The AMD Mantle Thread

[smackababy]

Your a Mantle expert....Cool

How much does AMD have to pay for each game?

Based on information we have available: $8 million per game / engine.

As I've stated before, and Ubisoft seems to be under the same impression, Mantle (even if it gives significant performance games) will have to be, at best, concurrent development for DX paths. That means either more time or more developers for each game release. For someone like DICE, this isn't a huge deal. They can get away with it and even with BF being on a now 2 year release cycle, that isn't a huge problem. However, a lot of developers by big publishers don't get 24 months, they don't even get 12.

Sure, it would be really cool if every game supported Mantle and it gave a 50% increase of DX render paths. But, let's be realistic. Some devs will utilize it, but there won't be any Mantle only games as long as Nvidia has any meaningful marketshare. The majority of development dollars will go towards DX.


If Mantle proves to be as good as AMD wants use to believe, hopefully it can push DX development into overdrive and MS can easily produce a competing product with a slightly higher level of hardware obscurity. They can code the low level stuff so you only have to call a DX function rather than a direct hardware call. Then, in order to be DX12 compatible, your hardware has to support these calls.

 

[desprado]

It is so hard to make AMD fanboys understand that AMD has payed DICE to use mantle on BF4.Why Dice will apply mantle for free they wont get any benefits from except only loss.There is AMD dont not rule in GPU market which is a back draw and no one need to tell that AMD need to pay every game because it will take time and effort of developers.

Warning issued for inflammatory language.
-- stahlhart

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I keep hearing similar to console APIs, yet no documentation. It already backtracked once when it was not in the consoles, then suddenly it was "console compatible".

Its called living the hyperhole.

Mantle is compatible with direct 3d hlsl. This obviously offers no benefit because the Xbone is coded using pixie dust and rainbows for its shaders. :whiste:

If that was somewhat near true, we should see a lot more OpenGL games. Yet we dont.

Mantle will require extensive work. Just like any other renderpath.

Direct 3D HLSL is the render path. Mantle is compatible with it. It's not that complicated.

 

[krumme]

Based on information we have available: $8 million per game / engine.

As I've stated before, and Ubisoft seems to be under the same impression, Mantle (even if it gives significant performance games) will have to be, at best, concurrent development for DX paths. That means either more time or more developers for each game release. For someone like DICE, this isn't a huge deal. They can get away with it and even with BF being on a now 2 year release cycle, that isn't a huge problem. However, a lot of developers by big publishers don't get 24 months, they don't even get 12.

Sure, it would be really cool if every game supported Mantle and it gave a 50% increase of DX render paths. But, let's be realistic. Some devs will utilize it, but there won't be any Mantle only games as long as Nvidia has any meaningful marketshare. The majority of development dollars will go towards DX.


If Mantle proves to be as good as AMD wants use to believe, hopefully it can push DX development into overdrive and MS can easily produce a competing product with a slightly higher level of hardware obscurity. They can code the low level stuff so you only have to call a DX function rather than a direct hardware call. Then, in order to be DX12 compatible, your hardware has to support these calls.

Wrong.
3 engines is of importance to the market. Amd paid 8m and are now in the most important AE engine lauching with the most important game. All games on frostbite 3 will then use mantle with insignificant cost. Amd will not have to pay. AE wants their games to perform.

Everyone wants their new engines to work and utilize the new consoles. It automatically means more or less adapting the same pattern whatever they call it. They dont have a choice. Consoles decides pc does not.

Everyone on this planet would pay 8m to get one engine and bf4 to launch. Its a pure symbolic amount compared to the effect.

We have been over all this prior. Its a long thread i know, but it would be nice if people read before posting.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

If mantle allows the r9 290x to be even 10% faster in BF4 than Titan/780 Ti it's a huge PR win. BF3 is the reason why the gtx680 sold so well in comparison to the 7970. It could be the reason a lot of people test out the AMD waters and find out that the majority of the AMD has bad drivers/software nonsense is in fact just nonsense.

 

[Kenmitch]

It is so hard to make AMD fanboys understand that AMD has payed DICE to use mantle on BF4.Why Dice will apply mantle for free they wont get any benefits from except only loss.There is AMD dont not rule in GPU market which is a back draw and no one need to tell that AMD need to pay every game because it will take time and effort of developers.

I don't think you get why AMD made the deal with DICE in the 1st place to use BF4 as the showcase for Mantle. Once you grasp the idea behind it you'll figure out it wasn't that expensive. More to the deal than buying BF4 Mantle support.

If a person reads your FUD and doesn't agree with you it doesn't make them a fanboy.

Your know no little to nothing about Mantle other than it won't work on your gpu of choice it appears to me.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Which will payed by AMD for each game and it needs a very good and stable driver support which some people here dont understand that.

Of course AMD is going to put some money into the games using mantle. It's called investing and when done right it gives huge returns on their investment.

They did not pay DICE 8 million to use Mantle. They invested 8 million to fund development. That 8 million provided paychecks for people working on this, probably hardware to work on, tech support from AMD engineers, etc.

$8 million invested into a $100 million dollar production is peanuts.

 

[Dribble]

Listen, I'm not saying their are code leprechauns who come in the middle of the night to code games to the Mantle render path. Don't you think Johan knows it'll take work to incorporate it into their 15+ games.
as a matter of fact he would know exactly how much work it is "instead of guessing it'll be too hard" like you are. He didn't say have available. He did actually say use.

Well I am a software dev, I write software like this for a living (engineering not games but same sort of thing). It's a separate render path - even using an existing game engine with support you've got to code for it, then you got to test it. Even the QA could delay a release by months as they will be snowed under already (always are). You ask them to add an extra renderer to their testing and they will demand an extra month to QA it - then you've got to fix the bugs and before you know it that's delayed the release by 2 months. This means you can't hit your release deadline and senior management get mad, bonuses get cut, and so on...

This is all for 10% of your target market, and it probably won't impact sales - people won't buy games for mantle they'll buy games cause they want the game. The cost return just isn't there for the dev. Mantle sells radeon cards not games.

 

[smackababy]

Well I am a software dev, I write software like this for a living (engineering not games but same sort of thing). It's a separate render path - even using an existing game engine with support you've got to code for it, then you got to test it. Even the QA could delay a release by months as they will be snowed under already (always are). You ask them to add an extra renderer to their testing and they will demand an extra month to QA it - then you've got to fix the bugs and before you know it that's delayed the release by 2 months. This means you can't hit your release deadline and senior management get mad, bonuses get cut, and so on...

This is all for 10% of your target market, and it probably won't impact sales - people won't buy games for mantle they'll buy games cause they want the game. The cost return just isn't there for the dev. Mantle sells radeon cards not games.

Don't even bother trying to explain this to these people. They don't develop anything except a superiority complex over a marketing slide AMD releases every so often.

The fact is Mantle will require more resources for development and people seem to want to ignore this. Even if it somehow used magic to make games perform over 9000 times better, it will still require significant development and testing of both Mantle and DX versions. The "but it's in the engine omg!" shows exactly how few people understand software development.

 

[chimaxi83]

It is so hard to make AMD fanboys understand that AMD has payed DICE to use mantle on BF4.Why Dice will apply mantle for free they wont get any benefits from except only loss.There is AMD dont not rule in GPU market which is a back draw and no one need to tell that AMD need to pay every game because it will take time and effort of developers.

Here's an important question: WHO CARES? You're just another "but financials!" poster. Nobody. Cares.

I'll be enjoying whatever Mantle + 290x brings soon, while people like you just continue to post rubbish to downplay and damage control. Have fun bro.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Here's an important question: WHO CARES? You're just another "but financials!" poster. Nobody. Cares.

I'll be enjoying whatever Mantle + 290x brings soon, while people like you just continue to post rubbish to downplay and damage control. Have fun bro.

So you get the unknown benefit of one engine? Fantastic...

 

[Paul98]

Don't even bother trying to explain this to these people. They don't develop anything except a superiority complex over a marketing slide AMD releases every so often.

The fact is Mantle will require more resources for development and people seem to want to ignore this. Even if it somehow used magic to make games perform over 9000 times better, it will still require significant development and testing of both Mantle and DX versions. The "but it's in the engine omg!" shows exactly how few people understand software development.

The reason this isn't a big deal compared to other times is that the programming will have already been done for GCN low level API for both xbox and ps. The port over to mantle should be simple and strait forward and reuse the time already spent on low level API's for GCN. It will be especially easy with xbone as xbone has a low level api as part of DX, and mantle is a low level api and is compatible with DX HLSL

 

[cmdrdredd]

The reason this isn't a big deal compared to other times is that the programming will have already been done for GCN low level API for both xbox and ps. The port over to mantle should be simple and strait forward and reuse the time already spent on low level API's for GCN. It will be especially easy with xbone as xbone has a low level api as part of DX, and mantle is a low level api and is compatible with DX HLSL

You think that's how it'll be but we don't know unless you work for dice.

Until we have a full understanding of this and see the benefits to the end user it is hard for me to have any excitement for it.

 

[chimaxi83]

So you get the unknown benefit of one engine? Fantastic...

My point, in case you missed it, was the ton of bashing with ZERO clue what it is. Who the hell cares who or what AMD paid? Serious question, because it keeps coming up... Why do we care about how AMD did it?

 

[cmdrdredd]

My point, in case you missed it, was the ton of bashing with ZERO clue what it is. Who the hell cares who or what AMD paid? Serious question, because it keeps coming up... Why do we care about how AMD did it?

Cause it can increase Dev costs and time due to the "need" to code for both mantle and DX.

We really need more info anyhow.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

My point, in case you missed it, was the ton of bashing with ZERO clue what it is. Who the hell cares who or what AMD paid? Serious question, because it keeps coming up... Why do we care about how AMD did it?

Maybe some people are looking at it like it was money they could have invested into the 290X to make a better card/reference cooler.

 

[smackababy]

The reason this isn't a big deal compared to other times is that the programming will have already been done for GCN low level API for both xbox and ps. The port over to mantle should be simple and strait forward and reuse the time already spent on low level API's for GCN. It will be especially easy with xbone as xbone has a low level api as part of DX, and mantle is a low level api and is compatible with DX HLSL

You're basing this assumption that the APIs are at all similar in how you code for them and that the code will 'port' over instantly. Like there is some option like [compile for Xbox] and [compile for PC] that just does it.

Also, unless you have actually used Mantle and the Xbox One API, I don't think you're in position to comment on how easy it is.

Even if it only takes an extra 2 or 3 developers, that is still TWO builds that must pass QA testing. That extends the development cycle and costs more money. Either costs are going to balloon with Mantle (unlikely) or publishers are going to tell the development studios to just figure it out themselves. Chances are pretty good that takes away resources that would be otherwise spent on just a DX version of the game. Now, how much resources is a question we will learn more about once the Mantle SDK is actually finished.

 

[chimaxi83]

Cause it can increase Dev costs and time due to the "need" to code for both mantle and DX.

We really need more info anyhow.

I understand, but that's still irrelevant to gamers. Games will still cost $50-60 (standard versions anyway). Anyway, it can definitely be a flop, I just think it's funny who all the downplaying is coming from.

Maybe some people are looking at it like it was money they could have invested into the 290X to make a better card/reference cooler.

Now this I can agree with.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Now, how much resources is a question we will learn more about once the Mantle SDK is actually finished.

That might be 2015 before that happens.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I understand, but that's still irrelevant to gamers. Games will still cost $50-60 (standard versions anyway). Anyway, it can definitely be a flop, I just think it's funny who all the downplaying is coming from.




Now this I can agree with.

No it isn't irrelevant. Say for the sake of argument that mantle is 5x easier to code for than DX, including testing, debugging, etc. So that is a 20% increase in development cost. Do you think the publishers will just eat that? I dont. Either they will increase the cost of games, lengthen the development cycle or cut corners elsewhere, probably in making a quality DX version. Either that or they will expect AMD to pay them directly or indirectly.

I am of course just guessing at how much overhead it will cost to include 2 paths, but the point is the same. Mantle *may* be worth it, it is too soon to say. But there is no free lunch either. There will be a price to pay to include it in games, no matter how similar to consoles it is.

 

[Phynaz]

Cause it can increase Dev costs and time due to the "need" to code for both mantle and DX.

We really need more info anyhow.

In the days of $100M game budgets and 150 person dev teams why do you care? Cost of adding this will be insignificant.

 

[Phynaz]

It is so hard to make AMD fanboys understand that AMD has payed DICE to use mantle on BF4.Why Dice will apply mantle for free they wont get any benefits from except only loss.There is AMD dont not rule in GPU market which is a back draw and no one need to tell that AMD need to pay every game because it will take time and effort of developers.

Funny, in another thread you said you hoped Nvidia has something to counter Mantle. Would it be okay for them to pay developers?

 

[bystander36]

My fear of Mantle, and this has been mentioned a little here and there, is it will steal resources away from the DX code and result in buggier games. Probably buggier on both code paths, rather than a single more stable code path.

When games used to support both OpenGL and DX, those games used to be really buggy messes. I'd rather not go back to those days.

 

[selni]

First of all isnt console games like 90% of the sale? Lol
Then for the remaining 10% remember all the future apu from jaguar onwards. Thats a huge future market compared to discrete nv or amd gpu.

Or put another way; you can get a part of the pc market without any significant cost. In prior consoles generation many games were not portet at all because of cost and most of the games that were portet to pc was crappy ports.

Consoles are huge relative to PC yes, but as has been explained by MS and AMD at this point, Mantle is not a console API. It might be very similar - that remains to be seen, but as far as anyone who actually knows has said , you can't write a Mantle render path that works on a console and the PC.

I'm not sure I'm interpreting this correctly, but are you suggesting that companies are likely to port to PC using only Mantle and not have a DX/OGL render path at all? Unless something really drastic happens with market share, that seems unlikely doesn't it? There's a lot more work involved in porting a game than rendering.

 

[krumme]

You're basing this assumption that the APIs are at all similar in how you code for them and that the code will 'port' over instantly. Like there is some option like [compile for Xbox] and [compile for PC] that just does it.

.

Well the coding is not only similar but "often compatible" !

If you had read this thread you would have known it. But ryans last piece of mantle covers it nicely.