I havent been able to check out too much info on mantle but one question that does concern me is if mantle workswith amd cards only. And if it is with AMD cards only which ones??
I wonder how well Mantel will work with the APU's? OP currently Mantel is tied to GCN. Nvidia may be able to code their drivers to use it but most likely will not.
^^ For now it's only on AMD cards, but you'll never know if that another company will make use of it too.
If they really want Mantle to take off they've got to open up the API to everybody, otherwise I fear it'll go the way of Glide back in the old 3DFX days. Yeah Glide was great for the time (my first gaming card was a Banshee!). but not all software houses are going to invest in a proprietary API that only a percentage of users will benefit from. Going back to 3DFX, Even though Glide was popular back in the day there were still lots of popular games that didn't support Glide at all, and some of those that did were with dodgy patches and other work-arounds. And once the novelty wears off and when/if Direct X or OpenGl catch up Mantle could die off if they don't open it up to other GPUs. But it is good for competition, those days were far more exiting when you had Glide, OpenGl, DirectX and all GPU manufacturers all battling to out do each other! I just hope AMD and Mantle don't go the way of 3DFX as they have lots of potential to spice things up for the old PC scene, especially as things are looking to get interesting again!
AMD is going no where. They are a huge Multi-national corportation. Mantle on the otherhand, will depend on performce increases.
Wasn't that long ago AMD were on pretty shaky ground! Though you're right they've nothing really to worry about at the moment! it'll just be a shame for a promising API like Mantle to die off due to poor developer adoption or bad implementation/rough patching, which it could very well well do if they keep it locked down to AMD. Software houses will only really support Mantle 100% if it benefits everyone. Look how slowly they've taken to adopt DirectX11! I really do hope AMD open it up as it'll improve things for everyone. Locking things down hasn't worked for Microsoft or Nvidia - lets hope AMD don't go the same way...
Maybe instead of hoping about AMD opening up to intel/nV you should hope for nV to actually ask AMD if they can participate on development as AMD guys on very old presentation already stated, they would be excited to have nVidia on board. Because Mantle will add effects not based on what m$ adds to new DirectX once they make DX12 in 2 years, but they will add effects, features and optimizations as game developers come with ideas.
Have you seen the number of developpers who have yet allready annonce supporting Mantle, include it or think to implement it in their next productions ? Even just by games who use Frostbyte 3 engines, Oxyde game engine etc, this do allready a lot of games for 2014-2015. ( mostly end of 2014 -2015 as most of thoses games are in developpement ). At the moment the games engine developpement tools include Mantle and thoses games engine are sold to studio for developp their productions. Games will not be out directly next weeks, month after Mantle is presented. I dont know if the question today is to know if Mantle will live a long time or not, but if it can push the games developpement API in the right direction, its allready a win. Now, looking the path is pushing Nvidia with Gameworks ( who is so much closed, even for developpers who use it ), that AMD is not able to code a driver or developpers test the features on AMD gpu's, because nobody have access to the codes in the library outside Nvidia. ( no support for cfx possible, impossible to correct the bugs, and nvidia choose how the features are implemented ). Mantle could well end as the only solutions for developpers who use gameworks to provide a side possibility to have their games run correctly on AMD GPU's . ( funny enough ).
As a dudebro with a semi-old CPU, I'm really looking forward to the arrival of Mantle. Because I can feel my CPU chug in certain [open world] games.
If new Thief is stunningly good with Mantle, you can bet that we'll see 20+ games on it every year. New Unreal Engine lives on DirectX and delivers increased performance versus what was previously possible, but that's due to grouped objects/effects. With Mantle stuff is quite independent and honestly I loved number of lights drawn at same time in Oxide tech demo. And wonder if Thief will use some crazy shadows/lightning to get similar atmosphere as 1st one. Can't wait to Black Jack someone again.
Yeah, it would be good if Nvidia can and are able and willing to licence Mantle if AMD allow them to, then it'll be win/win for everyone and will give DirectX a good kick in the happy-sacks! I find it all quite exciting and hope it takes off! But adoption will be so much quicker and better if it's open to all players. I think my cheapest upgrade path at the moment is to get a second hand 680 for sli (anyone in the UK selling? lol!) so it'll probably be a while before I get to play around with Mantle myself, but even if it stays AMD only, in a years or so's time when I'm due my next upgrade there should be a good library of Mantle games out so wont be long before I'm back with AMD again...
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/mantl...k-not-an-open-standard-like-opencl-or-opengl/ In this website says Nvidia will need to make new GPUs that will use a GCN architecture in order to make use of Mantle. This means a driver only will not be enough to make use of mantle on the already released modern GPUs.
That site does not know what they are writing. And mere quote about other manufacturer (read nVidia/intel) approaching AMD with request to join in and get what is needed to write driver... It tells you more than enough. People are pressing panic buttons way too often before thinking 1st. Nvidia would have to change their HW architecture only in case some of effects supported by Mantle would not work with current one, but as you can understand GCN was not developed 4 years ago for Mantle. GCN was developed as quite universal platform with support for DirectX. And Mantle which is young is for now doing same visual stuff as DirectX, just cutting CPU overhead. But maybe you can ask them (source site) what features are so special on GCN which are not possible with nVidia's SMX clusters.
I wouldnt mind nvidia making a mantle wrapper that lets their cards use it even if it doesnt get the full speed of a GCN based card it could still show improvements in performance over DX, and i really like the shadowplay feature on nvidia's lineup But i currently own 3 290's 1 powercolor 1 Sapphire 1 XFX i dont really have anything bad to say about any of them, i am using them in an LTC miner right now and have a 7950 in my main pc for gaming heh. i just wish they had shadowplay.
