Rich Geldreich Leaves Valves; Points To More "End Of OpenGL" Articles

[Kivada]

Last thing I heard, Mantle is exclusive to PC.

Thats because the consoles have been using a Mantle like language since forever ago to squeeze the most out of the hardware as there is only the one build target for the console.

Direct3D and OpenGL where necessary to have a standard set of functions to build your game against back when there was a dozen GPU makers all with their own language.

AMD is pushing Mantle to put an even bigger dent in Nvidia's bottom line and keep Intel's low end IGPs off the tails of their APUs.

[Kivada]

So what if Ubisoft supports Mantle? Pretty much all games revolve around DX9 level graphics. If it runs on Xbox 360 and PS3, then you aren't pushing your PC as much as you would think. Mantle will only work if AMD opens it up 100%. From the looks of it, that'll be a cold day in hell. They can't even get it working on HD5000/6000 cards. Plus benchmarks show results to be iffy. Take a look for yourself.

These API's are only meant to lock developers onto a platform. Apple is losing a lot to Android right now, and they figure Metal will give them the edge they need, along with code that only works on their platform. Lets hope that OpenGL 5 isn't a pile of trash. Considering how confidant Apple/AMD are, it may just be.

It's written for their GCN hardware, nothing older like the VLIW5/4 hardware that makes up the older OpenGL4/DirectX11 class hardware.

[curaga]

FX-7600p is a kaveri, which has a gcn gpu. Your point?

[Filiprino]

Stupid behaviour. Apple's Metal will be as shitty as their GL frontends, but because it will be exclusive to Apple then the bugs will remain hidden in their SDK and the change is not because OGL was bad but because Apple can do their own thing and market that as "Better than anyone else because you know, we're Apple and what we touch transforms to gold".

The same happens with consoles. All their SDKs are an utterly piece of crap with tons of workarounds as a result of "release release release and sell sell sell" instead of doing things correctly at first. Just look at Wii U comments from groups like Overflow and something like that. The PS3 was no different and even developers from PS2 days developed for a console with documentation written in japanese. Lol.
So you may wonder how things end being made. Well, the same happens with OpenGL. Maybe it's not perfect but having drivers like the NVIDIA blob working really well and the libre Mesa drivers also being really good as explained by developers of Dolphin (https://es.dolphin-emu.org/blog/2013...meshame/?cr=es), well, the problem isn't really the API. I don't remember what blog post I read it from but I read an entry linked from a Phoronix article where the author wrote that he didn't test libre drivers. That's a hint of how biased these people can be.

A different API for every platform would not do any good. Just look to the mobile OpenGL drivers. They're crap and developers don't receive any support from the manufacturers. A new API would be in the same league because manufacturers would skimp on the same things and release equally bad drivers.

So... release a new profile or improve the Core Profile from OGL 4 and that's all ladies and gentleman. Ah... and make your drivers open source and integrate them under the same Linux infrastructure instead of providing your big and fat libGL implementation. It'd be very much appreciated.

If AMD wants to get Mantle widespread, the company should also get ready for a certification program if they want to maintain quality more or less across the board. Even Direct3D with WHQL can't do that.