John Carmack No Longer Enthused About AMD's Mantle?

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It is not a matter of whether or not Mantle is impressive, at least to the nay sayers. It is that it requires more work and budget for something not necessary.
 
It all comes back to how many hours in a day, how many people you want to hire, how much you want to fragment the workload between them, and how long you want to spend money developing. They're already focused on decreasing development time as much as possible. Increasing the development time eats into the profits when the game finally ships.

At any rate, I'd say the graphics are "good enough" for consoles, though they are missing a few of the neater tricks, like Depth of Field, etc.

I'd much rather see improvements in AI. They still can't make a game that accurately represents the idea that if you can see a npc, it should be able to see you, and act accordingly. They still can't make a npc react at all to your actions unless it is within a certain distance. Again, all of this creates more work time, and less profit.

If gamers want mantle on consoles, they'd pretty much have to nut up and not buy any games at all until they do. The suits respond to profit.
 
Hmmm.... Later I'm going to find out more about those low-level DirectX extensions and how they differ from Mantle. I suspect that they must be very limited else DICE would have no interest in Mantle.
 

This is the way i am thinking about mantle, it should have been like physx/cuda, not a complete API on its own, but an extension that can be used optionally to enhance games that works along side an existing API, A hybrid API if you will. It would be much more successful if this were the case.
 


Of course I think he was being sarcastic.
 
John Carmack is old news. His company hasn't made anything new or innovate in how many years? I'm thinking the last big id title was Doom 3 and then of course it's many rehashes. Face it John it's time to retire, other companies have long since surpassed id and unless they come out with a game changer you're done.
 
Carmack is old news. it's been years since an Id title was relevant. Last title I can remember not being a rehash of something else was Enemy Territory:Quake Wars. That was at least a somewhat innovative take on the genre. I think at the end of the day Carmack should just retire and save face. Unless Id pulls something huge of their hat in the next little while I can't see them being around much longer tbh. They can't rest on the Doom franchise and the Quake franchise forever.
 
Carmack is old news. it's been years since an Id title was relevant. Last title I can remember not being a rehash of something else was Enemy Territory:Quake Wars. That was at least a somewhat innovative take on the genre. I think at the end of the day Carmack should just retire and save face. Unless Id pulls something huge of their hat in the next little while I can't see them being around much longer tbh. They can't rest on the Doom franchise and the Quake franchise forever.
 




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RF0zgYFFNk Like I said in the post above this one the interview we are are discussing is actually on Youtube.

As far as the up coming games. For some reason I can not find the Tom's article but this is the run down.
http://www.videogamer.com/xboxone/battlefield_4/news/over_15_games_in_development_using_frostbite_engine_says_dice.html
 


Well this is interesting. But does all game using frostbite 3 engine really need the boost from mantle? For example the upcoming need for speed rival are confirmed to run at 30 fps on all platfrom. With such low max cap on fps maybe even current mid range gpu able to hit that frame rate easily. So is there a need to use mantle un such case?

Also i read one of the key point of mantle is to reduce the developer reliance from amd to provide drivers by providing developer the lower level access to the hardware themselves. Some people has taken this as amd solution to move the burden on making quality drivers to developer shoulder.
 
If OpenGL doesn't give you low enough access (which talks directly the GPU's) then why bother? It's like releasing a game that only works on the AMD FX product line and not anything better or worse. All you do is lose sales and it's really just that simple. Better yet, for today's kids it's like releasing a texting app that only works if the person you are sending it to has the same app on the same model phone.
 


Well, what he said was echoed by Andersson, Sweeney etc. That's Id, Epic, and EA. When they all join in unison it doesn't matter what you think. Everyone agrees this is a BAD way to go.

I really can't believe they ever thought MS would be like "ok, directX will be made pointless by this so people can leave our consoles, but sure, we like it"...ROFL. Carmack didn't even have to speak for this to be an automatic "get that crap off our consoles" from both sides and "why would I write extra code for no extra money" from all devs.

Even this statement leaves me with questions:
"It was announced that DICE would be including support for the mantle (API) into frostbite 3, with Battlefield 4 being the first game to implement the low level tool set through a patch in December 2013."

So does every game need to be reworked with a patch? Or at what point do they just all get optimized? Is it just in there if you WANT to use it (so just support basically) but not automatically working? It's one thing to say you can code and mantle shouldn't crash, it's another saying you can code and mantle is automatically used and optimized. Frostbite 3 works on Xbox1 but clearly it's blocked. PS4 too. So how much time would be spent on optimizing for a console game that will see no improvement unless you have a specific model of AMD gpu? No console game will have an ounce of Mantle support in it already, so it will only be had if a dev wants to make more work when bringing it to PC. There is no free lunch as MS clearly pointed out.

Also much to Ryan Smith's chagrin at Anandtech (who so dearly loves AMD...LOL), Xbox1's low level API is NOT MANTLE 😉 I'm not going to bother linking to his fanboy pipe-dreaming article here as it's now been proven completely WRONG in every xbox1/ps4 aspect. There is no console connection easily exploited and MS would sooner jump off a bridge than help it one bit.

Like Carmack or not, that dude knows his programming. Nobody can call this guy an idiot. Certainly not years ago (he was and still is IMHO a gaming guru), and you can't say he suddenly is dumb today. He is still in game programming having just finished up id tech5 not long ago and now fully in programming on android (60% of his time programming he said). To say he's out would be ridiculous. He's been added to Oculus for a reason, or do you just think a bunch of idiots run that company? I'm not sure he isn't still involved with Tech6 dev (that started in 2011, so he was involved in some of it).
 


Available and USED are two different things. The only PC games using it are paid advertisements by NV. You missed the point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_hardware-accelerated_PhysX_support
60 games in 8 years. I don't even recognize some of these games and very few use much of it with most of those that REALLY amped things up being Titles NV has marketed as such. Borderlands 2 for example.

Who the heck is charlies ragingredroosters? If that is anything related to AMD lovers, I own NV stock...ROFL. Most of my posts have not been AMD friendly for some time. I speak as a stock owner or prospective buyer usually, so can't really like AMD even if I own their card currently, owned 8800GT before that, I switched based on perf with cards, but on stocks it's all about the money pal.

Also if this is about CharlieD, I think he's a fool and think he very ACCURATELY named his page...LOL. So again, don't quite get your point. I rate the 290x/290 as hot, noisy, watt using junk compared to what green offers (with 3 AAA games) currently AFTER price adjustments (not before). Are we done yet? Go home troll.
 


Doom 4, Wolfenstein: The New Order and The Evil Within have been announced to make use of Id Tech 5 and Tech6 is on the drawing board. I'm sure quite a few people will line up to buy these. The engine is compatible with all consoles but WII (including next gen ps4/xbox1).

This guy has another 15-20yrs left in the industry. I'm thinking Doom 4 will make some noise at the very least as they discarded one project and are doing it again as the first rev on the board wasn't up to snuff I guess. Like the guy or not, he's relevant and was asked to join Oculus for a reason. It's Tech 5 engine has only been out for 2 years and unreal 3 has been used for 9yrs. I'm thinking more games are to come on tech5. Not to mention he has already said it will one day be open sourced! This guy is still a force in gaming and is now focused on Android mostly (and Oculus obviously, which is rumored to use android so go figure). To say he's old news is ignoring a lot of his current projects and clout. Zenimax owns the engine now, so you may see Bethesda etc possibly use it. Who knows. Zenimax didn't purchase Id and their engine to just do two or three games on it.

Zenimax has all of these under them:
Bethesda Game Studios (and softworks)
ZeniMax Online Studios
id Software
Arkane Studios
Tango Gameworks
MachineGames
Battlecry Studios
 
Cormack is a lost sole, I used to respect this man, but now realize he is nothing but an Nvidia worshiper, look at all his interviews over the last year or so, he is kissing Nvidias ass, I used to have alot of respect for the man that gave use quake, NOW i DONT GIVE A SHIT what he says, he took sides when he should be embracing the need to omit Microsoft DLL files, windows is a killer for games, to may layers to get games running at top speed.
 
What does "close to the metal" matter when you're using wireless controllers, some kind of input loop that fixes the consoles response time to 65ms, and crippled "8 core" processors? At least on the X360 it seemed very laggy... just upgrading the gpu a little would give you more FPS than removing some low level OS stuff.

At least the PS4 can do above 720p. lol!
 


You've got this backwards. The LOWER the amount of processing power the MORE IMPORTANT it is to have an efficient API and Game Engine to make things look and run better.

The XB1 is arguably underpowered, but the PS4 is as good as you can reasonably expect in terms of cost and power considerations to build it. Considering the PS4 is way more powerful than an XBOX 360 and the 360 is still selling it's obviously not all about raw performance (though the new consoles have no games properly optimized yet to really show the difference).

I've heard of no issues with controller response time.

To explain further however, you really need to have a better understanding of programming and PC hardware. There's a lot more to Mantle than just efficiency of the game. If you can find the Q&A video about Mantle it's really informative. Aside from running more efficiency Mantle could theoretically save Developers time and minimize code-breaking bugs in the legacy API's that cause stutter and other issues.
 


That's the bit I don't get, if it is so easy for the devs to use then why wasn't it ready when BF4 released?
 
Mousemonkey,
It's not easy to use yet. The Mantle API itself is one thing, all the debugging and other helpful software takes time. There's also a big learning curve.

These sorts of transitions take YEARS to happen. Mantle is a solution DEVELOPERS asked for, but in many ways it's starting from scratch.

So at some point Mantle will be well worth it for both efficiency of game code, less troubleshooting and development time. Many developers can't switch yet but may do so once the tools are better, the programmers understand it better and they have a grasp on how much more efficient it can be.
 


Oh OK, I guess its still a case of "watch this space" then.
 


^^lol.....wow...

You missed my point. Instead of making underpowered consoles THEN going back and developing more efficient API it should of been better hardware in the first place. I didn't get it backwards.

I don't know who here doesn't notice lag on wireless controllers after using a computer mouse (maybe that's it, your're just a console gamer so you're used to it) but it DOES exist and I've heard LOTS of people talk about it. They did measurements and 360 has minimum 65ms input lag + wireless signal lag time + low framerate + tv input lag. Have you ever tried aiming at something in GTA V? Good luck. It is a great example of all those lag problems coming together to make a sluggish laggy experience. Reason #128 I prefer PC gaming.

CoD is a game where you problably won't notice the lag because it's 6yrs behind and runs at 60fps. It varies by game. That's the problem, if one game's sensitivity isn't as easy to master and you have low FPS, you can't just lower the settings to get a better gaming experience like on the PC.

Anyone here regularly use a wired mouse ever tried using a wireless one? You can def see AND feel the delay... it's terrible...
 
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