The AMD Mantle Thread

[krumme]

It takes a developer to implement it, the hardware is already there. I'm not sure if TrueAudio makes it easier for developers or what, but they have had the option to add it to their games if they wanted to.

Notice how you can listen to that YouTube clip without a TrueAudio enabled video card?

Yeaa i know. The knowledge and the hardware is there. And as i wrote the knowledge was known 40 years ago. Go and lisnt to eg. Roger Waters amused to death from 1995.

I dont know either if trueaudio makes a difference for the developers. My point was just audio is way under prioritized. Its not just a gaming problem with 3d audio but in general. Eg. many peoples homes sound like you are standing in a metal box. It goes to show how long we are from good audio in a game. I just hope for the time when a audio technology can get the same attention as eg. Mantle.

(edit: the youtube clip just shows imho, how crazy good this would be in bf5. Man how to get knifed with that sound ! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKnhcsRTNME , with a good headphone and select +480p, imagine what this would do in combination with visuals to support each other)

 

[96Firebird]

The main problem with quality audio is the point of diminishing returns. That and the cost of quality components, which is true in both home and car audio (where I have more knowledge). I spent $650 on my home theater setup (5.0, don't even have a sub), and I felt that was too much even though I know it sounds decent. And that is for entry level equipment. Audiophiles are, I would say, a smaller niche market than hardcore PC gaming, which is small in itself.

The problem with the Battlefield series is the background noise would drown out footsteps near you. IIRC, BF3 has a ton of background noise, such as helicopters shooting in the distance.

One game where I remember audio played a huge role, at least for me, was America's Army. I haven't played it in years, so things may have changed, but you could hear footsteps in snow, doors opening, even weapons reloading and pins being pulled out of grenades. But that is also a much more tactical game, a lot slower pace compared to the Battlefield series.

Edit - But I guess this is getting really off-topic, maybe we should make a TrueAudio thread...

 

[7stars]

Lol, anyone saw this yet?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_%28API%29

Look at the disadvantages! Kuajajajaja

All true to all API's or work done with GPU's. Dear God! People are so fake.
(Well except more Dev time, but then again who really knows?)

agree with you... then who said those things to the "wikiauthor" ? are his conjectures? never presented to the public, not even a beta version or a real bench...never released sdk, never said how much it costs...furthermore a skill of a developer is always been a requirement, if someone develops badly results are clear to everyone with every piece of software...

 

[Borealis7]

my Mantle conspiracy theory:
Mantle undercuts DirectX on the hardware level, so if someone could get it to work on Linux then we could be seeing growth in that gaming market. on the other hand, AMD makes the GPUs for MS's XBone so MS is understandably unhappy about it so they are pushing to have developers not adpot it and make it more common. but there is a third player here, Valve's Gabe Newell is known to have a Linux fetish (or simply a burning hatred of Windows) and with all the introduction of Steam on Linux Valve will try to push forward with more Mantle support.

i could be COMPLETELY off but only time will tell

 

[bononos]

It takes a developer to implement it, the hardware is already there. I'm not sure if TrueAudio makes it easier for developers or what, but they have had the option to add it to their games if they wanted to.

Notice how you can listen to that YouTube clip without a TrueAudio enabled video card?

Once it pumped out of the speaker output jack and recorded it doesn't matter what kind of sound card you have. You can listen to all the eax effects accurately (as CL would have it) on youtube without a creative card as well.

Trueaudio is a very nice thing to have considering that the audio scene has has regressed since the 90s/2000s when Creative bought out and killed off aureal and sensaura. And audio got mediocre and boring enough that Creative even omitted having a hardware dsp on the x-fi recon. Now h/w audio is allowed back into win7/8, it might make pc gaming more interesting again.

Mantle together with trueaudio might be the tonic that AMD needs to get back in the saddle.

 

[flopper]

The problem with the Battlefield series is the background noise would drown out footsteps near you. IIRC, BF3 has a ton of background noise, such as helicopters shooting in the distance.

not hearing footsteps in a game made 2013 is just silly, not sure why but dice should use trueaudio instead as current audio is not good enough.
(wont happen I guess)

 

[Dribble]

not hearing footsteps in a game made 2013 is just silly, not sure why but dice should use trueaudio instead as current audio is not good enough.
(wont happen I guess)

In real life you can only hear footsteps when it's fairly quiet, not in the middle of a battlefield with helicopters, gunfire and explosions. Accurate audio would not make them easy to hear.

TrueAudio just like mantle is a technology for the xbone I suspect that AMD is making available to PC users. However dev's won't bother porting it as only a small % of the market will use it - you need latest GCN (very small %) and have to care about audio/have good speakers (even smaller %). AMD might pay for the odd game to get it but it'll never take off: closed standard + low market coverage != success.

 

[Stuka87]

my Mantle conspiracy theory:
Mantle undercuts DirectX on the hardware level, so if someone could get it to work on Linux then we could be seeing growth in that gaming market. on the other hand, AMD makes the GPUs for MS's XBone so MS is understandably unhappy about it so they are pushing to have developers not adpot it and make it more common. but there is a third player here, Valve's Gabe Newell is known to have a Linux fetish (or simply a burning hatred of Windows) and with all the introduction of Steam on Linux Valve will try to push forward with more Mantle support.

i could be COMPLETELY off but only time will tell

AMD stated that it would be coming to linux, but at a later date.

 

[Haider]

In real life you can only hear footsteps when it's fairly quiet, not in the middle of a battlefield with helicopters, gunfire and explosions. Accurate audio would not make them easy to hear.

TrueAudio just like mantle is a technology for the xbone I suspect that AMD is making available to PC users. However dev's won't bother porting it as only a small % of the market will use it - you need latest GCN (very small %) and have to care about audio/have good speakers (even smaller %). AMD might pay for the odd game to get it but it'll never take off: closed standard + low market coverage != success.

Just a good headphone amp and headphones...

 

[Erenhardt]

not hearing footsteps in a game made 2013 is just silly, not sure why but dice should use trueaudio instead as current audio is not good enough.
(wont happen I guess)

Better save that for thief! That would be amazing

 

[krumme]

Just a good headphone amp and headphones...

Just a decent headphone is enough. The amp on the mb is plenty.
Every one on these forum have that. Is not about equipment.

What is needed is just us to demand it. Sound in bf3 is so bad compared to eg. Doom3 its a disgrace.

Wake up dudes! We want a sound improvement in games now.

 

[24601]

Just a good headphone amp and headphones...

You want realistic war sounds?

Have fun with your tinnitus.

Go track someone by the sound of their footsteps when there are literally 30-60 people shooting all manner of weapons within 100 meters of you constantly.

 

[krumme]

You want realistic war sounds?

Have fun with your tinnitus.

Go track someone by the sound of their footsteps when there are literally 30-60 people shooting all manner of weapons within 100 meters of you constantly.

You want realistic war visuals?

Go to war, dont expect it to be like bf3.

- the argument does not work. Its about giving the same impression not a direct mirror. Bf3 is so skewed its nonsense but its great fun and gameplay. 3d sound will just greatly improve that entertainement.

 

[3DVagabond]

It's an AMD exclusive feature. The same people who always hate on AMD are hating on TrueAudio. Big surprise?

It's amazing that somehow better audio is a bad thing. People are coming up with every excuse they can to cut it down. Improved audio is an improvement. There is no other way to spin it.

 

[ShintaiDK]

It's an AMD exclusive feature. The same people who always hate on AMD are hating on TrueAudio. Big surprise?

It's amazing that somehow better audio is a bad thing. People are coming up with every excuse they can to cut it down. Improved audio is an improvement. There is no other way to spin it.

Why didnt the same people buy EAX cards if it is so important?

 

[krumme]

It's an AMD exclusive feature. The same people who always hate on AMD are hating on TrueAudio. Big surprise?

It's amazing that somehow better audio is a bad thing. People are coming up with every excuse they can to cut it down. Improved audio is an improvement. There is no other way to spin it.

Well i just wanted better audio!

And i dont care for the technology used! True audio or not.
As i said in eg. doom3 its was miles better than bf3.
Then lots of strawman arguments why good sound is not needed is brought here.

What is going with some people here. Seriously? Is there a cure for it because that is so selfdestructive and counter productive.

Well ofcource we should strive for better visuals and sound. Its like in this thread argument to the oposite have seen light for the first time in 3d gaming history. Lol.

 

[gorobei]

i remember EAX in BF2, it was actually very nice. i frequently switched between having it on/off because i had some voip issues. the effect was significant and made a world of difference(i left it off because it allowed me to hear enemies further away and thru walls/fences and i wanted the competitive advantage).

this kind of high quality audio went away with vista/7 unified driver model, so if trueaudio can bring it back by putting the load downstream of the OS then it's all good as far as i am concerned.

 

[Erenhardt]

Notice how you can listen to that YouTube clip without a TrueAudio enabled video card?

That is the thing. You can listen to pre-cooked 3d audio without any fancy soundcards. Just like you can watch 3d pre-rendered objects without any fancy graphics card. Problem is when you have a game world with objects generating sounds and a receiver that can move. Dynamic real-time 3d sound requires dedicated hardware or beefy CPU dedicated to sound only.

 

[Keysplayr]

That is the thing. You can listen to pre-cooked 3d audio without any fancy soundcards. Just like you can watch 3d pre-rendered objects without any fancy graphics card. Problem is when you have a game world with objects generating sounds and a receiver that can move. Dynamic real-time 3d sound requires dedicated hardware or beefy CPU dedicated to sound only.

You mean like we've had for the last decade or so. A grenade gets thrown at my head and lands 6 feet to my left. It goes off. The sound came from my left in realtime position as it not only landed but exploded.
Footsteps from a player can be heard to my right. It's happening in real time.
I am generating sound for other players to hear as I reload my weapon, allowing them to get a fix on me, or at least my general location. It's Dynamic, it's real time, and it's 3D. Even cheapo audio chipsets can do this these days along with a mediocre CPU.

 

[3DVagabond]

You mean like we've had for the last decade or so. A grenade gets thrown at my head and lands 6 feet to my left. It goes off. The sound came from my left in realtime position as it not only landed but exploded.
Footsteps from a player can be heard to my right. It's happening in real time.
I am generating sound for other players to hear as I reload my weapon, allowing them to get a fix on me, or at least my general location. It's Dynamic, it's real time, and it's 3D. Even cheapo audio chipsets can do this these days along with a mediocre CPU.

You aren't really trying to say that True Audio is the same thing that we already have?

 

[Keysplayr]

I think I said what I was really trying to say.

 

[Erenhardt]

I think I said what I was really trying to say.

Yep. Like hearing sound enemy reloading a gun coming form the other side of the wall. And I didn't hear 3d sound effect in games ever. Never heard vertical difference. Direction is indicated by increasing one side volume while decreasing the other.

Sound waves are not that simple, they bounce from surfaces. You wouldn't hear the guy reload his gun through the wall, but I would bounce from the walls and enter your room through the doors.
On top of that what helps human brain to pinpoint the source of sound is the small difference in time of arrival between two ears. There is a lot to it and I feel like I would be better then adding more particles flying around

 

[3DVagabond]

I think I said what I was really trying to say.

You mean like we've had for the last decade or so. Etc...

Simple answer is, no.

 

[OCGuy]

Well Mantle is falling apart fairly rapidly....Xbox1 will be using DX, and if the performance gains in BF4 using Win 8.1 hold true, I don't think anyone on a PC will be using Mantle intentionally.

 

[OCGuy]

Really interesting read and it looks like AMD may be able to heavily leverage having ownership of both consoles to reap performance rewards on the PC in the innumerable multi-platform titles out there.

Turns out Xbox will not have Mantle support.

Is that another ShintaiDK forecast?
So you really believe that consoles get that kind of performance from ultra crappy hardware by running only on something like the APIs that exist in the PC?

Yes, he was right. No Mantle on Xbox.

We could very well be seeing the 'new' DirectX standard here guys. If this is truly be used for both the XBOne and PS4, and soon for AMD Desktop, there is no reason this couldn't just be the new standard.

Obviously AMD worked with MS on this for the XBOne, and it very well may be why MS has been so quiet on the DX front, because they see this as future.

This is extremely far off base.....DX is better than ever on Win 8.1, and Xbox will not be using Mantle.

I just think it is funny that most people saw something like this coming when AMD got xbox+ps yet there were a few people who were incredibly vocal in insisting that AMD would not get any optimizations out of it.

If this pans out do you think NVIDIA will still say that consoles were not worth the effort?

And another....