Another Mantle thread? This should be fun... *grabs popcorn*
They also mentioned that they have 300 Phd or some master mind in graphic technology which are just working for gameworks.
Yes. I wish we could just talk about the subject, but we'll have all the same posts we've had in the past over and over.
Not exactly because the original Mantle thread was full of crap with people claiming it will make next to no difference, especially those who say high end rigs won't benefit.
Well we know that's false, even with top of the line i7, in multi-GPU setups (the real high-end), in MP we knows it makes a massive difference in raw FPS, minimum FPS and very stable and low latency frame times.
So we KNOW it works very well even in FPS which is generally regarded as GPU bottlenecked. The point really is whether DX12 will obsolete Mantle. I think it will, an open API with the major feature of releasing CPU bottlenecks, what else does Mantle bring? Nothing extra at the moment and with AMD showing no sign of pushing it further.
There was a recent interview IIRC where AMD admit basically DX12 is Mantle and that they "may" add extra features to Mantle to keep it relevant once DX12 is out. That's PR terms for "forget about it". Another thing is the vibes from studios that sign up for the Mantle beta, they mostly hype its main feature as "a stepping stone to DX12" or "getting in early to prepare for DX12".
It looks & smells like once DX12 saturates (hopefully MS won't do something stupid like lock it to Win9), Mantle is dead.
First, I was not really impressed by the nVidia guys. They basically said nothing except that they are not going to use or say anything good about mantle. Duh, it is an api developed by their arch rival. What do you expect them to say: "Mantle is great, I wish we had developed it"?
On the other hand, all the claims about the openness of mantle are contradictory at best. First lets look at the current situation, not some hypothetical future scenario which has not taken place yet. Is mantle open now, has AMD released the source code? No. Apparently Intel even asked for the code and was denied. I have no problem with this, because mantle was developed by AMD, so why should they release it to Intel. What I have a problem with is with the claims of openness.
But, AMD claims, it is not ready, we cant release the code until it is ready. Why not? It is "ready" enough to have been implemented in BF4 six months ago, and subsequently for Plants vs Zombies (strange) and Thief. And AMD is bragging up how many developers are on board and how many games using mantle are in development. Again, I have no problem with AMD trying to get mantle implemented in a many games as possible, but that hardly is consistent with the claim that mantle is not "complete" enough to be utilized.
If AMD really wants mantle to be "open" they should have released the code already so that competitors could look at it and if interested, start developing drivers to utilize it, which obviously would have to be modified later, but at least some of the work would have been done already. So mantle at this point in time, is a proprietary API that runs on GCN hardware only, gives a value add to AMD dgpus, and makes AMD cpus somewhat more competitive. Anything more is just PR.
Intel asked AMD for access to mantle and was told it was not available at this time. Why not give them access? One could guess it would make AMD look even worse with their cpus. DX12 is the future because Intel supports it.
Over 83% of the sold graphics capable hardware cant run Mantle. But they can run DX12.
Then you can hate and dislike any other company as much as you like. But it still doesnt change that fact. Not to mention how AMD tapdances around the "Open API" BS they claimed.
Yea, but what percentage of hardware that is bought for gaming can run Mantle? That's the important question, not the whole 83%. I have a few aunts that couldn't care less if they had a Titan Z or Intel IGP, as long as it is quiet and runs Facebook games and Solitaire, that's all they care about. I imagine a large percentage, probably a large majority of the Intel IGP sales fall into that category (as well as some of AMD's APU sales). But for gamers who buy gaming hardware, I wonder what percentage of those sales can run Mantle?
So what you say in short is, that AMD have no intention of sharing Mantle.
Even if we only look on recent dGPU sales only and dont exclude those cards that is still not GCN. Then we talk about less than 35% of new sales. And that would be an utopian number for Mantle.
AMD made sure Mantle would never succeed.
Something else that's been talked about dozens of times.
Mantle is still in development. At first AMD only worked with a very small select set of devs. Guys who could help build and shape mantle and AMD could support. It's far enough along now that AMD is opening it up to 40, or so, devs. Again, a number that they can handle the support for. When it's mature enough that they can offer it to everyone and handle supporting it for everyone, they will. The plan is before the end of this year. At that time Intel can have access with everyone else.
I guarantee you that if AMD had given Intel access to Mantle months before they gave it to nVidia (not that they have any reason to as I've already explained), the crap would fly. I would think that nVidia could possibly claim anti competitive practices on AMD.
You may not be saying that, but AMD certainly did. Huddy said, very clearly, that AMD was going to have sole control over Mantle for the express purpose of using it to better optimize their hardware.
That's the very definition of a closed, proprietary product.
Precisely.
More specifically.
A true "open" software specification is held by a consortium of partners who collaborate on trying to achieve the best end result. True "open" software is modifiable and enhance-able by ANY MEMBER of that consortium of partners. This was brought up in the interview. AMD has no intention of doing this. So there are two problems here. Mantle requires GCN architecture, and even AMD's own non GCN GPUs cannot support Mantle. So someone please tell me how competing non GCN GPUs can support Mantle if AMD's own non GCN GPUs cannot. MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY. AMD has expressly stated that Mantle is their own so it is not truly open by any proper definition. Open means that there is a standards board with many partners collaborating on the end result and implementation. AMD will not do this: AMD stated that Mantle will always, always be controlled by AMD and no one else. So it is not surprising that NV would not be interested. NV is not developing a GCN GPU and they would not support an API that isn't truly open - Mantle is not "open", it will always be under control by AMD and AMD alone.
AMD said that anyone would be free to write a driver to run Mantle on their hardware if they wish. No license needed. The source code will be freely available to anyone who wanted it. If that's not good enough for nVidia, or you, then fine, don't use it. The reason you've given though has nothing to do with it's performance potential or any advantages it might offer, which is why nVidia claimed they won't use it. I don't know why anyone is even arguing this angle. It's not what nVidia said when they were asked.
So nVidia is officially out of the picture as far as Mantle goes. Now we wait and see what Intel does. They at least seem to be approaching it with an open mind. Apparently they are willing to look and see if it can benefit their customers or not.
This whole podcast would have been better with just Tom Petersen talking. He should have left the other guy at the office.
This whole podcast would have been better with just Tom Petersen talking. He should have left the other guy at the office.
Wrong.So what you say in short is, that AMD have no intention of sharing Mantle. And its been nothing but a PR spin to claim otherwise, while attacking the competition for closed standards. And thats assuming that Mantle could even run on any uarch besides GCN.
If AMD had any intention of getting Mantle to be widely adopted. They would have shared it. Even Qualcomm is on the D12 train.
"I know that Intel have approached us for access to the Mantle interfaces, et cetera," Huddy said. " And right now, we've said, give us a month or two, this is a closed beta, and we'll go into the 1.0 [public release] phase sometime this year, which is less than five months if you count forward from June. They have asked for access, and we will give it to them when we open this up, and we'll give it to anyone who wants to participate in this."
AMD said that anyone would be free to write a driver to run Mantle on their hardware if they wish.
Ha, that's rich. That's a marketing scam, pure and simple. Not only does saying "hey you can make a driver too!" not make it open, not even all of AMD's own hardware can run Mantle. It requires GCN. If it requires GCN...wait for it...nobody else can use it.
They may have said it, to get people like you to believe that AMD is the white knight of the graphics hardware world, and it seems to have worked. It has no basis in reality.
Mantle is not open, and it does not make a company evil to refuse to put its own products at the mercy of a direct competitor.