AMD's Mantle Graphics API For Linux?

[rudregues]

By the answers, great majority here at phoronix think AMD is acting in favour of DirectX/Microsoft. So I ask why John Carmack says Microsoft can be hostile to Mantle...? http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/09/27/ca...d-amds-mantle/

[johnc]

AMD is fully committed to OpenGL and OpenCL moving forward.

This is just hilarious. AMD has the worst OpenGL drivers (both Windows and Linux) and AMD cares so much about OpenCL that their much-touted TressFX tech was implemented with DirectCompute. Gotta make sure it's Windows only, after all.

And when it came time to announce all those wonderful new AMD tablets, how many were fitted with OpenGL ES and Android? About zero. And how many with DirectX and Windows 8? About a whole bunch. That's a curious decision -- is Android not a viable path in the tablet market? Something to think about. "Fully committed to OpenGL" indeed.


Look, I'm not saying here that I haven't seen their slides and fancy talking points. All I'm pointing out is that there's a difference between talk and action. And the action ain't there, and that's what matters.

[johnc]

Anybody who develops a game for PS4 or XB1 and is using the low-level API is probably going to be using this Mantle (or a slight variant of it), so they're in. Moving their games over to Windows should be somewhat trivial.

And whether it ever comes to Linux is still up in the air. All I know is that I don't think Linux anything was ever even mentioned Wednesday. So that's something to chew on.

Remember that consoles still lead the whole gaming industry. PC gets sloppy seconds.

[cardboard]

oh come on people, you all know this is another 3DNow! thing that nobody but AMD will be interested in.

EA is going pretty HAM on this. Frostbite 3 will use it, which means other EA games will also use it. This includes two Bioware titles and three DICE titles... yeah it has plenty of interest already I think.

Maybe it will never gain traction beyond EA. But just from looking at AMD's Gaming Evolved wins this past year I'd be surprised if there weren't more coming.

I'm still not getting an AMD card because FGLRX is terrible, I'm just saying.

[Mike Frett]

oh come on people, you all know this is another 3DNow! thing that nobody but AMD will be interested in.

[Xeno]

A glimpse on Mantle docs suggest quite opposite, it looks like developers can work with some kind of virtual machine. I guess best analogy would be llvm (just it's internals closely match GCN architecture).


[edit: I mixed up things a lil ]

[johnc]

You have two low level APIs. OpenCL and OpenGL.

You create an API that leverages the most commonly used areas with specific calls to AMD hardware. You have a unified GCN architecture from the console, to the desktop, to the laptop, to the embedded space, to the workstation and server spaces.

You have a lot of code reuse across all levels.

You then use:

• OpenGL 4.x/OpenCL1.2 profiles for the Desktop/Laptop/Workstation/Server
• OpenGL ES 3.x/OpenCL 1.2 profiles for the Embedded Space/Console Space

where Mantle reuse doesn't happen.

AMD is 100% in on OpenGL and OpenCL. It's their future. Mantle is a means of encapsulating most of the heavy lifting for you. It's a means of accessing AMD customizations where possible and keeping your `agnostic' OpenGL/OpenCL code separate.

The lack of information is a means for AMD to create `buzz' by the sheer amount of speculation on what it is or is not.

Source...?

[LinuxGamer]

You have two low level APIs. OpenCL and OpenGL.

You create an API that leverages the most commonly used areas with specific calls to AMD hardware. You have a unified GCN architecture from the console, to the desktop, to the laptop, to the embedded space, to the workstation and server spaces.

You have a lot of code reuse across all levels.

You then use:

• OpenGL 4.x/OpenCL1.2 profiles for the Desktop/Laptop/Workstation/Server
• OpenGL ES 3.x/OpenCL 1.2 profiles for the Embedded Space/Console Space

where Mantle reuse doesn't happen.

AMD is 100% in on OpenGL and OpenCL. It's their future. Mantle is a means of encapsulating most of the heavy lifting for you. It's a means of accessing AMD customizations where possible and keeping your `agnostic' OpenGL/OpenCL code separate.

The lack of information is a means for AMD to create `buzz' by the sheer amount of speculation on what it is or is not.

Mantle is just a damn Buzz Word OpenGL>Mantle the way they got there 5X of DX9 was removing the limits of DX9 as DX9 has a Cap on performance There is no way it's going to be way faster then OpenGL+OpenCL Buzz Buzz Buzz Buzz we can say OpenGL+OpenCL is 5x faster then DX9 as well but from what i can see there is no CPU+GPU's to date that can do this Buzz Buzz Buzz

[Marc Driftmeyer]

So you're saying that Mantle is an API into OpenGL?

You realize Mantle is a low-level console API, right?

You have two low level APIs. OpenCL and OpenGL.

You create an API that leverages the most commonly used areas with specific calls to AMD hardware. You have a unified GCN architecture from the console, to the desktop, to the laptop, to the embedded space, to the workstation and server spaces.

You have a lot of code reuse across all levels.

You then use:

• OpenGL 4.x/OpenCL1.2 profiles for the Desktop/Laptop/Workstation/Server
• OpenGL ES 3.x/OpenCL 1.2 profiles for the Embedded Space/Console Space

where Mantle reuse doesn't happen.

AMD is 100% in on OpenGL and OpenCL. It's their future. Mantle is a means of encapsulating most of the heavy lifting for you. It's a means of accessing AMD customizations where possible and keeping your `agnostic' OpenGL/OpenCL code separate.

The lack of information is a means for AMD to create `buzz' by the sheer amount of speculation on what it is or is not.

[BreezeDM]

Not saying it was clearly a shot against Valve's ambitions I'm just saying it's a bit ironic that a user of a system with ~2% market share is saying 15% market share is no big deal.



No tell me about the work involved, I'm genuinely curious. I wouldn't think going from one api to the same api on another platform would be that difficult, wouldn't it just me like going from XNA to iOS game using monogame?

Porting to XB1 to Mantle (easy)
Now you have moved from XB1 which is a fixed stat platform to the PC which has different processors, RAM, graphics, drivers, etc. I would think because of the fixed platform, that API code wouldn't be very robust as using an API for PCs. Lots of latent bugs will be found just from the different clock speeds and shader counts. To put this in perspective, most large Java programs I have encountered don't run without issue on Linux when it was developed for Windows. In the same way on Android, you can test your code on 8 devices with different hardware and OS versions and everything runs perfectly, release it and have then have a 25% failure rate total. One of the reasons Rage isn't ported to Linux or other OpenGL games.
Testing, you pretty much have double the scope of testing since you are supporting two APIs in Windows. Otherwise, you are a screwing your consumers and why id Software has traditionally said Linux is unsupported when they release binaries.

Again it will come down to performance improvements on Windows. I hope it does 25% better, AMD has a Linux version in a year, and I can play frostbite 3 titles on Linux.