DirectX, OpenGL May Soon Allow Low-Level Hardware Access

[airborne11b]

People (specially AMD/Mantle hater) should thank AMD for created Mantle. Because of AMD, now even OpenGL and the "don't care about PC gaming anymore" M$ DirectX may have the similar thing. Think this way, if Mantle is created by company like Apple, Apple will MADE SURE OpenGL and DirectX cannot do that....

I'm all for companies 'pushing' other companies in the gaming arena. M$ has gotten itself out of that arena and as far as 8.0 and 8.1 nah I'll just wait til M$ makes up its mind that we all don't want I-Pads for our pcs or the touch screen junk so it looks like another Vista to me and hope 9.0 makes up the difference like 7.1 did.

The Windows 8 metro UI start menu is just an improved full screen version of the old start menu(that's 100% optional to use). The rest of Windows 8 and 8.1 are small or decent improvements over windows 7, including where gaming is concerned.People who hate on windows 8 are tech-illiterate.

 

[jwcalla]

You can already watch the presentation about OpenGL on YouTube which was held at Steam Dev Days. Just search for "Beyond Porting: How Modern OpenGL Can Radically Reduce Driver Overhead".

 

[Fierce Guppy]

Didn't we get away from Hardware Access Level <HAL> for a reason? Bad programming! Can't wait to see the support forums for games after this starts to hit the streets in a few years.

It wasn't necessarily bad programming, but that was in the days before there was a Hardware Abstraction Layer or HAL, when there was no standard for how hardware functionality is presented structurally to the programmer. Hence the application programmer built in driver support for only the most well known pieces of hardware. Also hardware resources could not be concurrently shared.

 

[megiv]

So DirectX will soon target only high end developers? ...Microsoft : Bring back XNA !

 

[mstngs351]

What I don't understand is throughout PC history AMD has been willing to share tech, but you don't see Nvidia or Intel returning the favor. What about a Cuda or PhysX enabled AMD graphics card, that would be great.

First off Intel has shared plenty of tech. Secondly AMD simply can't pull off the kind of exclusive things that Nvidia can. Don't kid yourself, if AMD had the long standing large market share then they could and would be a little less open. Take gsync. Nvidia has enough market share and money that they could possibly make money off of it. Without throwing extra cash at manufactures, AMD wouldn't even be able to get most manufactures on board with that kind of arrangement because they would be selling to a smaller market. Fools have been tricked into thinking they are in some way friendlier when in fact they simply couldn't act like nvidia even if they wanted. Besides, they aren't really being all goodie goodie when they make something open and know that Nvidia can't implement it.

 

[ohim]

And again AMD has to come up with something to make things move. This is why i love AMD even though they are not performance kings. Though i don`t get it why it took so long for DX or OpenGL to make this move ? Competition always changes things. Hope AMD will not abandon forever the CPU performance race.

 

[genz]

People seem to forget here that AMD actually MAKE the GPU. There is no way. I repeat. NO WAY, that DirectX will be anywhere near as fast as Mantle, as DirectX will need safeguards that ensure that direct access doesn't kaboosh the whole system on obscure cards and new architectures.

Mantle is relatively simple to make and implement if you are designing the hardware alongside it, which is exactly why DirectX can't really match Mantle. MS don't know how exactly each GPU is built inside, only how to interface with the software (HAL) that the manufacturers specifically build into the drivers to communicate with OGL and DX. Direct hardware access on an AMD board is near impossible without co-operation directly from AMD (more specifically it requires either burning through several hundred thousand cards mapping its internal circuits, or getting an electron microscope scan and hiring a team to map its logic circuits out manually and dump it's ROMs)


Edit: I'm not saying that DX and OGL will not be faster for this, just that they cannot be faster than Mantle as their hardware access will never be as 'direct' as Mantle is.

 

[genz]

Didn't we get away from Hardware Access Level <HAL> for a reason? Bad programming! Can't wait to see the support forums for games after this starts to hit the streets in a few years.

And THIS is the primary reason DX will never get that low level even if it had all the help from NV and AMD and as a result could. Not to mention the other reason, platform diversity. Unless you want to go back to the days where an entire DirectX must be written for each and every chipset in the way that rendering engines only supported a few cards, along with bluescreen crashes every time a GK104 chip was thrown a GK110 command or had to do a memory transfer that failed due to EVGA switching the RAM chips from Nvidias for your vendor overclocked version... you want a little slowness for the sake of stability.

 

[Jaroslav Jandek]

I would guess that it would take at least a couple of years to roll this out assuming that nothing has been in the works until now.

Microsoft improves DirectX with every iteration (nothing surprising here). Talks about driver overhead and performance are at every GDC. For example, last year's presentations concerned instancing, pooling vertex and index buffers, etc.

Also, Microsoft has planned to bring improvements from console DirectX to desktop for a long time (at least since the Xbox One announcement, which uses Direct3D 11.x - closer-to-the-metal, a superset of D3D 11.2). So this is nothing new and would have happened with or without Mantle - although now, it will probably happen sooner rather than later, which is a good thing.

A guy from AMD is helping OpenGL become low-level? This confuses me.

They are all members of the Khronos Group. And no, it's NOT about a new low-level implementation, but a guide on how to reduce driver overhead using the existing OpenGL API (really not sure how the originators of the story came to the conclusion it is about low-level changes in OpenGL).

So DirectX will soon target only high end developers? ...Microsoft : Bring back XNA !

Try SharpDX or MonoGame. Both work well and are just as easy to use as XNA. Not to mention SharpDX is really fast compared to XNA (almost native level).

 

[Kewlx25]

Didn't we get away from Hardware Access Level <HAL> for a reason? Bad programming! Can't wait to see the support forums for games after this starts to hit the streets in a few years.

There was a reason, protected mode on the GPU with a unified memory space. A HAL on the GPU is about as useful now as someone implementing a HAL on a CPU. Abstraction for sake of abstraction is a bad thing. Tech advancements have made HAL beyond moot, actually cumbersome. HAL is great if you need to make system calls, but is bad if all you want to do is compute loads.

HAL is pointless for compute loads. The only reason we need a HAL for compute is the OS needs to handle its own scheduling and try to make sure the compute doesn't access memory it shouldn't be. This will no longer be an issue with the new arch because protected mode and uniform memory and proper context switching will allow the hardware to handle this stuff.

 

[xenol]

Mantle this, Mantle that. The whole performance boost from draw call efficiency has been around in DirectX 11 since it was released in the form of Deferred Contexts: https://developer.nvidia.com/sites/default/files/akamai/gamedev/docs/GDC_2013_DUDASH_DeferredContexts.pdf Just that nobody really uses it for some reason.If anything I have a feeling it'll be like going from Python level to C level on the "highness level" of languages.

 

[derpderpderp]

This is bad in the long run. This will let inferior competitors into gaming like Intel and Arm. If software was "close to metal" years ago we would be running Pentium III and Amd K6's on Crysis at high FPS and who is going to now push the demand for powerful CPU's? The main reason we have advance in hardware is from sloppy software!!!!!!!!!!

 

[childofthekorn]

Can't wait to see the performance comparison of the revisited DirectX, OpenGL and Mantle.

 

[Avus]

This is bad in the long run. This will let inferior competitors into gaming like Intel and Arm. If software was "close to metal" years ago we would be running Pentium III and Amd K6's on Crysis at high FPS and who is going to now push the demand for powerful CPU's? The main reason we have advance in hardware is from sloppy software!!!!!!!!!!

This is as stupid as saying by develop fuel efficient engine will lead to lesser performance car in future.

 

[hannibal]

Near metal programing will allways be suited to guite spesific hardware. So when and if this come to DX it will be used to that hardware, that has biggest userbase! So some AMD, some Nvidia and maybe some Intel based architectures will be supported. Those that are not so popular at that moment, will use higher lever program path. So there can be quite big difference if the low metal version supports your hardware, or does not...The safest bet is to buy the same that everyone else is buying. It also depends on what hardware makers are paying for support to game developers.

 

[Mousemonkey]

I can't help but wonder if this will come to pass before Mantle gets out of beta?

 

[DAOWAce]

OpenGL is fine, but DirectX is going to forced into Windows 9 and require everyone to upgrade, just as Vista had DX10 and 7 had DX11 (which they thankfully ported over to Vista). (Does 8 have a later version? I've completely ignored the OS since its reveal)

At the slim chance 7 (they will ignore Vista, unfortunately) actually gets a backport of 12, then maybe that will save DirectX, but otherwise I don't see it being used much longer if Mantle/OpenGL are much more open to every platform.

 

[Mousemonkey]

OpenGL is fine, but DirectX is going to forced into Windows 9 and require everyone to upgrade, just as Vista had DX10 and 7 had DX11 (which they thankfully ported over to Vista). (Does 8 have a later version? I've completely ignored the OS since its reveal)

At the slim chance 7 (they will ignore Vista, unfortunately) actually gets a backport of 12, then maybe that will save DirectX, but otherwise I don't see it being used much longer if Mantle/OpenGL are much more open to every platform.

Do you really think MS are going to drop DX? Really?

 

[bloodroses75]

People forget to realize that both the Xbone and PS4 use AMD exclusive graphics, so Mantle still has it's place on those platforms. Also as mentioned by many people about the vast number of different graphic cards out there on PC, this isn't quite the case with tablets. Since going down to metal also improves battery life, I can see the DirectX iteration (at least) being focused more for the tablet market for those 2 reasons. The fact that is has been a booming market I'm sure helps as well. As with OpenGL, Apple does use that for their Macintosh computers, which has a limited list of video cards that they use.

 

[childofthekorn]

Mantle is dead even before it gets to take off.

Possibly. But everyone's banding together to update already available API's to modernize the utilization and how it interacts with current hardware. Who cares if AMD continues with Mantle (Which may still possibly have its uses, until its otherwise announced or proven via testing) if the consumer is getting a boost in performance on current hardware regardless of manufacturer, theoretically.

 

[Mousemonkey]

People forget to realize that both the Xbone and PS4 use AMD exclusive graphics, so Mantle still has it's place on those platforms. Also as mentioned by many people about the vast number of different graphic cards out there on PC, this isn't quite the case with tablets. Since going down to metal also improves battery life, I can see the DirectX iteration (at least) being focused more for the tablet market for those 2 reasons. The fact that is has been a booming market I'm sure helps as well. As with OpenGL, Apple does use that for their Macintosh computers, which has a limited list of video cards that they use.

It seems you are unaware of the articles where both MS and Sony have said that they're not going to use Mantle as they have their own API's.

 

[Marcus Wandle]

Just get rid of DirectX. MS has been pushing this rubbish for far too long.

 

[childofthekorn]

People forget to realize that both the Xbone and PS4 use AMD exclusive graphics, so Mantle still has it's place on those platforms. Also as mentioned by many people about the vast number of different graphic cards out there on PC, this isn't quite the case with tablets. Since going down to metal also improves battery life, I can see the DirectX iteration (at least) being focused more for the tablet market for those 2 reasons. The fact that is has been a booming market I'm sure helps as well. As with OpenGL, Apple does use that for their Macintosh computers, which has a limited list of video cards that they use.

It seems you are unaware of the articles where both MS and Sony have said that they're not going to use Mantle as they have their own API's.

Mantle was an after thought to bring the same potential of optimization to the PC for AMD hardware. Seeing the OpenGL and D3D weren't moving at a very fast pace to keep up. There was never an intention for Mantle to be on consoles.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mantle-api-xbox-one-directx-11.2,24691.html

As you are well aware AMD's unique architecture was hindered by the readily available PC API's, as AMD's hardware is geared more for multithreaded applications. Mantle simply redirects the instruction sets to be handled by the GPU (as the majority of code is geared more for single threading, whereas AMD's hardware is tuned for heavily multithreaded applications). Where as the current API's are more geared for fewer threading applications. This is where Intel thrives seeing that they geared their processor to be far more general use, with an emphasis towards better thermal efficiency, benefit of superior leakage protection and far lower IPC.

Interestingly enough the FX-8320 (3.5 ghz as opposed to the 8350's 4.0Ghz) was able to compete with the I7-4770 in multithreaded application use, a hell of a lot closer than the single threaded performance, lol. Given their respective release dates and manufacturing process mind you.
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/451/AMD_FX-Series_FX-8350_vs_Intel_Core_i7_i7-4770K.html

Close to the metal API in general is a huge reason why Xbox360 and PS3 were able to survive so long on such aged hardware with very little negative impact on a games performance (I still remember drooling when Gears of War came out, lol).

 

[Mousemonkey]

People forget to realize that both the Xbone and PS4 use AMD exclusive graphics, so Mantle still has it's place on those platforms. Also as mentioned by many people about the vast number of different graphic cards out there on PC, this isn't quite the case with tablets. Since going down to metal also improves battery life, I can see the DirectX iteration (at least) being focused more for the tablet market for those 2 reasons. The fact that is has been a booming market I'm sure helps as well. As with OpenGL, Apple does use that for their Macintosh computers, which has a limited list of video cards that they use.

It seems you are unaware of the articles where both MS and Sony have said that they're not going to use Mantle as they have their own API's.

Mantle was an after thought to bring the same potential of optimization to the PC for AMD hardware. Seeing the OpenGL and D3D weren't moving at a very fast pace to keep up. There was never an intention for Mantle to be on consoles.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mantle-api-xbox-one-directx-11.2,24691.html

As you are well aware AMD's unique architecture was hindered by the readily available PC API's, as AMD's hardware is geared more for multithreaded applications. Mantle simply redirects the instruction sets to be handled by the GPU (as the majority of code is geared more for single threading, whereas AMD's hardware is tuned for heavily multithreaded applications). Where as the current API's are more geared for fewer threading applications. This is where Intel thrives seeing that they geared their processor to be far more general use, with an emphasis towards better thermal efficiency, benefit of superior leakage protection and far lower IPC.

Interestingly enough the FX-8320 (3.5 ghz as opposed to the 8350's 4.0Ghz) was able to compete with the I7-4770 in multithreaded application use, a hell of a lot closer than the single threaded performance, lol. Given their respective release dates and manufacturing process mind you.
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/451/AMD_FX-Series_FX-8350_vs_Intel_Core_i7_i7-4770K.html

Close to the metal API in general is a huge reason why Xbox360 and PS3 were able to survive so long on such aged hardware with very little negative impact on a games performance (I still remember drooling when Gears of War came out, lol).

Who is this post directed at? Me or bloodroses75?

 

[childofthekorn]

People forget to realize that both the Xbone and PS4 use AMD exclusive graphics, so Mantle still has it's place on those platforms. Also as mentioned by many people about the vast number of different graphic cards out there on PC, this isn't quite the case with tablets. Since going down to metal also improves battery life, I can see the DirectX iteration (at least) being focused more for the tablet market for those 2 reasons. The fact that is has been a booming market I'm sure helps as well. As with OpenGL, Apple does use that for their Macintosh computers, which has a limited list of video cards that they use.

It seems you are unaware of the articles where both MS and Sony have said that they're not going to use Mantle as they have their own API's.

Mantle was an after thought to bring the same potential of optimization to the PC for AMD hardware. Seeing the OpenGL and D3D weren't moving at a very fast pace to keep up. There was never an intention for Mantle to be on consoles.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mantle-api-xbox-one-directx-11.2,24691.html

As you are well aware AMD's unique architecture was hindered by the readily available PC API's, as AMD's hardware is geared more for multithreaded applications. Mantle simply redirects the instruction sets to be handled by the GPU (as the majority of code is geared more for single threading, whereas AMD's hardware is tuned for heavily multithreaded applications). Where as the current API's are more geared for fewer threading applications. This is where Intel thrives seeing that they geared their processor to be far more general use, with an emphasis towards better thermal efficiency, benefit of superior leakage protection and far lower IPC.

Interestingly enough the FX-8320 (3.5 ghz as opposed to the 8350's 4.0Ghz) was able to compete with the I7-4770 in multithreaded application use, a hell of a lot closer than the single threaded performance, lol. Given their respective release dates and manufacturing process mind you.
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/451/AMD_FX-Series_FX-8350_vs_Intel_Core_i7_i7-4770K.html

Close to the metal API in general is a huge reason why Xbox360 and PS3 were able to survive so long on such aged hardware with very little negative impact on a games performance (I still remember drooling when Gears of War came out, lol).

Who is this post directed at? Me or bloodroses75?

That was directed at you.