AMD Releasing Public Mantle SDK This Year, Encourages Nvidia and Intel to Use it... For Free.

[Theo]

shame dx12 is a thing thats coming out soon

[Humbug]

If G-SYNC was really meant to push the industry then why is it proprietary?

They didn't make it to push the industry forward. But it did push the industry forward...

 

Who knows how long freesync would have taken if not for Gsync. And until Nvidia started talking about it nobody was paying any attention to the problem of synchronizing dynamic GPU framerates with display devices as a means to eliminate tearing while cutting latency. It's such an elegant solution to the longstanding problems of tearing and input lag. We gamers have wrestled with this dilemma for so long and Nvidia brought the solution.

 

Similarly from AMD; Mantle has really pushed the industry forward and demonstrated the benefits of more efficient multi-threading and CPU utilization, now we have the directX and OpenGL guys following their lead. Reading the DX12 and OpenGL Next press releases with their design principles and feature list was deja vu after what was announced by AMD in 2013, and demonstrated in games a few months later. This is also incredibly important for the industry because GPUs are getting so much more powerful while CPUs are not, and it's something devs were asking for for years but the other API guys did not deliver.

[Shahnewaz]

It's the same thing as Google Fiber. When Google released Fiber, other companies started releasing their own fiber connections. Before that, no company cared. G-Sync could've been a way to motivate AMD to create an open form of the same technology.

 

Of course they implemented fiber connections first, but that doesn't explain why G-SYNC is proprietary. Does Google force you to use their (suppose) proprietary router or fiber optic cable?

[holytoledo]

All companies only do things to serve their bottom line, anyone who thinks otherwise is a sucker and fallen prey to marketing BS.

Yeah but releasing things to open standards because you're banking on it generating goodwill for you is different than locking consumers into your proprietary standard because you want to make money selling exclusive features on your cards (also a good strategy)

But who will look better PR wise? AMD is moving and indeed some people are looking. Me included. I also prefer their method of doing things even though I just got a 970 for power efficiency.

They improve things enough to compete with Nvidia on power efficiency and I'll probably switch teams next time around.

Edit: Thread is so not on the first page...

[Godlygamer23]

They didn't make it to push the industry forward.

You are making an assumption.

[Shahnewaz]

They didn't make it to push the industry forward. But it did push the industry forward...

 

Who knows how long freesync would have taken if not for Gsync. And until Nvidia started talking about it nobody was paying any attention to the problem of synchronizing dynamic GPU framerates with display devices as a means to eliminate tearing while still cutting latency

Makes sense.

 

http://www.techpowerup.com/196557/amd-responds-to-nvidia-g-sync-with-freesync.html

 

.....FreeSync taps into a lesser known feature that AMD Radeon GPUs have had for the past three generations (i.e. since Radeon HD 5000 series), called dynamic refresh rates......

.....On displays that do, AMD Catalyst drivers already run dynamic refresh rates......

Wait, seriously? If true, then nobody is ahead of the Adaptive refresh game. I guess both were waiting for the right time to hit each other. Makes sense how AMD was quick to respond to NVIDIA's G-SYNC.

 

Dynamic refresh is reportedly also a proposed addition to VESA specifications, and some (if not most) display makers have implemented it.

I guess G-SYNC fast forwarded that proposal. My question is, why G-SYNC didn't become a VESA standard if NVIDIA wanted the industry to adopt it. Of course they didn't, and that drove the industry forward for a similar alternative. And now we see AMD's FreeSync adopted by the industry standard.

 

There is a difference between something that drives the industry forward and something the industry adopts.

[Humbug]

You are making an assumption.

granted, I was.

 

Either way my overall point is that they did push the industry forward.

[monstercameron]

G-Sync went into development before Free-Sync. Nvidia pushed AMD.

Mantle is genuine good now that anyone can use it.

OpenCL was started by Intel and was instrumental to them taking out IBM and Broadcomm in the old server and supercomputer era.

Also, Nvidia contributes far more to driver development for Unix and BSD systems. AMD's graphics drivers suck for all things *nix/nux and BSD.

G-sync was a stroke of brilliance and I really like the idea, its just that freesync is a better way of doing it.

 

Opencl was an apple initiative not an intel one! it was submitted to khronos not unlike a recent AMD API.

 

Also AMD drivers are good and getting better on linux, especially radeonsi and r600! see how well nvidias opensource driver is doing.

 

Stop spewing out inaccurate info man.

[patrickjp93]

G-sync was a stroke of brilliance and I really like the idea, its just that freesync is a better way of doing it.

 

Opencl was an apple initiative not an intel one! it was submitted to khronos not unlike a recent AMD API.

 

Also AMD drivers are good and getting better on linux, especially radeonsi and r600! see how well nvidias opensource driver is doing.

 

Stop spewing out inaccurate info man.

Freesync hasn't been proven yet. Let's withhold judgment, though algorithmically it stinks to high hell.

 

Apple's OpenCL is nothing like OpenCL 1.0. Also, Apple didn't want OpenCL to be a free resource.

 

AMD drivers on Linux are broken as Hell and AMD doesn't even contribute to them half as often as people at large.

 

I don't spew inaccurate info. I have a reputation for being an ass but almost never wrong.

[monstercameron]

Freesync hasn't been proven yet. Let's withhold judgment, though algorithmically it stinks to high hell.

 

Apple's OpenCL is nothing like OpenCL 1.0. Also, Apple didn't want OpenCL to be a free resource.

 

AMD drivers on Linux are broken as Hell and AMD doesn't even contribute to them half as often as people at large.

 

I don't spew inaccurate info. I have a reputation for being an ass but almost never wrong.

Maybe I should have been specific what  I meant by doing it better, Freely available licensing.

 

Apple proposed the spec to khronos, so yes they wanted it open.

 

AMDs linux drivers do have many bugs and are slow in supporting the latest xorg but it is in now way broken as hell and for the 100th time AMD pays dev to develope the FOSS drivers! its not some kind of large community project.

 

I don't know why you must spread FUD, you seem like a smart guy.

[Faa]

Well atm there are not many reasons for Nvidia to support the current state of Mantle. Nvidia reduces as much as cpu overhead as Mantle does; http://pclab.pl/art57235-3.html

Not sure why Intel would use Mantle, I mean their IGP's are always the bottleneck and Mantle wasn't adding that much GPU performance anyways. 
 

I don't spew inaccurate info. I have a reputation for being an ass but almost never wrong.

Lol.
 

 

AMD is doing all these cheap shots. literally. Cheap cards, free sync, now free SDK

EDIT: Love seeing all the complaints about this being a marketing/PR stunt and what not. I don't think they truly care about the PR, because there will always be fanboys, skeptics, and such. Stop complaining about FREE

Point is Nvidia is nothing with their SDK when they are matching Mantle up on DX mode in CPU bound scenario's. See above for the tests. Nvidia optimizing AMD's DX driver would be far more benefitial for AMD than Mantle would be benefitial for Nvidia. This isn't what I call encouraging but rather trying to mock Nvidia again. Just like AMD came up acusing Nvidia of crippling their performance in their gameworks titles when their drivers were causing a lot of CPU overhead are the problem. Even in their own benchmark they specially made to show off Mantle you notice how awful their DX drivers were.



 

[Godlygamer23]

Point is Nvidia is nothing with their SDK when they are matching Mantle up on DX mode in CPU bound scenario's.

In the benchmark you posted, AMD has a slight lead over NVIDIA with the 290X using Mantle compared to a GTX 780. I don't call that "NVIDIA is nothing with their SDK." In fact, NVIDIA was able to improve performance in CPU bound titles with a driver update. I'll even find the revision for you if you want me to. I probably have it archived too.

[monstercameron]

In the benchmark you posted, AMD has a slight lead over NVIDIA with the 290X using Mantle compared to a GTX 780. I don't call that "NVIDIA is nothing with their SDK." In fact, NVIDIA was able to improve performance in CPU bound titles with a driver update. I'll even find the revision for you if you want me to. I probably have it archived too.

Nvidia was able to improve a few titles with targeted optimizations. 

[dragosudeki]

 

-snip-

 

You may be correct that the Nvidia DX optimization is better. However, the tests you show give reasons that Nvidia should use Mantle. The GTX 780 is on par with R290x, and your showing a case where the GTX 780 Ghz (OCed a bit) is actually performing lower than the R9 290X (which i assume is not OCed). Don't you think that instead of Nvidia helping AMD par in DX11, just make a move to Mantle instead to boost their OWN performance? I thought the entire race was about having better performance no matter how small the difference, so it wouldn't make sense for Nvidia to help their competitor's performance, when they should just think about themself and improve their own.

I am making the assumption that the test was done on a non OCed r9 290x. I do understand your point, but then again, why ignore free? Nvidia can probably easily optimize for Mantle and become the king when comparing to the equivalent AMD card. Similarly, If Nvidia chooses to ignore the FreeSync that AMD came up with simply to spite AMD, I personally think that they would be holding themselves back for stupid reasons.

[Faa]

In the benchmark you posted, AMD has a slight lead over NVIDIA with the 290X using Mantle compared to a GTX 780. I don't call that "NVIDIA is nothing with their SDK." In fact, NVIDIA was able to improve performance in CPU bound titles with a driver update. I'll even find the revision for you if you want me to. I probably have it archived too.

Yeah 337.50, a beta driver. Besides Star Swarm sits for like 30-40% of the time at 99% GPU load which the 290x will perform most of the time better than the 780. It's not fully CPU limited, if they decided to do 720p & low settings just to rule GPU bottlenecks out would be a better test to find out which one does better in CPU bound situations.

So even with Mantle AMD is getting outperformed?

 

 

Nvidia was able to improve a few titles with targeted optimizations. 

Few titles? Oo. They have reduced the driver overhead of their DX drivers, you'll notice the difference in any game as long as you were cpu limited. Mantle is only doing it for the games it supports. AMD can reduce their driver overhead as well, but they aren't showing any signs of being aware of the issue.

[mr moose]

It's funny how people think AMD is doing this for the good of the industry. AMD only cares for the good of the industry when it increases their bottom line. They aren't saints, they are sharks. And as a company they are pretty shitty sharks given how much they earn.

Didn't they already give up Mantle to Kronos? Why would Nvidia, or anyone, need AMD now? They don't. This is PR posturing more than anything.

 

Not only that but you can bet your arse if AMD were in Nvidias position right now and Nvidia where struggling to make a buck the roles would be reversed almost identically, that is AMD would be making everything proprietary and Nvidia would be doing all they can to market the shit out of their wares. 

 

 

Yeah but releasing things to open standards because you're banking on it generating goodwill for you is different than locking consumers into your proprietary standard because you want to make money selling exclusive features on your cards (also a good strategy)

But who will look better PR wise? AMD is moving and indeed some people are looking. Me included. I also prefer their method of doing things even though I just got a 970 for power efficiency.

They improve things enough to compete with Nvidia on power efficiency and I'll probably switch teams next time around.

Edit: Thread is so not on the first page...

 

Do you realise you just said the same thing as me? The only difference is the tone I used was to indicate specifically that AMD are chasing money, not happy feels.

 

 

 

AMD is doing all these cheap shots. literally. Cheap cards, free sync, now free SDK

EDIT: Love seeing all the complaints about this being a marketing/PR stunt and what not. I don't think they truly care about the PR, because there will always be fanboys, skeptics, and such. Stop complaining about FREE

 

If you don't think a business cares about PR then you have no idea what constitutes good business practice.  It's always about money, about what increases their bottom line and about image (image sells hardware). Most of us aren't complaining about stuff being free, we are just very wary of that old Idiom about greeks bearing gifts.  Nothing is free and nothing is without cost. 

 

 

Also I don't like the term Gaming scientist,  it does a disservice to real scientists, just like naturopaths calling themselves health practitioners does a disservice to doctors.  He's a PR man, he does marketing now. 

[bogus]

You are making an assumption.

If they did it with the intent of pushing the industry forward they would at least make the effort to support the 2013 standard wich is DP 1.2a. It's just a controler that would allow their customers to be able to use Adaptive Sync, in their newly released cards 970 and 980.

Yet they are stuck in the 2012 standard DP 1.2.

There's isn't much assumption here. It is what it is.

[bogus]

Not only that but you can bet your arse if AMD were in Nvidias position right now and Nvidia where struggling to make a buck the roles would be reversed almost identically, that is AMD would be making everything proprietary and Nvidia would be doing all they can to market the shit out of their wares. 

 

 

Then why didn't Google changed their position after the massive success Android was? Symbian and Blackberry were struggling, yet they kept the same position letting anyone use their tech for free, just like AMD is doing.

I think alot of you guys don't understand this kind of business model that is being used by several companys to expand their tech and profit from it. So far AMD is achieving this. Consoles, Macs, hell if Samsung is looking to make their own GPUs I wouldn't be impressed if AMD licensed GCN at a really low price. They just want GCN outthere.

Why would AMD change anything if the roles were inversed? I don't get it.

If you want other annalogy I think we can say NVIDIA is going the "Apple way". Proprietary tech, closed ecosystem, high end premium hardware (Titans). It's just another business model that is working for them. To claim AMD would adopt it it's just wrong - they are two very different companys, with different long term objectives. They just happen to both make dGPUs.

[razor767]

I hope this means that Mantle will become more widely adopted, or at least lead to more low level APIs.  

[Godlygamer23]

If they did it with the intent of pushing the industry forward they would at least make the effort to support the 2013 standard wich is DP 1.2a. It's just a controler that would allow their customers to be able to use Adaptive Sync, in their newly released cards 970 and 980.

Yet they are stuck in the 2012 standard DP 1.2.

There's isn't much assumption here. It is what it is.

I was talking about the launch of G-Sync. That is to say, to get the gears rotating. AMD was sitting on the technology for years according to TechPowerUp, and yet they only did something when G-Sync was released? Yeah, AMD is truly pushing the industry forward! Not. If they were, they would've released it long before NVIDIA was doing anything about G-Sync. I don't think AMD is pushing the industry as much as other people think they are. NVIDIA pushed AMD to release better drivers and hardware for frame-pacing because they released their FCAT tool. AMD didn't do shit before that.

[The_Strict_Nein]

Would have been more excited, but DX12 is getting close, and I'd rather have devs focus on developing for that rather than Mantle.

[Faa]

 

You may be correct that the Nvidia DX optimization is better. However, the tests you show give reasons that Nvidia should use Mantle. The GTX 780 is on par with R290x, and your showing a case where the GTX 780 Ghz (OCed a bit) is actually performing lower than the R9 290X (which i assume is not OCed). Don't you think that instead of Nvidia helping AMD par in DX11, just make a move to Mantle instead to boost their OWN performance? I thought the entire race was about having better performance no matter how small the difference, so it wouldn't make sense for Nvidia to help their competitor's performance, when they should just think about themself and improve their own.

I am making the assumption that the test was done on a non OCed r9 290x. I do understand your point, but then again, why ignore free? Nvidia can probably easily optimize for Mantle and become the king when comparing to the equivalent AMD card. Similarly, If Nvidia chooses to ignore the FreeSync that AMD came up with simply to spite AMD, I personally think that they would be holding themselves back for stupid reasons.

First of all Star Swarm is mainly CPU bound, the gpu's are for a few seconds only at their full load. It's basically a CPU test, comparing AMD & Nvidia basically comes down which one does better in terms of reducing CPU bottlenecks and as we see Mantle is hardly doing noticeably better. We all know a 290X at full load is faster than a 780 at full load, no surprise.



Give me a good reason why we should have Mantle on Nvidia? Barely adding any performance when being GPU limited, the games that support Mantle are atm GPU limited. Mantle is only adding performance when you're massively limited in DX mode which I'm not. Games that are mostly CPU limited are mmo's, they aren't going to pump Mantle in there.

Nvidia can't help AMD out to improve Mantle if AMD is not willing to release the source code. It's not improving the market at all. You're not going to tell me they made their sdk public just to encourage to make Intel & Nvidia use it. When Nvidia is keeping up with Mantle or even doing better in CPU bound scenario's, give me a good reason why Nvidia would jump to support Mantle. There's just none. Free, supporting Mantle is still going to cost them money.

To clarify; Nvidia can only reduce their driver overhead, if they hit their limit then so be it, they can't make a game being less CPU limited, however a new API has that ability. If mantle now proves itself being 50% orsomething better then I'd vote for it, atm just no. 

[dragosudeki]

If you don't think a business cares about PR then you have no idea what constitutes good business practice.  It's always about money, about what increases their bottom line and about image (image sells hardware). Most of us aren't complaining about stuff being free, we are just very wary of that old Idiom about greeks bearing gifts.  Nothing is free and nothing is without cost. 

Well some great examples of businesses that don't care about PR is Ubisoft, among a whole bunch of other un-innovative publishers/developers, such as Activision (shots fired). Like you said, but I think the only thing a company thinks about is money, not PR or anything else. If it truly wasn't free (no licenses and whatnot), then you are just contradicting the article that was posted...  :huh: Or maybe you found something that we missed.

[bogus]

I was talking about the launch of G-Sync. That is to say, to get the gears rotating. AMD was sitting on the technology for years according to TechPowerUp, and yet they only did something when G-Sync was released? Yeah, AMD is truly pushing the industry forward! Not. If they were, they would've released it long before NVIDIA was doing anything about G-Sync. I don't think AMD is pushing the industry as much as other people think they are. NVIDIA pushed AMD to release better drivers and hardware for frame-pacing because they released their FCAT tool. AMD didn't do shit before that.

Now lets put this into context: AMD is not the most financially healthy company in the market. It hasn't been in a long time. For example: they achieved the result of Mantle because they partned with EAs R&D company - wich is Frostbite. Specially Johan Andersson worked hard for it. AMD is releasing Freesync with the help of ASIC manufacturers, probably at their own pace. I'm sure AMD is sitting on lots of exciting tech that they just aren't able to push it through the pipeline at the moment.

If they see the opportunity, with the right partners, they can still make sht happen. Look at GDDR, HBM, HSA. It looks like AMD is good at this kind of stuff, to make partnerships to develop tech.

If they are not pushing the industry forward... then who is?

[mr moose]

Well some great examples of businesses that don't care about PR is Ubisoft, among a whole bunch of other un-innovative publishers/developers, such as Activision (shots fired). Like you said, but I think the only thing a company thinks about is money, not PR or anything else. If it truly wasn't free (no licenses and whatnot), then you are just contradicting the article that was posted...  :huh: Or maybe you found something that we missed.

 

Ubisoft do care about PR, just not PC gamers, most of their cash comes from consoles and console makers, so they will do what creates good PR from those markets, not us PC users.

 

I have been into tech, cars, photography, audio and electronics now for the better part of 33 years.   I have yet to see anything be free,  in the end it always comes with a cost.  Sure AMD will  release mantle free and completely open, but what will the end result be for consumers and what is their drive. No one spends precious R+D cash on a product that will return no results in a time when they desperately need the revenue. 

 

Call me cynical, but I think we should be skeptical of all companies, especially the ones that look the most innocent.