Mousemonkey :
qlum :
While I am not a fan of vendor locking I think this type of thing is still defendable, firstly nvidea is free to use it if they want to and second its real world benefits are big enough to warrant it, if nvidea would build a similar thing sure devs had to support both but in the end the games would be better for it, better then when you use directx or opengl with their big overheads.
How are they free to use it? It's proprietary to AMD and only works on GCN cards so exactly how is Nvidia able to use it?
AFAIK this is just like Gsync. They CAN license their tech to their enemy but so far neither side has mentioned anything about it and it would just be bad business for NV to give out Gsync to AMD (everyone else, mobile etc cool, but no AMD cards for at least a while), and equally bad for AMD to give Mantle to NV if it's really going to help perf (they NEED this perf to get back market share). Also both would require some redesigning of hardware most likely. I don't think Gsync (as it is now on a NV PCB for their cards only supposedly) would work with AMD cards. Same in reverse with Mantle on NV. Both sides would need to license the other guys stuff and bolt something on to a new hardware gen. On the mantle side, I'm not sure if it can be adapted at all without NV producing a GCN card. That ain't going to happen...LOL.
I don't see either side even licensing these two things for quite some time if they even can get it to work in some way. I do believe NV will license out Gsync to all screen makers, but not to other SOCS, AMD etc for a while. You want a foot in the SOC door and this helps get you further in along with great gaming experience, drivers, etc from kepler soon. On AMD's side, with such small share and consoles blocking it all, you'll need to pay game after game. I doubt they'll even have 10% on cards that are mantle capable by next xmas and you can't charge more for AMD card owners for spending time on this. Considering BF4 cost 8mil supposedly, I'm wondering how much these will steal from the bottom line. They made 48mil this Q. That's a lot of your profit in ONE mantle game.
Physx has been in Xbox360/ps3/wii and both new gens, tons of pc cards (65% of the market has supported it for a while, every card sold since what 2008 from NV?) and it's only in 60 games...LOL. When I looked at the list of games using it, many were NV promoted stuff (meaning they paid them to do it). If NV who has no debt, 2.7B cash, makes ~140mil/Q can't afford to get it into more game with consoles having it for years, pc for years etc it says devs won't do it free even when there is a much larger audience that could take advantage on NV's side and with consoles having it too (280mil consoles!+PC's). I forgot macs also
Not much hope for Mantle unless AMD gets bought by someone with cash to push it IMHO. Also most of the big games using physx do it on CPU (I'd call that a bit of a fail). Tough to push a new API. Ask 3DFX/Glide
I loved my Voodoo cards...