"AMD's Mantle 1.0 is dead; long live DirectX"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6U3rVE3FPw
4790k@4.9Ghz

 

I must say The latest BF4 patch just shows how good mantle actually is. DX12 is about the same as mantle so expect some great performance enhancements to be made in dx12. I couldn't even un my game on max with massive frame drops but since they patched it yesterday I can do ultra @ 2560x1440@96Hz and get 96FPS all the time no matter what happens. I get a minor dip/stutter in extreme cases but that's so limited that I only saw it twice last night. I even tested at work on my r9 270x, i5-3330 and mantle works great. I tell you guys once DX12 games comes out most issues we have now with games will go away and we should see true performance of our cards.

This is just making me jizz myself....LOL

 

Yeah, was reading about all this over at Rage. Howdy Mac, I didn't know you were a member here.

To be honest, I'm not educated enough about Mantle to know whether this is a good thing or not. On one hand, AMD was furthering technology that could benefit everyone. On the other hand, can they really afford to spend so much on researching things that they don't even plan to license? AMD has been hurting financially for a bit, and their tech has been hit-and-miss.

I love AMD, and I love anything that brings us more performance and better APIs, but AMD has to be careful about what they invest in ATM. They don't have the financial backing of nVidia, let alone Intel, even with the Chinese investors' money. I'm hoping that whatever API we game on in the future, we can take advantage of the hardware we already have a little more.

With what's being said about DirectX 12, I can't wait to see if it really brings massive performance gains across the board, or if it falls short. Just because something is available to developers doesn't mean they will use it well. We already have really good hardware, but I'm starting to think that one of the biggest problems we're facing these days is broken, bug-filled games that are rushed out.

EDIT: Specs finally changed, lol.

 

Yeah, im Here, Rage, [H], OCN, and TPU.

 

So you play CandyCrush now right? >_> Microsoft windows platform is sooo bad that we should move to OSs that were never meant for playing games :3eyes:

What alternative APIs have linux distros or Apple OS developed for us to use? OpenGL is not one of them, and OGL is, at this point, far inferior to DX in many aspects. So instead of building on what is already BETTER we should move back 10 years and start over so some hip cool dudes that are "hackers" could game on linux or even worse - use iTunes to launch AAA titles?! :3eyes:
uke2:

That is not gonna happen unless Apple or Mr. Linux shell out cash and buy DX license or whatever is needed. M$ bought DX and invested literally billions of dollars into it, you ain't getting for free on other platforms, trust me.

PS. Calling on hardware embedded function via few lines of code (DirectX) versus coding tons of pages for the same thing to get it working working in OGL (or to get the same result) - guess what: not happening either. Not because of M$ but because of time devs need to do that.
Now, if you are thinking "well why not have it embedded as OGL function in hardware?!" that ain't up to M$ either, and looking at how much time AMD needs to make a decent driver I doubt they will have the money to invest into such thing when they already have DX and Mantle going (none similar to OGL) and nVidia would just laugh at that idea. They have some of it in there already but it would be fools errand to play catch with opensource API.

 

My point was and still is that game and software developers should take the open source community into account but considering the majority of gamers and businesses use Windows and DirectX it's not happening anytime soon.

 

they are not standardized and therefore no one will invest big time and money into it. It's open source, it changes all the time and community working on those things often don't agree within. How can you seriously work with that?
OpenSource is good for some things and not with others. Asking multi billion industry to go with open source is just not going to find many ears to fall on.

You should instead ask your favorite OS maker to pay and adopt DX. DX is owned by Microsoft but there is a whole other gang there working on it, they have been there before m$ bought them. Why did they choose to develop for windows instead of some other OS is anyone's guess (or maybe someone knows for sure) but my guess is that they saw a chance for profit and they were right.

In the end, just dual-boot and problem solved.

PS. Game developers don't work for free so in order for them to pay more attention to open source someone has to pay them. On the other hand, open source guys don't pay and don't want to pay to other developers so you see where this is going

 

I'd love to know all about how inferior OpenGL is compared to Direct3D (if comparing DirectX; you need to get SDL involved also).

I won't try to get into heavy details, but generally speaking, you have much more control over aspects of the OS from Linux than you do with Windows (go try disabling compositing on Windows 8 for example; oh wait, you can't). The sound system and NTFS are pretty inferior in my eyes now after being on Linux.

And luckily that's why you have the open-source graphics driver choice. Generally speaking, my GPU and experience works out much better on Linux with the open-source graphics driver than it has on Windows with the proprietary one.

Honestly, game engines nowadays should just be built with cross-platform compatibility in-mind; just so you don't have to hack-it-in later. Valve has the right idea with Source 2 (on-top of having native Linux compatibility, it'll also support the newly revealed Vulkan API), and if I recall right, Epic also has Linux compatibility built-in with Unreal Engine 4. Last I heard, CryEngine was also working on Linux compatibility. Only other major engine I can think of is Frostbite, and considering the developers on that even have a hard time with Windows; Linux is probably out of the question for them sadly.

I don't see Valve complaining. Also generally speaking, non-rolling distros don't vary much at all between each other core-software-wise (LLVM versions, GCC, etc). And with Steam's runtime library; developers don't even have to worry about that at all for the most part.

And if you're talking about the graphics stack; open-source and consistently changing doesn't mean they don't follow an API. Mesa currently (I think) supports OpenGL 3.3. It receives updates and changes daily (which isn't something non-rolling distros have to be concerned with), but will still hold OGL 3.3 compliance. And OpenGL 3.3 works the same exact way, regardless if I'm using Xfce 4.12, or GNOME 3.16, or maybe even a basic X server.

So really, unless you're a developer needing access to low-level Linux-related aspects for some reason (which, as a game developer, you don't need at all), this complaint doesn't really mean anything at all.

Game developers chose to develop for Windows in the past because there in-short, gaming on Linux wasn't really sought-after, which in the end meant less revenue. This is much different nowadays.

With the blunder of Windows 8.1, and NSA revelations, and even large-groups just out-right disregarding WIndows 8 (China and Germany), and with Valve pushing their games and Steam to Linux, Linux became much more popular.

And also in a sort of slightly related matter; there is gallium-nine. So currently you do have access to near-native Direct3D 9 through Wine on Linux (and when finished D3D8 and possibly lower; and D3D10/11 once the state tracker for that is finished). This is nice for games and developers that won't port their games over natively if anything.

Dual booting in my opinion is stupid (when the angle is just games anyway), but that's just me. But in any case, dual booting on most newer machines is a slight gamble anyway, thanks to Microsoft.

Open-source people don't pay? :bang:

If anything, Linux users are actually willing to pay for games to come to the platform, and you don't see that with Windows. People either just buy the game there, or pirate it since it doesn't matter to them anyway (likely because they have the entitled mindset of "Windows master-race, Linux will never catch on, games for WIndows only forever, can pirate without regards to anything since developers will always support Windows, etc).

 

I'm not going to say I told you so, but I told you so. I knew Mantle would never be 'open'. AMD PR stunt, always closed, and it will die closed.

You can make the case all you want that it's not dying since AMD is helping to make GLnext. But as much as you might not like it, Mantle does not equal GLnext. Hell, Mantle probably already has more AAA game support then GLnext will ever have, which is sad.

Though the point can be made that the whole idea behind of Mantle was to provoke others to make low level API's, and in that case they seem to have at least speed up the process. But it still should be pointed out that it's very likely the whole talk of 'openness' was BS from the beginning.

 

The next step would be for EA to make future Frostbite titles such as Battlefield 5 and Star Wars: Battlefront available for Linux but considering they are Origin only "exclusives" there's no point for wishful thinking.

I would rather pay double to have my games on Steam (running on Linux) than playing a pirated version through Wine/PlayOnLinux or with the hassle of cracks.

 

@espionage724

Look, not to quote everything for obvious reasons, I am just going to say this:

Please play BF4 or Crysis 3 with your open source linux driver on linux (decent fps and details are a must) and then we can talk how good your Linux gaming experience is compared to mine on sh*tty windows where I can't disable composting (though I can to a degree in compatibility options, but WHY would I want to do that? Does it harm me in any way in 2015? I am not using pentium 200 anymore you know, I can run a 3dsmax rendering process in background on 2 cores while gaming on remaining two. Who cares about composting?! That's nitpicking).

On the subject on "paying" I wasn't thinking about end users, I was thinking for example about RedHat paying for DX license and implementing in the their Linux distro. But that ain't happening ever, even if it was an easy thing to do, they wouldn't pay, they would rather bitch about M$ having monopoly. That's what all Linux coders, devs and sellers do anyway.

Apple is all about TAKING money and not paying for anything if they can help it.

I, like many, don't care for open source unless it's science. I'd rather have money-motivated team that produce a good product and are held responsible for it then bunch of "this software is provided as is, we are not responsible for anything bla bla". Sure, it's nice to have open source devs that make stuff for free but we all know most if is junk, like most of indie games.

I expect as much from OpenSource free software as I would from a car that someone gave me for free.

As for Valve: they are living of skimming from the top of the sales, not from their products (excluding Steam). They haven't made anything worthwhile in a decade. Their consoles are garbage as is nVidia shield and similar stuff. Friggin LG will implement all that in a TV for a 30$ extra.
But I digress - people can spend their money however they choose to, regardless whether I or anyone else think they are spending it on garbage.

I have nothing else to add or contribute to this part of discussion, if I even had in the first place. I am happy with my windows 8.1, everything works, I do have minor complaints about some less insignificant stuff but compared to alternatives, I fell like I am in a Ferrari while the rest of OSs are barley used station wagons in regards to GAMING(!) and perhaps watching videos, playing music etc. you know, end user stuff.

 

That comparison is like trying to argue whether Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 is better based on how well The Last of Us runs (it doesn't exist on X360, so by that logic, PS3 is better).

(and as for my own opinion; those games aren't even anything special at all to be determining or arguing my OS of choice)

And also, just because you have a good computer and don't care about compositing, doesn't mean that other people aren't hampered by it. Compositing (Aero) on Windows introduces frame delay, which basically makes any kind of input-demanding task pretty inaccurate to an extent. I will admit though that most people don't really care about this, or just put up with it since there's nothing they can do about it anyway.

Implementing a closed-source API like that isn't going to work (technical issues aside; there's licensing conflicts all over the place).

As I mentioned, gallium-nine is already progressing nicely with D3D9 compatibility with direct hardware access.

I know people have different usage scenarios and different opinions, but I feel quite the opposite.

Can handle general end-user stuff (music, videos, web browsing, gaming) without issue (with minor exceptions) on both Windows and Linux. Power-user stuff (lack-of better term) is where Linux trumps Windows for me though.

In order to get Windows "decent" for my usage, I first have to do a clean install, with the internet disconnected (in order to stop the forced MS account thing, along with Windows deciding to automatically download outdated driver bs and Catalyst). Then I get to disable UAC. Then I have the fun of Windows Update (install large batch of updates, reboot, install another large batch of updates, reboot, install smaller batch of updates, reboot, etc). Then I install drivers, reboot, then software (which I end up having to check and/or re-download since the executables I have backed-up may be outdated) and games, then do various tweaks, and then I can use Windows. Takes about 5 hours on a good day along with a ton of bandwidth and downtime.

Then comes Linux. I do a clean install (internet connected), and while it's installing, I can also browse the web or do whatever else I want from the Live environment. Once it's done, I reboot, add a few update repositories (mainly for more up-to-date graphics stack), type two commands to update everything on the OS and reboot when it's done (in one session). Then I type (copy/paste from my text document) a longer command that installs all the software I need (Chrome, Steam, video player, etc), and wait for that to get done downloading and installing. Then I do my tweaks (copy/pasting commands and text from my text document), and that's that. Takes about 1-2 hours.

So for people interested in overlay GPU statistics in-game; you have to use either RadeonPro, MSI Afterburner + RTSS, and/or HWiNFO + RTSS on Windows. Linux has that stuff built right in with Gallium, and even displays more information (draw calls anyone?; screenshot for reference; you can set which statistics you want and even combine them though; and yes, that is Guild Wars 2 on Linux). A counter-argument to this however; if you're using proprietary graphics drivers, I'm not sure what your alternative is (that doesn't mean there isn't one though; GALLIUM_HUD is only for Gallium/open-source drivers).

How about the ability to set a custom wallpaper on multi-monitor setups? Windows lacks this ability without heavy 3rd-party stuff. Linux however (well, it's desktop environment-specific, but most that don't offer it out-the-box have tweaks elsewhere) will allow you to monitor-specific backgrounds.

Then there's cryptography stuff which can't even be argued; Linux handles that much better hands-down. Drive encryption? You can either trust the what-was-already-cracked (I could be wrong) Bitlocker on Windows with whatever it calls "secure", or have access to many more options including LUKS (good luck getting anywhere near a LUKS drive with a 512b hash and sha512 cipher, especially with the headers on another drive).

Then there's personal-opinion stuff like fonts. I personally have no idea how people deal with the non-uniform, block-mess Windows fonts are, but I know I only put up with it because I didn't know any better

And there's also the ability to know what's going on with your computer on a lower-level. Do you know what's happening during a Windows boot specifically? I can tell you what my CPU clock source is at precise seconds on Linux, and when it switches from HPET to TSC. Can tell you if my hardware IOMMU is being used, and I can tell you whether or not my ethernet adapter is using ASPM, or if _OSC is being used. You think your hardware is being fully utilized on Windows, but how do you even know? You probably don't (outside of what-is-assumed-to-be-correct utilization percentages on major components like the GPU and CPU); but maybe get a couple dozen 3rd-party programs involved, and you "might" find out half of what dmesg will tell you on Linux.

And along with knowing things on a lower-level; you also get to control lower-level stuff. Do you want all 2D content handled by 3D? Maybe you want to set the idle timer for your HDD to a higher number or off completely. How about handling I/O scheduling better? Those things are uncontrollable from Windows for the most part (I think the idle timer can be handled with... a Linux tool ported to Windows called hdparm).

I could go on, but the point is is that Windows on it's own is pretty weak (at least in my eyes) for most things outside of "general" usage and gaming, and even on those fronts, Linux is just as-capable in most scenarios. Now if your objective is to only play DX10/11/12 titles and nothing more, then yeah, Windows is where you'll only (for now) be able to accomplish that and accomplish it well.

 

The thing is that for the majority of people Windows does everything that Linux does and more.

More games, more HTPC applications, generally just a larger choice of everything.

What Linux does better is usually not stuff that is important to alot of people.

 

Corrected that for you

 

Mantle was dead the moment nvidia released performance drivers and amd with the omega drivers

 

@Espionage724 I have almost the same computer as you do. They are like 500$ without screen. Is that too much for a good computer?

As for your comparison, I am comparing two similar PCs running two different operating systems. One can run all games for PC, other cannot. Which OS is better? We are talking about how open source is better for games, I don't see it.

It has nothing to do with PS3 vs Box360. They both have their exclusive titles and shared titles, they both work fine and they are not open source. I just asked you to launch a PC game on your PC which you cannot because you use OpenSource OS.

I can do that on my TV, fresh out of the store.

I did upgrade to 8.1 straight from Win 7 ultimate, internet cable connected and all that. No problems here. I don't see your point. It's simply a matter of your preference.

no they don't. When they install drivers and utilities from CD they will get the monitoring software. I can also add afterburner into windows installation. Linux just comes with that pre-installed. What's your point? Linux comes with more bloatware (if user doesn't care for it he get's it like I get Internet Explorer on Windows?) ???

??? I've got nothing to hide. Why would I encrypt my data and slow down the access to files? I can do that, windows has the option to encrypt files afaik. Again, the talk was about open source and gaming

Next you will tell me how Linux has far more powerful shell command line?

you shouldn't really, we are talking about gaming, as in PC gaming, AAA titles and others and how beneficial Open Source would be.

well, I happened to have read the list of games that you can run through some 3rd party toold on linux and what games it supports (the irony is, while I may need 3rd party tool to set up wallpapers, you need 3rd party tools to play games ) and those list mainly end with dx9 titles mostly not working fully or at all with like 30% of them working ok(!). Dude, that's gaming from 2002. Seriously, no one plays those anymore.

What else would I want to play? Super Mario? That Sentence of yours is what I am saying all along. We are talking about gaming and open source. Someone said that devs should ditch DX and do OGL. The sole purpose of that would be to bring games to Linux (1-2% of users and 0.5% of gamers?) and OSX/Apple (jeez, I'd rather use Linux). I said it won't happen and it would be downgrade from where we are now. Just dual boot and problem solved. If you don't want to - fine! Just know that when you refer to games on linux to me and those like me, you are referring to mostly antiques.

now I am out, seriously. Let me know when Linux gets mainstreamed and starts supporting all DX, OGL, Mantle and has all the drivers for wheels, joysticks, gamepads, etc. and we will evaluate how "light" is it then and how well it runs compared to Win. If it runs better - then I will be the first one to accept it as a daily driver!
Cheers.

 

Many great moments in that post. But this is my favorite part:

Espionage you are new to Linux, amirite

Actually Mantle works better than ever in BF4, which does not say much because it was mostly garbage - yes smooth, yes awesome framerates, except when NOT duh...

Well not anymore. Great patch from EA.
Mantle finally works how it should haha. Oh the irony of it...

 

This is such pile of garbage I had to say something despite not having anything to add to the original discussion.
You are a prime example of what I'd call a militant Linux fanboy.
I have seen exactly this kind of ridiculous attempts to make Windows look like the worst by using completely nonsense arguments on numerous occasions over the years. You are wrong and everyone who's been using the system on a little more advanced level will tell you that. Hell I am sure you do know that yourself, but you love to flame anything related to Windows just because.

I would rip that paragraph of yours into individual quotes to explain what's wrong with all you wrote there, but it's not worth the time. There is slim chance you really do not know much about using Windows, but I think you're really just trying to fight a war against Windoze in your head.

 

That *** wouldn't fly back then when Linux was hip, and when Windows BSOD-ing all-day-long was a norm.

Please don't dissect that post, its perfect on its own

 

It's not; but going back on that point; compositing's benefits and disadvantages really only stem from very specific usage scenarios. In my case; playing something like osu! for example while windowed isn't something I can comfortably do with compositing enabled, and in Windows 8.1; I either have to put up with it, or not do it.

I agree; but my preference is using Local accounts across my network for easier access to network resources. If you have a network connection post-install; Windows assumes (and forces last I checked) you want to sign in and use your Microsoft account for sync. As someone who uses and wants nothing to do with Microsoft services (OneDrive, Live, etc), why would I want to use a MS account for sign-in?

The monitoring software that comes from the CD is the same exact scenario (it'll still be one of those pieces of software; the only difference is you aren't downloading it (and are likely installing outdated software on an unrelated note). My point was that it's more integrated with Linux along with offering more statistics. As for whether or not it's bloatware depends on your classification of it (I hardly call a couple-hundred kilobytes of something so hidden aware that doesn't affect performance in any way when it's not in-use bloatware). If you don't actively use the HUD; you don't even know it exists or is even part of the graphics stack. Meanwhile, you know Afterburner or RTSS exist, regardless if you use it or not.

I guess the cryptography bit was a bit outside the scope of gaming; but just a minor correction; files are decrypted during boot time, so there isn't much of a performance hit at all (not to mention most processors nowadays even supports AES-NI, further lessening any performance hit).

Well, no; but that can't really be argued either

Was the argument the philosophy of open-source itself, or Linux? Linux itself may be an open-source operating system, but it can very much so run non-open-source programs (hence Steam, Catalyst, etc).

The 3rd-party tool is only needed for non-native Linux games. But as for dx9 titles; yeah, I guess nobody plays any Source engine games like Dota 2 or TF2, Guild Wars 2, and especially Skyrim

The end-result of using OGL would be the ability to have your game run on various other platforms. This isn't the dark ages anymore, and both Linux and OS X are capable of gaming. And Microsoft isn't as-invincible as once thought either. There's very little reason nowadays to be developing a new game/engine without other operating systems in-mind. And if you're developing for multiple operating systems, the obvious choice for a graphics API is OGL (unless you want to do both DX and OGL; which there's nothing wrong with that; but considering all major operating systems can handle OGL, and only one can handle DX...)

Not new; but definitely not a "master" at it either. But I'm confused as to what you're trying to get across with that quote. I'm on Xfce currently, and it does in-fact allow me to set wallpapers on different monitors right from GUI.

I've used Windows for years, and was a pretty hardcore supporter of it up until recently (I admit that does sound pretty elitist; but not sure how to really word that any better lol). I specified my process for getting Windows usable. Some people can use Windows out-the-box, and there's nothing wrong with that, but that simply won't fly for my preferred usage (which is a heavy preference on speed and efficiency; even cutting corners security-wise in some regard).

My method may be wrong for other users, and that's fine. We all have our preferred methods for doing stuff. I don't go off calling anyone who uses Windows Defender, any kind of anti-virus, or UAC "wrong"; but meanwhile, I disable Defender and UAC, and don't use any AV because that's what is best in my scenario.

Also, go ahead and do a clean install of Windows 7 (where it's much worse) or 8.1, and tell me you don't have to do batches of updates. Unless this changed in the last month or two, you definitely have to reboot multiple times in order to pick-up all updates.

I'm open to corrections, and I'm sure other people are as well. Dissect away