Mantle API to do better / differently than DirectX?

there is nothing known yet, all they showed was demos and i have seen demos that mke physx look like the most amazing thing ever created, but in theory it should help eliminate cpu bottleneck and allow for more draw call's sai boost up to 20% performance but i will believe it when i see it

theoretically if your gpu is being constrained by your cpu because it can't feed information quick enough to your gpu (so not AI/physics etc. just 'what to draw') then mantle will help. if you have spare cpu capacity then it probably won't. that's all supposition based on what information is out there.

On the technical side, mantle is supposed to allow more direct hardware access. That could really be a big deal too. One of the reasons consoles perform so well with less power than pc's is that they are one of the last bastions of firmware programming. Doing away with software/OS layers does improve performance quite bit. Those of us that go back to the 80's when direct hardware access was much more common know full well how cool it can be IF it delivers on its promise.

Benefits to Developers:
- much deeper control of the GPU, everything's in application control now (too many things to list)
- no guessing, no random dx driver crashes, (dx driver doesn't exist anymore)
- not that costly to support, not that hard to implement either, doesn't affect the engine in a major way
- ability to fix things themselfs they couldn't before, faster patching
- no constant excruciating back-and-forth communication with GPU Vendor during development (big time saver)
- proper optimizations and new GPU features unlocked (DX driver optimizations are mediocre hacks)
- ability to polish the performance side and avoid release issues
- no need to rely communicate-schedule with GPU vendors for a beta dx driver release
- deeper optimizations possible that were not possible by dx drivers
- mantle's thin driver doesn't do what developers already can take care of themselfs (doesn't contain app specific code)





Benefits to Consumers:
- no need to buy the best CPU to run games smoothly
- no need to update drivers every time a new game comes out, (less frequent)
- no need to wait for GPU vendor weeks to get out a performance fix, game developer can hotfix in mere days or hours.
- more responsive application (threads don't collide, might fix unresponsive GUI while app works in background)
- new graphics features and techniques never seen before
- free performance boost of astronomic proportions (overall, cheap cost for AAs and postprocessing, all the stuff we used now won't take down 20FPS or something)
- massively more units on screen (RTS), big draw distance (GTA, Crysis)




"Downsides":
While the media and self-proclaimed market analysts who are in the "business" of debating what's good or bad for a company in a financially-esque language that doesn't really matter to consumers or developers, often paint these as downsides, but we see them as a tradeoff, we sacrifice some compatability for other benefits.


Personal Dream:
I want Crysis 1 remastered with much more harder AI, more enemies, fixed bugs and full Mantle support, that's a game I would pay 100€ for. (I am not a fan of crysis 2 nor 3)



Mantle is real and it's coming, about time, low-level APIs aren't something new so it's definitely a proven thing and this is what to expect jumping from a high-level API, it simply makes that much of a difference whatever card the naysayers pull they won't change reality.

Ofcourse, this is all analysis of everything we've heard, I watched every single video on the interent about mantle stuff, like 6 total I think, and I have not detected any signs of PR spin.

Oxide will release Nitrous demo early 2014 that will be freely moddable, something they wouldn't announce if all this was a "PR event with a scripted demo" like the masses out there love to say while they probably haven't even read one article in it's entirety. Ofcourse there is also the G-Sync Card, the Glide Card, and the laziest of them all the "5%" Card. Just don't buy into all of those it's all worthless discussion.

But I can offer some points on the glide thing, which is pretty easy:


1. That was 15 years ago
2. There were many more GPU vendors than today
3. DX and OGL were designed for that hardware at the time so they catched up (now they're a joke)
4. Nvidia didn't care about glide, they could
5. Glide smoked everything else at the time, something these guys never mention





probably the worst first post I saw in a while

If you are buying based on features, the biggest new feature Nvidia has coming, or rather, just released, is G-sync. G-sync allows for a tear free experience, much like V-sync, but without latency, stutter or judder problems, as the monitor will now refresh when the GPU is ready, rather than the other way around.

Mantle is all the talk, but it will be a while before it starts to show up in games and we really have no idea how much it will help. BF4 will be the first one to use it, but will be quite some time before any other games start to show up, as it takes time to develop games.

On the other hand G-sync is ready now, and when used, works on all games that allow v-sync. Those who have used it, have said 40-50 FPS with G-sync feels like 60 FPS with v-sync. When you have dips, you don't experience lag and stutter like V-sync.

The downside of G-sync is that it will require a G-sync monitor as there is special hardware required to allow monitors to have variable refresh times.

His statement is pretty accurate in reality. We don't know what Mantle will bring based on a few demos. We have to see it in games before its true power if revealed. Demos are meant to get people exited, as it has done to you, but they always show the best features out of context and often have hidden downfalls, or unrealistic in practice features.

Mantle may be great, but we have to wait and see before we crown it as the greatest thing. Being lower level than DX and OpenGL has advantages, but it also has a lot of disadvantages. Programmers are excited about having more control, but now they must work much harder to support everyone.

G-Sync:

1. It's not an API. It's won't do anything Mantle does
2.Requires new Monitor or modding, good luck.
3.Only useful if you even care about tearing, I don't.
4.Tearing only a problem if you have a 60hz mainstream monitor, I have 144hz, i see no tearing


G-Sync is not a bad addition, it's a small feature that should already be available for years, Nvidia proclaimed it something special and made it proprietary, it literally is a gimmick unless you have one of those cheap 60hz 16ms monitors, and you have to buy a new monitor to get g-sync, why wouldn't you buy a 120hz on that same occasion ?!?! I think G-Sync is the PR thing, not Mantle, as the boys are accusing AMD.

I'm not sure I consider them pricy until we see more. The first factory G-sync monitors aren't available yet. Only the upgrade kits. They say they will cost $100 extra over the default monitor costs.

For the very first monitor, it will be about $400, ($500 for the current upgraded versions now), but they are $300 normally without the G-sync. There will be other monitors.

But if you do not want to buy a new monitor, then G-sync won't matter, but if you do, G-sync will be a big deal.

Just because the 1st monitor we know about is 144hz, does not mean G-sync is only going to be on 144hz monitors. Nvidia has already stated they will be getting them into monitors all the way up to 4k, which currently aren't capable of 120hz input.

The point is this. Mantle is unknown, and will only be in one game for a while until more games get developed for it.
G-sync is available now, if bought, will work on all games past, present and future. It is very useful. 144hz monitors does not remove tearing and G-sync keeps things smoother than v-sync or non v-sync, because half frame updates aren't quite as fluid as full frame updates.

If G-sync isn't something you want, then it won't matter. The AMD card has a chance at a few games with improvements. Seeing as you have a BF4 avatar, you will be at least playing the 1 game that will support it for now.

If you will not be upgrading your monitor, then G-sync won't matter anyways.

I thought you were weighing the pros and cons of going for Mantle or not.

If you were looking to get a new monitor, G-sync is probably the way to go. It is a known product. By all who have used it, it is quite a huge step in improved smoothness with clear non-tear gaming without stutter, judder or latency.

Mantle is a new API, which is an interface to interact with the GPU and CPU. It is lower level than DirectX and OpenGL, which means it gives Dev's more control over the code. This means it will likely have more performance and possibly a few more effects, but also will likely include more compatibility issues and bugs. However, this is all guessing. We do not know what Mantle will bring to us until we get it.

Personally, I'd wait 3 months before jumping on board with either. If you are only upgrading to get Mantle, before Mantle is even here, that is poor timing. You should wait until Mantle is known so you can make an informed decision.

G-sync is similar in respect to what monitors will be available, but we do know what G-sync does at least, as we have actual monitors for sale now, but unless you were planning to get the VG248QE anyways, you'd be best off waiting a few months to see what other G-sync options are available.

So unless you need a new GPU or monitor now. I'd wait until we know what Mantle will bring.

As usual with these things, there's a lot of average gamer and also various developer-fanboys as I call them


Developer fanboy is someone who is extremely personal about what he does, he defends his methods and choices and dismissed genuine discussion, there are many of these kind on twitter and elsewhere acting like they're smarter then the rest of the industry, these types get picked up by the media sometimes and ofcourse media takes it as fact just because he is a "developer in a studio".

I've had a conversation with a few of these examples, one of them is Simon Roth, he claimed that Mantle will give "5%" performance boost and basically dismissed the whole thing as "fancy", then when I challenged him he told me that he has more experience because he" worked on an AAA game that sold millions" - it was actually some online casual game in UK, nothing close of AAA caliber on PC, the basically proclaimed himself as correct and accused me of trolling. This is a classic type of stupid developer, someone who is in the industry but acts like an average gamer that doesn't have enough attention span to read one article from top to bottom in an objective way.

I mean, it's silly, anyone can say he's employed in a "studio that makes AAA games and sold millions", he could be a janitor for all we know. In seriousness, he could just be some artists or whatever, only a fraction of developers are core programmers and a not all of them are focused on graphics.

Then there was another case, where I contacted some developer guy who was praised in gaming communitie for releasing DLL inject utilities that disable FPS caps, Resolution limitations in some PC ports ... and I've gone on a 20 minute mantle discussion, i thought he knows but he didn't really understood much yet he was making his opinion. He wasn't a game programmer at all, he never worked on any API, he also said that "95% games aren't optimized in graphics (dx) driver" while it's the other way around, you need a beta driver for almost every new PC game today to run acceptable and new drivers always make some improvements to various games. More than half of the code in the DX driver is app-specific code.


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You've just been lucky, don't expect this as granted, I'm not active in gaming & tech stuff much lately, but AMD Mantle was a big enouhg announcement to get me interested into taking a few weeks of time to this subject, just randomly searched the web to find what people are talking and where to chip in, in the free time that I have I search for blatant misinformation on the web and try to correct it and to stop spreading it, because I just don't like it, but it's something that only people them selfs can really fix, this is not my job so, I just do when I can out of goodness.

I also happen to be the OP of some major mantle thread, one of them on TPU.

These are the same kind of people that spread misinformation about Mantle being proprietary, it's just people who aren't interested into looking deeper into what this tech all means, it's pretty easy to make stuff up, it doesn't require work, it doesn't require thinking nor any kind of brain power to simply spew out these things they do.

This demo couldn't have happened in a better time, as I've made some other threads in a game specific forum, and they obviously had no idea, I was again as always explaining things what I have learned from analyzing all the data, I do not speak unless I am sure I know for sure I know the whole or majority of the story. People keep taking it as opinion, I was talking about facts and It's hard to have a genuine discussion when the moderators are ignorant as well, the AMD posted the Mantle demo video and basically everything I said they said and I didn't believe my self it was better than what I said, because I've said what the data from previous releases and slides shown, and because I simply took the time and effort and I've searched and found everything out there, hardware.fr were the ones who first got the slides from the demo we just saw a few days ago, that demo was made back then on the same day as other 3 Mantle presentations from November, but AMD decided to delay this one for some reason. And I've came to a conclusion that there were 4 different slides but only 3 videos, so one video was missing, so I've basically knew for a month all the details all these people only are able to know for a few days because they are being fed, they aren't looking for info hard enough. Yes it does take time, but that argument doesn't work, just because you're job doesn't allow you to look at a 42minute video is not really my or anyone's problem at all.

It's simply manners, if all these people would adhere to basic human communication rules, if they don't have time to research all the details, just admitting to them selfs they probably don't know the whole story, all they need to do is to shut up and there wouldn't be misinformation and drama that plagues and pulls others into confusion. As I do, I don't even post anything into a thread of some subject I have no idea about, and that standard of having "no idea" doesn't mean I haven't been familiar with it, It means I never did any my own research, and reading one article on a mainstream gaming site is not research.

Why 90ies were better in a sense, because all these mainstream people didn't get their voice out there unless they actually knew what they were talking about, with all these smartphones and twitters and trendy bloggers it's easy for any bozo on the street to spread fud around the webs and get taken seriously, but it get's taken seriously by others who are as prone to being manipulated, it's a chain reaction.

I still recommend you to watch that 40 minute video, if you really want to know more, it's just not practical to summarize more because it's details that are connected to make it a whole; between the talk there is many statements that don't require any technical knowledge to understand, listening clearly is also important, when I research like this I usually rewind several times to make sure i've got every word, audio's not that clear

And it's a method to this, usually most people would watch or listen "on-fly" kind of doing something else along the way or having 15 minute pauses every 10 minutes, being at work, someone talking to you, phone rings, that's not what you call research, so there are many many scenarios and factors that make up the reasons what makes the masses spread misinformation, i mean it's quite a list you can imagine, this is all common for any kind of subject, it's just happen to be a new API in this case.

If AMD Mantle was some kind of a PR show, the alternative media would have pointed that already by now, and so would I be talking about it. For example, Semiaccurate greatly analyzed Nvidia's fake Fermi cards quite some years ago, Nvidia CEO was pictured with the GPU in his hands while claiming the demo in the background runs on Fermi, but the card in his hand was a not functional plastic mockup. Semiaccurate's article on mantle from 2 months ago already said Mantle is a major milestone in PC history and I agree, it's not crimital to call it a revolution for the PC platform.

The "hard numbers" argument you see is abused many times, they don't really know much to debate issues so they masquerade as like they're being "scientific" and "cautious" or "not speculative", it's all a form of dismission, you might think they're reasonable by not jumpint to conclusions, it's all great and fine values, but they don't get one major point that why we know more is because we've analyzed Circumstantial Evidence, and this form of evidence gives us many clues to what the hard evidence will look like and if the circumstantial evidence is good enough then we can "predict" the hard evidence more accurately.

You see, it's all fine if they say that and step back without dismissing our research, they shouldn't be making all kinds of claims and attacks if they don't want to participate in research to gather circumstantial evidence - so usually lazy people say that, but it's their choice, it's fine as long as they don't attack, so this is not a "criminal" situation, unless it gets abused because they keep making their point against circumstantial evidence based on their "no hard evidence" argument which doesn't work when circumstantial evidence is substantial and clearly shows a certain outlook.

(probably the best post i've made in all mantle discussion for weeks, good, been angry because of this in some thread so had to cool down)

@Stewox
You may want to read your post objectively, and see where you stand on your types of people.

You need to be honest with yourself here. How often have demos come to be as good in games? Why are you so angry about people wanting to be cautious about recommending tech not released? Many of us have been into gaming for a long time, and have seen many PR events with similar promises. Vary rarely does one come to fruition as promised.

Forgive me for not screaming to the roof tops about a product we've not seen yet.

I won't reply to your mantle opinions because I just did that on a more larger scale in the previous post which is very valuable imo so please read it and please make an exception to not use the "tldr card".

But look, firstly the majority of the G-sync usefulness is from a practical point of view because if you have 144 hz you're not going to spot tearing in the first place, you would have to focus and purposelly try to find tearing to spot it.

Secondly, G-Sync is a real thing and it works, technically tearing is stil there at 120 and 144 hz, but it's at least from a educated practical viewpoint very unnoticable and I am for this reason not a tearing expert because I never had 60hz monitors, i've only seen 60hz elsewhere and I absolutely hated the blinking and the low response, but it's just not there at 144.

So you're all correct technically about G-Sync it self, but it doesn't work as an argument against mantle, and from an educated point all your mantle opinions aren't based in reality either. sorry. Just read the above post if you haven't already.

Also, it's just extremely weird the first monitor that supports G-Sync is a 144hz, ofcourse it's going to eliminate it and technically work, but come on, just take a break, think about this, how much does this makes sense, for any logical man on this planet, why would they target the kind of monitors that aren't even remotely a practical issue, first.

It comes down to being a good bonus, not some blessed feature, if you're out to buy 144hz monitor, take the one with G-Sync to make the experience even better if it fits the specifications, but saying that how revolutionary this G-Sync is and how you would be finally able to play with no tearing and go pick up a monitor that also happens to be 144 and then spread on the web "how great g-sync is", the trick is you could do that already years ago by just getting a 144 and it would be practically close to g-sycn. You can't use G-Sync against mantle in any shape way or form, it's just something on top that polishes existing experience and makes it look like it's a big deal.




First of all, there is no way you read that post so fast.

For one thing, I'm not an avreage gamer and I never follow PR events to begin with, if you were duped by a PR event that is simply so because either, there was nothing more to research to support that, or you failed to detect the PR spin. Which is definitely not anyone's problem and doesn't change reality for other cases, just because you happened to land on those which were PR spins. Perception is key. Reality for most people is dictated by perception, perception is formed from opinion, knowledge, information which is not perfect to begin with and can also be manipulated by all kinds of external sources, living environment (peer-pressure), personal experience, personality factor, mainstream media, suggestive entertainment, pop culture, lack of problem solving skills, group-think (herd behavior) etc.

Mantle being a real thing is a reason why there is so many things to research, for a PR gaming event where they just make stuff up there's not much to uncover and I would have already detected that if mantle was just a PR thing.

Mantle is not a producs nor it is a new idea, it's proven by fact, and basic understanding of hardware tech and APIs is enough for that conclusion, all the other data shows that Mantle is even better because It's been developed in deep cooperation by developers them selfs not just one "managing" group, like other APIs, Johan Andersson from DICE had the idea and AMD accepted, they worked together and now they're testing and polishing the SDK with developer collaboration. There are so many details and I've been over all of them in all these weeks and I admit I am not in a mood to fetch all of these up again just for you.

Best thing you can do is watch all the videos out there, there are 5 key videos you need to watch. You have 3 of them on AMD Developer summit site, (probably all of them reuploaded to youtube by now) then you have the 4th one mentioned in this thread, and there's another one on youtube called "mantle Q&A" , the 6th one is the initial announcement from GPU14 but it's older so you can skip that if you want.

Nvidia should have released gsync at a much smaller price, now it costs you 400$ for a gsync monitor
They should have asked Asus for a Gsync compatible VS248h and sell it for 200$.
Theoretically for the price of a gtx770+gsync you can get a r9 290 (without bit/litecoin mining bonus)

So it's not proprietary? I've only got articles posted on the interweb to go by but still...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/graphics/display/20131003232053_AMD_Mantle_Is_Proprietary_Now_But_It_Will_Become_Widely_Available_tthers.html

I have a 120hz monitor. I do know exactly what tearing is and I experience it. However, with 120hz, tearing feels different. I see wobbling on the screen. Things shift. It's not right. I can't turn on V-sync because then you get stutter and worse for me, latency (causes me to get sick), as most games will not run at 120 FPS, and fewer will maintain 120 FPS.

Now as to why they choose to prototype it on a 144hz screen. Why not? If they chose a 60hz screen, would you invalidate it because their first screen wasn't on 144hz? They chose a gaming monitor for a gaming feature to prototype their first monitor. They may have done it to see how much of a difference it makes on the high hz screens. What ever the reason, we really have no reason to read anything into it.

Mantle and G-sync are not comparable products. However, they will influence which graphics card you will get. If you want something to help smooth out all games you play, and plan or willing to buy a new monitor too, you'd buy an Nvidia card. If you play BF4, or plan to hold onto the card for a year or 2 to see other Mantle games be released and want to see what it brings, you'd by AMD. If not, it doesn't matter which brand you get.

In the end, it just happens to be AMD.

The industry was already asking for low-level APIs for years, something that isn't publicized as much unless you look for this, ofcourse right now it's a hot topic.

DICE had the idea, and they went to Intel and Nvidia, which both declined, AMD accepted the idea and so they wen to work to make Mantle.

I was dreaming of this happening on PC and now it is, look this article from more than 2 years ago, got me really excited and I honestly didn't expect it this year at all.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/03/16/farewell-to-directx/1

HAHA, and here is bystander commenting on the tomshardware mirror article at the time in 2011:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/API-DirectX-11-Shader-Richard-Huddy-PC-gaming,12418.html