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Carmack: Microsoft, Sony May Be Hostile to AMD's Mantle

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Even without a hardware-level API, PCs have already had significantly more graphics power than consoles for the past several years. It hasn't caused any significant upheaval so far, I don't see why it would now.
 
Im not the smartes person about all the things that are happening right now whit new consoles, Steam and its mounstral plattaform etc, but if i were AMD i would talk to the Game Studios NOT Microsoft or Sony, i would push Mantle among them so the games get better optimization, after having the studios in the pocket i would then go with MS and Sony even Valve.

After that Mantle isn't closed. that way maybe AMD can be crowned king of the consoles sector and have a good income in future years.

We are watching something so awesome, a company trying to get gaming more equitative. this isn't about whats better or who has the biggest profit is about making gaming both and console and on pc better.
 
It's not as though AMD can just flat out ignore Sony and Microsoft, since they're all financially tied together for at least this console cycle. And AMD clearly didn't have a lot of concern since they went ahead and announced this step anyway. Ultimately it's not huge game changer. It could help a little, but to make an impact with the PC gaming industry you would need for many developers to adopt to it. Further, if you are using Nvidia, this sounds like just another useless stunt since it won't help anything for you. The idea from Valve for a gaming focused OS holds a little more potential I would imagine. After all, there has never been anything stopping Nvidia, AMD, or whoever from just giving developers more access to the architecture anyway, without all this fuss.
 
Question: Is there a chance Mantle to be on consoles and Windows only? I don't know if it is something that it doesn't care about which OS you are running but I bet AMD can keep, if it can, Mantle away from SteamOS and Linux if necessary. They can still improve their drivers keeping Mantle out of Linux. That way consoles and PCs running windows will have an advantage over Linux.
 
Sli and Mantle are basically graphic monopoly staff... Bad for competition, good for performance (if you happen to have the right hardware, bad if not happen to have...)
I allmost hope that it will be implemented in console envinronment, but not so sure in PC world...
I have been usin ATI / AMD for some time because they have offered the best bang for the buck in those times I was configuring my PC. But still don't hope it to have an monopoly (as I don't want the Intel or Nvidia to have it either!) Monopoly is allways bad to customers in long run.
 
There is a reason why bare metal programming died out long ago. It takes a lot more work to basically rewrite all the functions that are built into DirectX. No one has bothered to try yet another programming layer in years. Yes, you gain a few frames per second but you have to write different code for each platform you are using. Just not worth the bother.
 
"I still love GLIDE! In my brain i see the 3dfx running The best time in my life! 3dfx voodo 2 12mb! "

How did programmers like it? Also, it was proprietary, and an upcoming API called OpenGL started to take off. Apparently Direct3D's advantage was that "it just worked". GPUs and CPUs have grown to where low-level might not be as advantageous unless you are an engine maker like the UE3 or the Cryengine
 

Before AMD can get (console) developers to jump on Mantle, AMD has to convince Microsoft and Sony to add Mantle to XBOne and PS4 since Sony and Microsoft are the ones who dictate what APIs, drivers, etc. are in their respective consoles and which ones aren't.
 


Oh this brings back memories! Super 7 w/K62-300 oc to 350, rush rendition r1000, with Voodoo 2 in SLI... Beta testing Evercrack!!!
 
Honestly Mantle doesn't make sense. The days of down to the metal programming are gone.

That means the developer needs to write custom routines for both the Mantle API and standard DirectX/OpenGL for Nvidia and pre-GCN AMD/ATI users.
 
typical, instead of driving the tech further so the consumer wins, they sabotage it out of pure selfishness. its not about them and their money, its about the customer. goes to show the customer is almost never right.... when the honest, noble, and plainly obvious right thing is that the customer is almost always right
 
Why does everyone assume that Sony and MS didn't know about Mantle before it was announced. The fact that this code took time to write and AMD went to Sony and MS about providing the chips. I'm sure they mentioned to them they were working on an API that would boost graphics on their chips if they used this API.
 
I can already imagine my Kaveri APU and AMD R7 260x GPU in crossfire with trueAudio and Mantle. That steambox is going to be the bomb.
 
@John Pombrio

yea, microsoft hold dx hostage as a bargaining chip to upgrade the os, for some reason no one uses opengl for games anymore, but amd, who have a vested interest in gaming and not selling an os to game on (which cannibalizes console sales), i could easily see this taking off in the pc area just because microsoft has no interest in pc gaming, mix that with steam box and you get this or opengl making a comeback and i like both options.
 
Why does everyone assume that Sony and MS didn't know about Mantle before it was announced. The fact that this code took time to write and AMD went to Sony and MS about providing the chips. I'm sure they mentioned to them they were working on an API that would boost graphics on their chips if they used this API.
 


Wow you got downvoted for stating the truth. Anyway i agree with you. Amd can convince dev the developing their games on pc to use Mantle API but on the console the developer still need to follow the guide line that provided by MS or Sony to develop their games on respective console. If MS or Sony say no then dev can't do anything about it even if they want to. For example Sony could reject dev to write their code fully in Mantle API because it might not follow the their standard quality assurance or something like that. So you were right for console AMD need to convice MS and Sony first before talking about developer using it in console enviroment
 
It sounds like they want us all gaming on consoles, to the point of sabotage. Ok, taking off my tinfoil hat.

I remember Glide too. I remember downloading game patches over dial-up so the best games could now support opengl. Spec Ops was one of them, one of the darkest, muddiest looking games I've ever played on PC, lol
 
Mantle uses DX HLSL. What makes people think MS will be upset about it? There have been articles talking about how it's basically the Windows version of the Xbox One's low-level graphics API.
 

Yes and no. Use of HLSL even in DirectX is optional.

The shader software layer pipeline goes something like this:
1- game HLSL shader source code
2- Microsoft HLSL bytecode compiler
3- GPU vendor HLSL native translator/compiler
4- ASM or binary output
5- hand-tuned ASM and binary output (optional)

So, a PS4 developer could use HLSL to code his shader for rapid development/proofing on the PC, compile it to HLSL bytecode, pass it through the GPU vendor's HLSL-to-GCN recompiler and use the ASM output as the starting point for profiling and hand-tuning once the HLSL effect is approved as final. Developers who want to write optimal shaders for Nvidia cards can do exactly the same thing too.
 
Mantle Shmantle. It's a marketing stunt. Open standards will live on, mantle will die. But hey, lets all buy AMD cards and flock like sheep to Mantle and forget all about the micro-stutter and poor image stability and dropped frames across multiple displays and 4k.....
 
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