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AMD's Mantle API Gives Devs Direct Hardware Control

By - Source: Tom's Hardware US | B 90 comments

AMD has revealed an API that gives developers direct access to GPUs using the GCN architecture.

Now that AMD is powering all four major gaming platforms – namely the Wii U, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC – the company has finally revealed its secret weapon to bind these platforms together: the low-level high-performance "Mantle" graphics API. This will allow developers to "speak the native language" of AMD's Graphics Core Next architecture used in modern AMD-based graphics cards and APUs.

"With Mantle, games like DICE’s 'Battlefield 4' will be empowered with the ability to speak the native language of the Graphics Core Next architecture, presenting a deeper level of hardware optimization no other graphics card manufacturer can match," the company said on Wednesday. "Mantle also assists game developers in bringing games to life on multiple platforms by leveraging the commonalities between GCN-powered PCs and consoles for a simple game development process."

The name is interesting in that AMD revealed its "Hawaii" Radeon R7 and R9 generation of GPUs at a press event in Hawaii, a beautiful island shaped by the active volcanoes along the Pacific Ring of Fire. The mantle is commonly known as the layer below the earth's crust, and is associated with volcanism. Based on a "global" diagram, the GCN architecture serves as the core, followed by the Mantle Driver, Mantle API, and the graphics applications serving as the "crust".

According to AMD, the Mantle benefits include reducing the CPU overhead to enable 9X more draw calls per second than other APIs. This will provide PC gamers proper multi-tasking scaling on the CPU without the need to handle all the background draw calls required by the older APIs. Other Mantle benefits include leveraging optimization work from next-generation game consoles to PCs, and new rendering techniques. Thus with direct access to all GPU features, developers can unlock higher graphics performance on consoles and gaming rigs with GCN-based GPUs.

The first company to support the Mantle API is Electronic Arts. The Frostbite 3 engine, developed by EA subsidiary DICE, will supposedly render natively with Mantle in Windows without the need for DirectX when running on GCN-based GPUs and APUs, but the engine will still be compatible with other rendering APIs. Johan Andersson from DICE indicated that AMD's API is similar to the one found on consoles where developers have direct access to the hardware for optimal performance. Mantle is also compatible with DirectX HLSL to simplify porting.

Support for Mantle will arrive in Battlefield 4 in December as a free and automatic update.

Will Mantle become another case of the Glide API? 3DFX created that API back in the mid-90s so that developers like id Software would have direct access to the Voodoo GPUs. Once additional GPUs became common on the market, OpenGL became the favorite until Microsoft beefed up the relationship between Windows and DirectX. Now smartphones and tablets have reignited OpenGL support, developers want to shun DirectX, and AMD is producing an exclusive API. However, this time around, this GPU spread isn't locked to mere gaming PCs.

"AMD’s approach to providing a consistent gaming experience on the PC, in the living room or over the cloud — all powered by AMD Radeon graphics found in AMD graphics cards and accelerated processing units (APUs). The four pillars of the Unified Gaming Strategy — console, cloud, content and client — come together with the introduction of Mantle," the company said.

There's talk that Mantle is open-source, meaning Nvidia could add support to GeForce GPUs. But given the company's recent collaboration with Valve and Linux, Nvidia may be more inclined to focus on better supporting OpenGL (just a guess). Regardless, additional information regarding Mantle will be released at the AMD Developer Summit, APU13, taking place Nov. 11-13 in San Jose, California, and we will likely be there, but without the hula skirts.

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Top Comments
  • 28 Hide
    CaptainTom , September 25, 2013 10:10 PM
    This could be huge. Can't wait to see the benchmarks of this API vs DirectX11
  • 18 Hide
    s3anister , September 25, 2013 10:53 PM
    Quote:
    AMD fan: "AMD dont do proprietry crap like physx, they stick to open standards, and thats why i like them"..........


    FTA: "There's talk that Mantle is open-source, meaning Nvidia could add support to GeForce GPUs."

    You obviously didn't read the article, did you? Either way, this is a great step forward for AMD and for gaming.
  • 10 Hide
    CaptainTom , September 25, 2013 10:06 PM
    This has massive potential. Looks like everyone is moving to drop DirectX. Can't wait to see the benchmarks of this vs DirectX.
Other Comments
    Display all 90 comments.
  • 10 Hide
    CaptainTom , September 25, 2013 10:06 PM
    This has massive potential. Looks like everyone is moving to drop DirectX. Can't wait to see the benchmarks of this vs DirectX.
  • 28 Hide
    CaptainTom , September 25, 2013 10:10 PM
    This could be huge. Can't wait to see the benchmarks of this API vs DirectX11
  • -2 Hide
    iam2thecrowe , September 25, 2013 10:27 PM
    AMD fan: "AMD dont do proprietry crap like physx, they stick to open standards, and thats why i like them"..........
  • 7 Hide
    ryude , September 25, 2013 10:27 PM
    I would hope that we move towards OpenGL, proprietary doesn't help the consumers. Open source AMD!
  • 6 Hide
    anxiousinfusion , September 25, 2013 10:28 PM
    Indeed. DirectX is going up against some strong competition this decade between OpenGL, Valve with Steam Machines and native Linux gaming, and now AMD's Mantle.

    #OperationPCGamerFreedom
  • 2 Hide
    renz496 , September 25, 2013 10:29 PM
    Can you guys clarify how open this new mantle API from amd? if the API indeed is open source will it be maintain by open community like OpenGL and OpenCL did? or is it much like tressfx which amd has total control in building and the future direction of the software but it can also be run on non amd hardware?
  • 9 Hide
    iam2thecrowe , September 25, 2013 10:32 PM
    Quote:

    renz496
    Can you guys clarify how open this new mantle API from amd? if the API indeed is open source will it be maintain by open community like OpenGL and OpenCL did? or is it much like tressfx which amd has total control in building and the future direction of the software but it can also be run on non amd hardware?

    its for AMD's GCN, so its not open.
  • 3 Hide
    bharatwd , September 25, 2013 10:41 PM
    great news...gtx 780 price n titan are going to come down :) ))))
  • 3 Hide
    Toolguns , September 25, 2013 10:48 PM
    New tech news is good. Tech news for gamers showcasing increase for in-game performance...yeahhhh budddyyy
  • 18 Hide
    s3anister , September 25, 2013 10:53 PM
    Quote:
    AMD fan: "AMD dont do proprietry crap like physx, they stick to open standards, and thats why i like them"..........


    FTA: "There's talk that Mantle is open-source, meaning Nvidia could add support to GeForce GPUs."

    You obviously didn't read the article, did you? Either way, this is a great step forward for AMD and for gaming.
  • 7 Hide
    Hazle , September 25, 2013 11:08 PM
    here's hoping this really takes off. and if OpenGL becomes a standard in a majority of games, i can see my dream of the gaming console war shifting to an optimized gaming OS war an actual possibility.
  • -1 Hide
    joaompp , September 25, 2013 11:34 PM
    Correct me if I'm wrong but couldn't this result in hardware failure by giving so much leverage in the API? Hopefully they lock it down just enough to prevent that while still achieving that performance level
  • 3 Hide
    ingtar33 , September 25, 2013 11:45 PM
    nvidia will have to work on their opengl support. i said awhile ago that amd winning these next gen consoles would spell the end of physx... looks like that is the case.
  • 0 Hide
    RooD , September 25, 2013 11:53 PM
    This may not take off. Alienating half your customer base could be bad I.e nvidia users
  • 8 Hide
    weatherdude , September 26, 2013 12:01 AM
    It sounds like we're on the cusp of a revolution in gaming. The Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 use x86-64 cpus and AMD has 100% of the console graphics market share. The barriers for developing multi-platform seem lower than ever. It'd be great that Mantle be open source so that consumers would benefit the most but I'm not really expecting it.

    Looking back, AMD's acquisition of ATI must be the best business decision ever.
  • -7 Hide
    smeezekitty , September 26, 2013 12:25 AM
    I don't think this is a good idea. It is not portable and in general giving userspace applications access to raw hardware is not considered good practice.
  • -2 Hide
    RooD , September 26, 2013 12:27 AM
    This may not take off. Alienating half your customer base could be bad I.e nvidia users
  • 2 Hide
    ddelrio , September 26, 2013 12:41 AM
    This might work. If they hadn't captured both major consoles, it would be a much bigger risk--but because consoles are usually the initial target for most big games, there's a good chance it will succeed. They may have taken a bigger hit on hardware price to Sony and MS just to ensure they captured both consoles so they could then employ this strategy.
  • 5 Hide
    falchard , September 26, 2013 1:00 AM
    From a purely developer's standpoint, it makes more sense than a lot of APIs. Its going to be on all the consoles they support and a good number of PCs. Its also open source allowing NVidia to adapt to the API for future releases.
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