in Direct3D 12; Microsoft just used the principle of it as a starting point. Vulkan, on the other hand, uses huge portions of Mantle code.

Oh, I think there might be a fair bit, actually.

 

[rtwjunkie]

AMD is most likely counting on DX12 and Vulkan to take off, and for DX11 to die off soon.

Except DX11 won't be dying off for a looooong time. It won't disappear just because DX12 comes out. Has DX9 disappeared? No, in fact, there are recent games that have been released as DX9 games (and look quite good, btw). Expect the same kind of situation for years with 11.

 

[qubit]

I guess this was inevitable. AMD get a lot of kudos from me for innovating to take out the inefficiencies present in current graphics APIs. Nice one.

 

[RejZoR]

Well, I did play one game with Mantle. Battlefield 4. And it ran great on HD7950. All maxed out and it was smooth experience. Only time where framerate dropped a bit was that collapsing building in the beginning when chopper falls down. Other than that, super smooth.

 

[FrustratedGarrett]

Except DX11 won't be dying off for a looooong time. It won't disappear just because DX12 comes out. Has DX9 disappeared? No, in fact, there are recent games that have been released as DX9 games (and look quite good, btw). Expect the same kind of situation for years with 11.

Well, that is sad! Performance and quality of games can improve dramatically with DX12 and Vulkan. Also, you won't need new drivers for each game and all that nonsense. We've seen how CPU time spent on batch generation and validation is reduced by ~20 times with a 6 core/threaded CPU. All that CPU time can be used to render better physics simulation and AI and make those crappy AAA games a more appealing.

http://wccftech.com/directx-12-directx-11-100fps-difference-unreleased-gpu/

 

[R-T-B]

No. Mantle was a dumbed down version of OpenGL, just like 3dfx's GLide was some time ago.

Uh, not really... At least from what little I know.

Citation needed?

 

[HM_Actua1]

Saw this coming when they announced mantle. Maybe the name is more fitting then ever? to be placed on the mantle?

 

[Caring1]

Note: I'm expecting for ignorant dudes who translate this news into "AMD did bad as always, go die" to populate this thread. Just another day on TPU

Trolling comment was expected.

 

[v12dock]

I'd imagine Apple's Metal API is very similar to Mantle.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Oh, I think there might be a fair bit, actually.

There is indeed a lot of copy-pasta there. Question is: which came first? Did AMD copy Microsoft's documentation or did Microsoft copy AMD's documentation? I guess at the end of the day it doesn't really matter. Mantle is done, Direct3D and Vulkan go on.

I'd imagine Apple's Metal API is very similar to Mantle.

From the Wikipedia article, it sounds like it is OpenGL/OpenCL with some performance improvements. It's not directly related to Mantle like Vulkan and Direct3D 12 are.

This Unity article goes into details:
http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/07/03/metal-a-new-graphics-api-for-ios-8/

In short, Metal is designed (read: stripped down and features explicitly defined) specifically for iOS and iOS processors (e.g. A7). It would not work on any other hardware where Vulkan/Direct3D are flexible.

 

[r.h.p]

So Mantle becomes Vulcan ....cool I think. Also isn't the fury half the size of the titan and have more future potential ?

 

[lilunxm12]

There is indeed a lot of copy-pasta there. Question is: which came first? Did AMD copy Microsoft's documentation or did Microsoft copy AMD's documentation? I guess at the end of the day it doesn't really matter. Mantle is done, Direct3D and Vulkan go on.


From the Wikipedia article, it sounds like it is OpenGL/OpenCL with some performance improvements. It's not directly related to Mantle like Vulkan and Direct3D 12 are.

This Unity article goes into details:
http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/07/03/metal-a-new-graphics-api-for-ios-8/

In short, Metal is designed (read: stripped down and features explicitly defined) specifically for iOS and iOS processors (e.g. A7). It would not work on any other hardware where Vulkan/Direct3D are flexible.

The OS X version of Metal will be bundled in 10.11.

 

[happita]

So Mantle becomes Vulcan ....cool I think. Also isn't the fury half the size of the titan and have more future potential ?

True, but don't forget the next generation of cards are all going to be using HBM in at least a few of their cards. Nvidia isn't a slack when it comes to staying on top of the competition, we all know that. The cards from both camps next year are going to be short because of HBM, which will be in it's second generation supporting 8GB worth.

Richard Huddy talking about Mantle

6:00+

Very interesting video.

 

[Casecutter]

I'd imagine Apple's Metal API is very similar to Mantle.

I think this is what scared MS more to stop dragging its heels. While Windows is prolific, what is the M-S operating system maintaining/prevalent in anymore? I mean it use to have all the Office software, but today you have plenty of free word possessing, spread sheet, database, photo, PowerPoint, Paint, choices... Though for gaming there's been just one: DirectX. With the rise of SteamOS, and Apple looking at gaming, MS quickly saw not moving would open the door for challengers to their OS gaming dominance.

I'm sure when M-S (Xbox) was eyeballing AMD GCN (back 2010 or before) and how low-level API interacted with it; M-S told AMD "yes" that's the architecture we’re eager to engage. AMD said, for them to completely develop it they’d need employ it in all their discrete products. I think at that point there was the "gentleman's agreement" that Dx12 would get such optimizations. Although later pressure from Intel/Nvidia M-S started waning or even reneged going-forward with a "full-implementation" of what AMD had been told/envisioned. So AMD brought Mantle, and while not their direct intention it opened the idea that other operating systems might see the lock that has been DirectX opened... Others looking to come up the ladder and dethrone M-S took notice. M-S losing their DirectX hold would show the "Emperor has no clothes", what else does M-S Operating System really have as its draw...

 

[efikkan]

AMD will now focus on DirectX 12 and Vulkan (OpenGL successor by Khronos Group). Why the company effectively killed its own 2-year old and promising 3D API is anyone's guess.

Mantle was only indended as a PR experiment, and is in that regard quite successful. AMD knew it would be dead the moment Direct3D 12 arrives.

Yes, it's a good move for AMD. Now they have both Dx12 and Vulkan on their side. The red camp looks quite strong for the next era. By the way the news is old.

Is there any particular reason why you believe AMD will have an advantage over Nvidia?

Kinda doubt Mantle had anything to do with DX12 being what it is, its not like MS suddenly radically changed its approach on the new DX(12) as soon as they heard what AMD was doing with Mantle.

Direct3D 12 has been planned since before Maxwell was designed. New APIs from Microsoft is roughly drafted many years ahead, since it takes several years to design the GPUs. So as you were saying, Mantle din't preassure Microsoft into making Direct3D 12, if so we would have seen it last year.

Mantle was disappointing to be sure, but what hurts me more is that audio improvement that was promised.
A gaming experience is really determined by 2 factors, Video and Audio, yet the time effort and money goes 95% to video and 5% to audio....

I was hoping Mantle would bring the importance of good audio back but it seems like I need to dream on.

The main focus of Mantle was reducing API overhead, to create an old style "console" API. But the thing about API overhead is, if you already have efficient code with few API calls, then reducing the API overhead wouldn't matter that much. So reducing API overhead helps poorly coded game engines the most.

I totally agree about the stagnant state of audio. DirectX is OK, but there are few alternatives. OpenAL is totally outdated.

Vulkan effectively is Mantle.

No.

No. Mantle was a dumbed down version of OpenGL, just like 3dfx's GLide was some time ago.

Still no. Mantle has been a source for initial inspiration for the programming interface, but the overall API and specs are new.

 

[profoundWHALE]

@above

1) Vulkan is effectively Mantle 2.0 because it is such a major change. With Khoronos and its many partners, has been making something that is much better being that it is cross platform. AFAIK they were able to take a lot of the optimization work that AMD already did and reimplement it. I don't know how much sharing was going on but it's clear that Mantle work made it's way in.

2) Mantle is copy paste Directx12 in the sense that there's so many similarities. Even performance with early benchmarks with API testing has Mantle and Directx12 neck and neck. This would make Directx12 more of a Mantle v1.1 seeing that it supports more than just AMD, but doesn't go beyond that.

 

[mirakul]

^ The biggest advantage of AMD over nVidia in Dx12 and Vulkan is that GCN are all resource binding tier 3. nVidia's best GPU only have tier 2. Barring some other aspect, with this advantage, a AMD GPU will mostly have better performance than a nVidia GPU with the same shader/CUDA count. Of coz the final verdict will be affect by ROP count, tesslation performance, etc., but the picture will be generally red for Dx12/Vulkan era, at least until nVidia's Pascal offer GPU with tier 3.

And this is old, but secondlly, Dx12/Vulkan shares a lot of code with Mantle. M$ didn't bother to change the name of Mantle's dll and just pushed them into Dx12 folder

 

[Casecutter]

Is there any particular reason why you believe AMD will have an advantage over Nvidia?

I am not saying AMD will have any advantage... although check this about asynchronous-shading. They've been executing on their long-term vision toward DX12 and GCN is integral to that. Not saying Nvidia hasn't or won't have the same optimization, it's just I've not heard of any information as yet, anyone?

 

[efikkan]

And Nvidia have feature level 12_1, so it's really hard to tell until we have actual games utilizing these features.

For your information, Nvidia's driver implementation shares a lot of the code across APIs and platforms, in fact, Nvidia has implemented both Direct3D and OpenGL as their native API called Cg. So that doesn't mean the APIs are the same.

Async Shaders is supported since Kepler, as noted in the link.

 

[Ruru]

Mantle was pretty nice in BF4, I had 2500K @ 4.5GHz and a R9 280 (aka HD7950 boost) and damn it ran BF4 nicely with Mantle in 1920x1080 Ultra settings.

 

[profoundWHALE]

Mantle was pretty nice in BF4, I had 2500K @ 4.5GHz and a R9 280 (aka HD7950 boost) and damn it ran BF4 nicely with Mantle in 1920x1080 Ultra settings.

Mantle was pretty nice in BF4, I had 2500K @ 4.5GHz and a R9 280 (aka HD7950 boost) and damn it ran BF4 nicely with Mantle in 1920x1080 Ultra settings.

Too bad AMD's most recent driver breaks Mantle

Known Issues:
The following known issues only apply to systems using Windows® 8.1 or Windows® 7 SP1 and later:

[422291] Battlefield 4 triggers TDR and crash when running in AMD Mantle mode

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDCatalyst15-7WINReleaseNotes.aspx
So that's for Catalyst 15.7 but it doesn't seem to effect Windows 10. Also, TDR stands for Timeout Detection and Recovery

 

[Casecutter]

Async Shaders is supported since Kepler, as noted in the link.

Actually, Maxwell 2 - GPU models that have processor variants from; GM200, GM204, GM206 parts.

anandtech.com, "Fermi/Kepler/Maxwell 1 can only use a single graphics queue or their complement of compute queues, but not both at once – early implementations of HyperQ cannot be used in conjunction with graphics. Meanwhile Maxwell 2 has 32 queues, composed of 1 graphics queue and 31 compute queues (or 32 compute queues total in pure compute mode). So pre-Maxwell 2 GPUs have to either execute in serial or pre-empt to move tasks ahead of each other, which would indeed give AMD an advantage..."

 

[nem]

with out Mantle would not have the current DX12 as is. It would, as usual, another high-level API in the strictest sense of continuity.

Mantle has been short but has contributed much. Vulkan both DX12 and carry in them the best of Mantle. No one should put their hands to the head for purchasing a graph with the promise of Mantle, the best of Mantle are already included in the other two APIs.

 

[efikkan]

The features of Mantle was planned for Direct3D 12 long before Mantle, and Mantle was in fact based of this draft. Mantle was a way for AMD to experiment with some of the new features. This is nothing new at all, both AMD and Nvidia provide experimental features to OpenGL and Direct3D all the time, some of which are included in following specifications.