The AMD Mantle Thread

[PPB]

Isn't that what we buy graphics cards for tho....better IQ..more on screen imagery and enhanced immersion ...not gameplay?

If IQ is adding more crap nowadays, I have yet to see his opinion regarding Physx :awe:


Anyways, to sum up:

I think Mantle is a big deal to GPUs because they (current) requeriment of having an specific architecture to play ball. But the most important thing will be less CPU overhead. Now THAT is gamechanging, at least for people like me who dont really care about IQ and even at 1080 i find myself most of the time bottlenecked by CPU and not GPU. In BF4 my ideal setting would be all low and just crank up supersampling till I stop getting 60-70fps minimuns on a 7950.

 

[bystander36]

If you mean with Intel CPU's, I don't see any reason it's not going to. Unless AMD decides to put a vendor lockout.

If you mean on the iGPU, I've never seen a company write drivers for another company's GPU? I'm not even sure it's possible unless Intel supplied AMD with the details of their architecture. I doubt Intel would do that, and I really don't see AMD wanting to do that anyway. Why would they?

I was just responding to rtsurfer saying it was Intel's responsibility to make Mantle work.

I was just saying if Intel doesn't want make it work on their hardware, they don't have to, but if AMD still wants it to work on their hardware, then it is up to them.

Intel is not responsible for Mantle. It is their choice if they want to support it.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Isn't that what we buy graphics cards for tho....better IQ..more on screen imagery and enhanced immersion ...not gameplay?

Apparently some developers are convinced/hopeful that Mantle can help them not only change the way they code game engines but gameplay as well. (vide the Q&A about Mantle)

 

[Phynaz]

I don't think people play AAA titles on iGPU. With current state of Intel graphics,they'll barely brake 30FPS.
All this with exception of a certain 500$ OEM part that is.

Which has nothing at all to do with the number of people that play games on an Intel IGP. The vast majority of game players are casual (Candy Crush) and don't play AAA titles.

 

[rtsurfer]

Which has nothing at all to do with the number of people that play games on an Intel IGP. The vast majority of game players are casual (Candy Crush) and don't play AAA titles.

And I think Candy Crush does run good enough, so that we do not require the use of Mantle for it.

 

[SiliconWars]

The intel IGP argument is stupid. They aren't the target market anyway so would never have been a factor. Just pretend they don't exist, oh look you still have a bunch of devs coding for Mantle and suddenly AMD has a much higher market share (yet the same number of users, which is the only part the devs are interested in).

 

[GaiaHunter]

Which has nothing at all to do with the number of people that play games on an Intel IGP. The vast majority of game players are casual (Candy Crush) and don't play AAA titles.

Especially because to play AAA games the Intel IGP isn't enough.

So do players play casual Candy Crush games because that is what they want to play or because that is what they can play without having to deal with dGPUs?

 

[Phynaz]

Especially because to play AAA games the Intel IGP isn't enough.

So do players play casual Candy Crush games because that is what they want to play or because that is what they can play without having to deal with dGPUs?

Absolutely the former.

 

[R0H1T]

Absolutely the former.

Don't be so sure about that, it's probably in the region of 60/40 (leaning towards the latter) because normal people wouldn't like to deal with the hassle of an extra component(dGPU) & this is the same reason why a vast majority of gamers prefer a single GPU as against SLI or CFX.

 

[MeldarthX]

Its the new shiny to a point; but this tells you something. I've been out of the states for awhile now; just found out my dad is playing and kicking some butt on world of tanks. Does it take a lot to run that game? Nope; but to run it pretty yes; and my dad picked himself up a nice system without even talking to me LOL *impressed actually*

Give it to the people to be able to play the games........and they will play them. That is what I think mantle will do......

 

[3DVagabond]

Absolutely the former.

So, are you under the impression that if people could play AAA titles with an iGPU that they wouldn't because people who buy that level of hardware are only interested in "casual Candy Crush games"?

That's what it seems to me like you are saying, but I must be misunderstanding you.

 

[Phynaz]

So, are you under the impression that if people could play AAA titles with an iGPU that they wouldn't because people who buy that level of hardware are only interested in "casual Candy Crush games"?

That's what it seems to me like you are saying, but I must be misunderstanding you.

That's exactly what I'm saying. The 40 year old housewife in general isn't interested in BF4 or Metro. She's interested in Farmville and Peggle.

 

[3DVagabond]

That's exactly what I'm saying. The 40 year old housewife in general isn't interested in BF4 or Metro. She's interested in Farmville and Peggle.

There are kids who's parents can't afford to get them proper gaming rigs. Expanding the usable hardware base is going to expand the user base.

 

[SiliconWars]

That's exactly what I'm saying. The 40 year old housewife in general isn't interested in BF4 or Metro. She's interested in Farmville and Peggle.

Do you have figures showing that the majority of people buying intel and using the IGP for gaming are 40 year old housewives?

 

[GaiaHunter]

That's exactly what I'm saying. The 40 year old housewife in general isn't interested in BF4 or Metro. She's interested in Farmville and Peggle.

Because that is the entire demographic of dGPUs or why consoles sell so much.

 

[realibrad]

I have a gaming PC that I sometimes play stupid FB games on a few times a week. I also play games on my phone.

If I want to do something, but dont want to get fully involved with a larger game, then stupid cell phone or FB games are fine. Plus, taking my PC into the bathroom is not as easy as my cell phone.

 

[Silverforce11]

So the slide from last week was a lie? That would be two slides in a week from AMD that weren't true.....!

The reason Mantle will not take off beyond its initial honeymoon is because at first it will not support Intel, or NV. Who is going to spend all of that time for a DX alternative when less than 35% of the total GPU market, and less than 27% of the CPU market use AMD hardware? And an even smaller percentage use GCN?

Sure, AMD says Intel and NV can use Mantle.. IF they wish and they design their future GPUs with similar architectures to take advantage of Mantle.. but realistically WHO IS GOING TO DO THAT? Why would Intel and NV be in the business of enabling their competitor?

It was the same as NV offering GPU PhysX to AMD awhile ago which got rejected.

Re: marketshare %, we've been over that. Two top console with AMD pretty much guarantees Mantle's adoption and lifespan for the next 8 years. Game engines are multi platform, if Mantle helps the porting it will be used.

 

[3DVagabond]

Sure, AMD says Intel and NV can use Mantle.. IF they wish and they design their future GPUs with similar architectures to take advantage of Mantle.. but realistically WHO IS GOING TO DO THAT? Why would Intel and NV be in the business of enabling their competitor?

It was the same as NV offering GPU PhysX to AMD awhile ago which got rejected.

Re: marketshare %, we've been over that. Two top console with AMD pretty much guarantees Mantle's adoption and lifespan for the next 8 years. Game engines are multi platform, if Mantle helps the porting it will be used.

Watching the Q&A with the devs shows why Mantle will succeed. Just the improvement in debugging capabilities makes it a useful development tool. Never mind the actual performance improvements.

 

[SiliconWars]

Been trying to catch up with this thread after a long vaction (an actual one not a mod-induced one ) and I'm going to respond to some older posts.

http://www.techradar.com/news/compu...after-nvidia-graphics-with-kaveri-apu-1199636

Thanks for the link - really interesting comment there that wasn't picked up on as far as I can tell.

In fact, Nvidia probably sells 70-80% of their entire stack at 630 and below.

That's even higher than what I suggested with my market share numbers, I believed 50% was closer to the mark. It may well be, but still it shows just how much Nvidia's "gaming market" actually is - no more than AMD's or not enough more that it matters at all. Remember all those 630 GT's and below are less powerful than AMD's 5800K APU.

Read carefully does Intel CPU has 8 core?
APU has 8 cores.

I dunno if this is just an English thing or a lack of understanding of the tech so I'll assume English to be fair.

Intel has more "cores" than AMD has, in that they at least have more "threads" available to them, which is how the OS sees both anyway.

AMD has no 8-core APU, and might never have. The top AMD APU has 4 cores, and even Kaveri will be 4 core to start with.

So...there is no core+APU advantage for AMD. What they do have is a good choice though. With Mantle, AMD's 8-core CPU's will easily compete with Intel's quad i7's like the 4770K, and compete much more closely with their 6 core CPU's as well.

With say, a Kaveri APU, things start to get interesting. It only has 4 cores but also has the graphics portion which can combine with the discrete card. What it loses out with in terms of raw CPU grunt might be won back with raw GPU power. In GPU-bound games a quad Kaveri APU will be the best choice simply because of this. In fact, a quad Kaveri might well become the gaming chip of choice. This is AMD's master plan, I believe.

Intel only needs to worry about their low end crap i3's and Pentiums etc. They haven't been acceptable for years and should never have been. The i5's and i7's can probably still compete well vs the quad Kaveri under Mantle gaming (APU + discrete GPU combined).

 

[Phynaz]

Do you have figures showing that the majority of people buying intel and using the IGP for gaming are 40 year old housewives?

 

[blackened23]

I can say with certainty that the majority of people buying portable computers - with the VAST MAJORITY of them using integrated graphics - aren't buying them for games. If you take a peek at the ultrabook market right now, those systems are geared towards productivity and general use, not games.

I don't know where people get this mindset that 100% of purchasers are gamers. That clearly is not the case with ultrabooks and macbooks. That said, you can play less demanding games as phynaz has mentioned - I completely agree with him. But the average consumer of ultrabooks/macbooks? Aren't hardcore gamers.

The hardcore gamers are much more likely to get full sized laptops with discrete GPUs, and those will not be portable nor will they have any sizable amount of battery life. But you can plug it into the wall to play games just fine. Now, maybe mantle can help Kaveri out in this respect - but the CPU deficit will be hard to overcome since games tend to be CPU limited at lower resolutions, and most portable APU systems have low resolution screens.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I can say with certainty that the majority of people buying portable computers - with the VAST MAJORITY of them using integrated graphics - aren't buying them for games. If you take a peek at the ultrabook market right now, those systems are geared towards productivity and general use, not games.

I don't know where people get this mindset that 100% of purchasers are gamers. That clearly is not the case with ultrabooks and macbooks. That said, you can play less demanding games as phynaz has mentioned - I completely agree with him. But the average consumer of ultrabooks/macbooks? Aren't hardcore gamers.

The hardcore gamers are much more likely to get full sized laptops with discrete GPUs, and those will not be portable nor will they have any sizable amount of battery life. But you can plug it into the wall to play games just fine. Now, maybe mantle can help Kaveri out in this respect - but the CPU deficit will be hard to overcome since games tend to be CPU limited at lower resolutions, and most portable APU systems have low resolution screens.

And the majority of people buying mobile phones want a phone.
They still come with cameras, media players, radio, can play games, read books, etc.

The human history is filled with examples of when you get more resources you do new things with them.

"Washing machines consume half power now? Bam, dish washer."

"The internet speed is faster? Images on top of text, audio on top images, videos on top of the rest."

Once people can play AAA games for the same price they would pay for their regular machine, they will do so.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Do you have figures showing that the majority of people buying intel and using the IGP for gaming are 40 year old housewives?

I dont have specific figures, but there are a huge number of people that play facebook games, POGO, and other online types of games that are not very demanding.

There *is* a much wider gaming spectrum than consoles and "PC gaming" as most on these forums consider it. Personally I hate facebook games and these other types of social games, but they are a huge market.

I know my wife plays pogo as well as some city building/hidden object type of game, and there are usually a few thousand people on line in the city building game, and a lot more than that for POGO. And all you have to do is go onto facebook to see that a huge number of posts are related to some type of game achievement or score.

 

[blackened23]

Aside from that fact, most IGP systems are being used in the mobile market. Even though desktop sales have been going straight into the toilet (i'm talking specifically of pre-built retail desktop sales), every Dell, HP, etc desktop I see generally includes some type of dGPU as a value add - now it won't be an amazing dGPU but nonetheless the point remains. Not very many "desktops" have iGPU and only that - it (APU/iGPU) is primarily intended for mobile / portable PCs such as ultrabooks and macbooks.

With this being the case, phynaz' point is completely valid. Folks who buy mobile computers generally do not do so with aspirations of playing Crysis 3 on high quality - those who want that will buy a different type of system. Although a lot of these folks will play cheesy facebook games or very low end games such as Hearthstone. I also don't see APU based mobile systems as being very good for gaming either unless you really compromise on image quality settings and play at low resolutions - to be fair, though, this applies to most intel iGPUs as well. Now if Mantle can help Kaveri in this respect, hey great. I don't know though. I'd imagine that AMD's rather large CPU deficit would play a role in overall performance. Like I said, though, i'll wait and see before passing judgement on Mantle + Kaveri.

PS Did I read correctly that Kaveri is going to be LGA before mobile?

 

[frozentundra123456]

And the majority of people buying mobile phones want a phone.
They still come with cameras, media players, radio, can play games, read books, etc.

The human history is filled with examples of when you get more resources you do new things with them.

"Washing machines consume half power now? Bam, dish washer."

"The internet speed is faster? Images on top of text, audio on top images, videos on top of the rest."

Once people can play AAA games for the same price they would pay for their regular machine, they will do so.

First, I question when (or if ever) you will be able to play AAA games on a machine that costs the same as a general use computer, at least at any kind of decent setting.

I also think the market for expanding AAA gaming is less than some think. I mean, my wife has to ask me to play Zuma's revenge for her on pogo because she cant hit the balls of the same color. Can you see her playing BF4 or COD? An extreme example, and I mean it in a somewhat humorous vein, but the point is, I think most people that really want to play AAA games will either have a console already or a PC that is capable of playing them. Conversely, there is a huge number of people that want to play social/casual/facebook type of games that would have no interest in playing a AAA game, even if their computer could play it at some sort of reduced settings.