AMD's Mantle API Is NOT Open Source, Compatible Only With AMD GPUs.

[ajoy39]

Maybe will Nvidia will counter it with an open source solution.

 

They are currently pretty active in the linux community and partnering up with companies like Valve and Red Hat. I could imagine that they are approaching Khronos for this.

Nvidia has notoriously been the WORST vendor for linux support. Linus (not our Linus, the guy who made linux) even went so far as to tell them to eff off and give them the finger. They just this week announced that they'll start supporting linux better, but they still aren't as open to the linux community as AMD has been.

[TechFan@ic]

the thing is that AMD wants their new GPU customers to have a reason to go to them. They are not going to allow Nvidia customers to have any access to this because that would be bad from a business standpoint. The majority of their big spender customers already have GCN cards. So that is why they are only investing the time and effort to make MANTLE compatible with GCN cards. It would be unwise for them to spend time and money to make MANTLE work for people who have 6xxx cards because when new cards come out, their older cards do not bring in the big money anymore. Therefore they would be losing money if they were to cater to the 6xxx card people. And remember, AMD might be a tech company, but they are still a COMPANY nonetheless.

 

I am surprised they are allowing 7xxx cards on this to be honest.

I think you're misunderstanding what's going on here, having MANTLE replace DirectX on all GPUs, AMD & Nvidia based is unbelievably good for business, it allows AMD to have a performance advantage on every title that supports MANTLE even if it has Nvidia support because it's architecture tailored.

However, because it IS architecture tailored, adding support for other architectures is just impossible, as it defeats the purpose of a low level API, so older AMD GPUs & all Nvidia GPUs are excluded not because it's good for business, because it's not, but because it's simply not possible to include them.

MANTLE is a direct result of AMD's console wins, and the reason why it's tailored for GCN is that both next-gen consoles have GCN based GPUs, MANTLE simply allows the translation of all the optimizations from the consoles directly to PCs which are architecturally similar.

So gaming PCs with AMD 7000 series or later & 6 or 8 core AMD CPUs will see great benefits, because optimizations exist not just for the graphics side, they also do for the CPU side and in fact this is how BF4 is going to implement full support for 8 core CPUs, via MANTLE.

Johann Andersson even stated a 100% linear gain per core, which basically means more cores = better game performance.

 

[threadysparrow]

I think you're misunderstanding what's going on here, having MANTLE replace DirectX on all GPUs, AMD & Nvidia based is unbelievably good for business, it allows AMD to have a performance advantage on every title that supports MANTLE even if it has Nvidia support because it's architecture tailored.

However, because it IS architecture tailored, adding support for other architectures is just impossible, as it defeats the purpose of a low level API, so older AMD GPUs & all Nvidia GPUs are excluded not because it's good for business, because it's not, but because it's simply not possible to include them.

MANTLE is a direct result of AMD's console wins, and the reason why it's tailored for GCN is that both next-gen consoles have GCN based GPUs, MANTLE simply allows the translation of all the optimizations from the consoles directly to PCs which are architecturally similar.

So gaming PCs with AMD 7000 series or later & 6 or 8 core AMD CPUs will see great benefits, because optimizations exist not just for the graphics side, they also do for the CPU side and in fact this is how BF4 is going to implement full support for 8 core CPUs, via MANTLE.

Johann Andersson even stated a 100% linear gain per core, which basically means more cores = better game performance.

 

I have a fever right now and I don't know what I wrote in my feverish stupor. I just woke up an hour ago and I barely remember writing anything and when I look at it, I have no idea what I am trying to say there.

[Flamewalker]

Glide api all over again ... <.<, i remember just getting a voodoo card for the games that had support for it , wonder how long it will last and if it has any limitations.

[Thunderjolt]

I don't know why people thought Mantle would be open source anyway. It's pretty obvious that AMD would make it closed because it's their API. Why would they want the thing that gives them an edge to go to a competitor?

[TechFan@ic]

I don't know why people thought Mantle would be open source anyway. It's pretty obvious that AMD would make it closed because it's their API. Why would they want the thing that gives them an edge to go to a competitor?

Cross-compatibility makes it a no-brainer for developers to make it the de-facto standard, however if it's GCN-tied then they have to weigh out the cost & benefits of going with MANTLE in addition to DX11 or OpenGL.

For console developers it is still a no-brainer becuase it's compatible with both consoles.

For PC & console developers it's still very attractive because they still get a good chunk out of the PC market.

For a PC exclusive developer like Creative Assembly it's not as attractive because they will have to develop DX11, OpenGL or both in addition to MANTLE, in this specific case having MANTLE support other architectures would be benificial, because the developer won't need to develop for DX11 or OpenGL.

[kaneandtaker]

IMO Mantle > PhysX from what I see right now. Maybe I'll switch..

[Thunderjolt]

Cross-compatibility makes it a no-brainer for developers to make it the de-facto standard, however if it's GCN-tied then they have to weigh out the cost & benefits of going with MANTLE in addition to DX11 or OpenGL.

For console developers it is still a no-brainer becuase it's compatible with both consoles.

For PC & console developers it's still very attractive because they still get a good chunk out of the PC market.

For a PC exclusive developer like Creative Assembly it's not as attractive because they will have to develop DX11, OpenGL or both in addition to MANTLE, in this specific case having MANTLE support other architectures would be benificial, because the developer won't need to develop for DX11 or OpenGL.

I understand that but why would AMD want Nvidia to be able to benefit from this? Wouldn't they want to keep everything you said to themselves. I can see it being used on Consoles but not for PC exclusives at all.

[onionring]

MAYBE, amd will use mantle as leverage on nvidia to make everything open, (physx, streaming, shadow play, what ever)

we can all dream...

(that probably will not happen)

maybe we can all drop directx and use mantle on linux(atm nvidia is favored with steamos opening amd for a trade)/windows

[TechFan@ic]

I understand that but why would AMD want Nvidia to be able to benefit from this? Wouldn't they want to keep everything you said to themselves. I can see it being used on Consoles but not for PC exclusives at all.

Because if it's compatible with Nvidia GPUs, a significantly larger portion of the game development community is going to develop for it, which gives AMD GPUs & CPUs a significant performance advantage in more games, it also gives AMD even more control over the gaming industry, & since it is tailored for AMD's GCN architecture even if support is added to Nvidia based GPUs, AMD will maintain a very significant lead in performance benefits.

[Thunderjolt]

Because if it's compatible with Nvidia GPUs, a significantly larger portion of the game development community is going to develop for it, which gives AMD GPUs & CPUs a significant performance advantage in more games, it also gives AMD even more control over the gaming industry, & since it is tailored for AMD's GCN architecture even if support is added to Nvidia based GPUs, AMD will maintain a very significant lead in performance benefits.

Good point. It would be nice to see it be open source. Maybe I could benefit with my 770! Ah well, Companies these days and making everything only for themselves

[Humbug]

Because if it's compatible with Nvidia GPUs, a significantly larger portion of the game development community is going to develop for it, which gives AMD GPUs & CPUs a significant performance advantage in more games, it also gives AMD even more control over the gaming industry, & since it is tailored for AMD's GCN architecture even if support is added to Nvidia based GPUs, AMD will maintain a very significant lead in performance benefits.

Is it possible for AMD to create a low level API that works on Nvidia GPUs? Would they have the data needed to do something like that, wouldn't it have to be done by Nvidia themselves?

 

Once you try to support different GPU architectures doesn't it become more high level like directX or opengl? Thus defeating the purpose?

[TymmVonD]

I had been saying the same thing, since the next gens were announced to be AMD machines. Wait til these games are optimized for AMD 8 core, I would tell my friends. AMD will be the standard for gaming, I would tell my friends.

 

All I would hear is ,no it's not gonna happen. No AMD hardware will beat Intel and Nvidia when it comes to gaming. Only buy AMD if you will video edit and heavily multitask.

 

I kept hearing the same thing from all the reviewers I respect. They would say, It's gonna be 2-3 years within the consoles life cycle before any AMD optimizations come into effect and it wouldn't be that big of a performance hit. BUMMER

 

So...I bought a 780. And 2 weeks ago, I almost bought Haswell.

 

Tech is such a gamble. I went against my intuition and fanboys got the best of me. So, now what? Sell 780 and buy a R9 at tax time? A88 chipset? APU? Stay with old 990FX and 8350?

 

My gut says invest in high end versions of console specs, but when does this come? 

 

This not a great time to build a new rig.

[Ookami]

That was to assume - Nvidia got PhysX soo AMD's responce will be Mantle.

[beebskadoo]

That was to assume - Nvidia got PhysX soo AMD's responce will be Mantle.

PhysX is awesome but it's NEVER used...

[Ookami]

PhysX is awesome but it's NEVER used...

Yeah still PhysX is the thing only works on Nvidia cards (yeah yeah i know it also works on CPU, but thats not the case here) soo AMD now will have Mantle as a counter. To be honest when i was searching for my card i was thinking about Nvidia and PhysX or AMD Radeons and went with the red camp. Dont see much difference in games and this comes from a dude who was on green camp for over 10 years.

Mantle technology said to be working well with Frostbite 3 engine can make some sh*t in the gaming world. Microsoft can be pissed since DirectX will be not needed. Add Steam OS to it and sh*t will go bonkers.

[Mooshi]

Doesn't Nvidia do this all the time with PhysX, Cuda, optimizations ect?

[beebskadoo]

Well hopefully the Steam OS integration will not cause such a rift in the GPU market.

[beebskadoo]

Doesn't Nvidia do this all the time with PhysX, Cuda, optimizations ect?

Yeah and it's bad for everyone...

[Ookami]

Well hopefully the Steam OS integration will not cause such a rift in the GPU market.

If Valve would work with AMD and example future games on Source 2 engine would be made for Mantle. Half Life, Left4Dead or other games from Valve using full power of CPU and GPU? Not to mention not limited by DirectX technology and Microsoft? AMD and Valve nowadays stirr up some crazy sh*t. Hope it will work allright...

[beebskadoo]

If Valve would work with AMD and example future games on Source 2 engine would be made for Mantle. Half Life, Left4Dead or other games from Valve using full power of CPU and GPU? Not to mention not limited by DirectX technology and Microsoft? AMD and Valve nowadays stirr up some crazy sh*t. Hope it will work allright...

Well left for dead already runs better on Linux according to GabeN's latest linux oriented presentation. I see a big futuire for gamin on linux, Less overhead, more customization, more direct support, and best of all FREE.

[Ookami]

Well left for dead already runs better on Linux according to GabeN's latest linux oriented presentation. I see a big futuire for gamin on linux, Less overhead, more customization, more direct support, and best of all FREE.

Still Nvidia and Microsoft wont stand for it. They will think of something...

 

Main reason why people went from XP was no DirectX 10 support.

[OneGun]

HAHA Nvidia!!!!!!!! :lol:

[beebskadoo]

Still Nvidia and Microsoft wont stand for it. They will think of something...

 

Main reason why people went from XP was no DirectX 10 support.

That's not the main reason people moved from XP, XP is old and outdated...

[TechFan@ic]

Is it possible for AMD to create a low level API that works on Nvidia GPUs? Would they have the data needed to do something like that, wouldn't it have to be done by Nvidia themselves?

 

Once you try to support different GPU architectures doesn't it become more high level like directX or opengl? Thus defeating the purpose?

That's exactly right, AMD will not & cannot make a low level API for another company.

Making an API compatible with multiple architectures defeats its purpose as well as makes it a high level one instead of a low level one.

However what I'm still wondering is if it's possible for users that have AMD CPUs & Nvidia GPUs to get the CPU benefits of MANTLE, if not then they will be forced to go with AMD on the GPU side as well.