AMD MANTLE DELAYED - Battlefield 4 Strikes Again.

[NeverBackDown]

Tom's Hardware did an AMA with AMD a while back and one of the questions put to them was how much of a performance increase Mantle would bring. Whoever answered it said it was going to be well more than 5%.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ama-toms-hardware,3672.html

I can see why that would be the case, developing a whole API is a massive and expensive undertaking, they wouldn't do it for just 5fps, as it wouldn't justify the R&D spend. Also I'd say AMD didn't do it without commitment from developers either. EA is fully on board, and we'll probably see a lot more titles pledging support for it in the future.

But then again, if the end result is 100fps vs 300fps, does it matter? ^_^

It does matter as it allows for an immense improvement in optimization and in turn that causes better performance/visuals. It may also cause AMD/Nvidia to actually start making beefier gpus instead of a refresh because the optimizations are more directed to the GPU core vs the Driver overhead(which sucks ass btw).

 

[Zoot]

It does matter as it allows for an immense improvement in optimization and in turn that cases better performance/visuals. It may also cause AMD/Nvidia to actually start making beefier gpus instead of a refresh because the optimizations are more directed to the GPU core vs the Driver overhead(which sucks ass btw).

Oh I agree, it's definitely a game-changer, a long overdue one at that. I was more joking then anything else, although I'm not of the opinion we'll notice a massive difference in the beginning anyway.

This Mantle demo and talk is well worth a watch if you haven't seen it already.

 

[WYP]

Oh I agree, it's definitely a game-changer, a long overdue one at that. I was more joking then anything else, although I'm not of the opinion we'll notice a massive difference in the beginning anyway.

This Mantle demo and talk is well worth a watch if you haven't seen it already

That demo makes me want a new sins of a solar empire game so bad.

 

[Zoot]

That demo makes me want a new sins of a solar empire game so bad.

Is there actually a new one of those on the way? Sins was a favourite during college for LAN parties with me and friends.

Although what's mind-boggling in that video is how much more efficient Mantle is than DirectX.

 

[WYP]

Is there actually a new one of those on the way? Sins was a favourite during college for LAN parties with me and friends.

Although what's mind-boggling in that video is how much more efficient Mantle is than DirectX.

Not that i am aware of sadly. Oxide games is a seed of Stardock though and they make Sins, there is hope!

What they have got out of mantle is immense! and they haven't even done any gpu optimization yet.

 

[d3rrial]

I'm already excited for big game studios using us as Betatesters for their mantle implementation.

Gonna be so much fun to see what can happen to a GPU when a programmer gets low level access. I bet you that soon after Mantle is released, people will notice GPU memory leaks or shader / shading unit deadlocks etc.

You can't trust programmers with low level hardware access... At least not game programmers. Thats what Dx and OGL are for...

Not surprised this was delayed tho

 

[SPS]

I'm already excited for big game studios using us as Betatesters for their mantle implementation.

Gonna be so much fun to see what can happen to a GPU when a programmer gets low level access. I bet you that soon after Mantle is released, people will notice GPU memory leaks or shader / shading unit deadlocks etc.

You can't trust programmers with low level hardware access... At least not game programmers. Thats what Dx and OGL are for...

Not surprised this was delayed tho

Woah woah woah, we love low level access, shh..

 

[d3rrial]

I'm a C++ dev for embedded Linux systems, yes, I do love low level stuff, but thats exactly why Game devs shouldn't. Even I'm sometimes afraid that I have missed something that can cause some serious issues later down the road or be really hard to fix once the hardware is on the market...

Gamedevs live in a dreamworld, they have most of their work done for them. Most of them don't even have to code the engines, just modify them. And those who do write their own engines, have the very solid foundation of DirectX and OpenGL.

These are based on drivers, which are very intricate and complicated pieces of software, that one shouldn't fiddle around with, if he has no clue what he's doing. Just look at the linux open source amd / nvidia gpu drivers. Those are huge and are barely doing their job. And there are some kickass programmers working on those.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Mantle skips the drivers and allows the programmer to control things more easily/efficiently, thus allowing those kickass programmers to really kick the hardware's ass and see what it can really do.

 

[d3rrial]

Mantle skips the drivers and allows the programmer to control things more easily/efficiently, thus allowing those kickass programmers to really kick the hardware's ass and see what it can really do.

But there are NO kickass programmers in the gaming business. They're like little birdies being spoonfed by their respective parents D3D and OGL...

Correction: There are SOME kickass programmers in the gaming business, but there are so many more that aren't, its not gonna be pretty.

Edit 2:
Most of those kickass programmers are either "retired" see John Carmack, or are indie developers. Indie games are great, but they're often not graphically intense enough to really benefit from a low level api.

 

[NeverBackDown]

I think thats quite an exaggeration. They are limited by those APIs and with mantle they won't be limited by software but by hardware. Give them time to work out the few kinks mantle has at the moment and then judge them.

 

[d3rrial]

I think thats quite an exaggeration. They are limited by those APIs and with mantle they won't be limited by software but by hardware. Give them time to work out the few kinks mantle has at the moment and then judge them.

Mantle isn't the problem, I'm sure Mantle works fine.

But give a 5 year old a fully loaded sawed off shotgun without safety and watch what happens, I bet you the shotgun works fine.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not actually suggesting giving a 5 yr old a sawed off shotgun. This was an analogy.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Mantle isn't the problem, I'm sure Mantle works fine.

But give a 5 year old a fully loaded sawed off shotgun without safety and watch what happens, I bet you the shotgun works fine.

Except these are adults who know how to program? Most of which actually have Computer Science Degrees? They know how to do it. Give them time to optimize for mantle before judging them.

 

[d3rrial]

Except these are adults who know how to program? Most of which actually have Computer Science Degrees? They know how to do it. Give them time to optimize for mantle before judging them.

There's a difference in making user software and system software. I don't know if youre a software dev yourself, but software development isn't just fun and games and no problem in going from Windows Forms to gpu kernel interrupt handling...

Edit: I'm not a GPU HW programmer either, so what I said "gpu kernel interrupt handling" is basically a shot in the dark, patched together from the brief time I had with CUDA, where functions are named "kernels". I make no claim on the correctness and applicability of this statement. My point was to show that its not the same to make some easy changes in some game engine and code low level on the GPU.

 

[SPS]

Wow. How long have you worked in the games industry? If the answer is zero you have no right to claim such BS. Thing is gameplay programmers aren't going to be the ones dealing with Mantle, it's going to be the engine programmers. And they definitely know their stuff about hardware. Do you think the PS3 gives you something fancy like DX to use. Nope. Secondly engine programmers usually come from places such as ARM or an assembly based background. Your ignorance is almost offensive.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Wow. How long have you worked in the games industry? If the answer is zero you have no right to claim such BS. Thing is gameplay programmers aren't going to be the ones dealing with Mantle, it's going to be the engine programmers. And they definitely know their stuff about hardware. Do you think the PS3 gives you something fancy like DX to use. Nope. Secondly engine programmers usually come from places such as ARM or an assembly based background. Your ignorance is almost offensive.

What about from Uni? lol

And to just throw it out there.. there are an immense amount of programmers. Can't really say they all have no idea what they are doing. They all specialize in their own repsective tasks.

 

[SPS]

What about from Uni? lol

And to just throw it out there.. there are an immense amount of programmers. Can't really say they all have no idea what they are doing. They all specialize in their own repsective tasks.

Not sure what you mean? You're not going to get a core tech position on the unreal engine team straight out of uni (bachelors)

 

[NeverBackDown]

Not sure what you mean? You're not going to get a core tech position on the unreal engine team straight out of uni (bachelors)

Not even if you got a BS in Engine Development?

 

[SPS]

Not even if you got a BS in Engine Development?

Most proper games courses should teach you engine level development as these are the most desirable and transferable skills. It will take years of real world experience to reach the level of knowledge required for such a position. Unless you have a PhD/masters in Mathematics and you're taken on due to sufficient research in a particular area. I used to work in the games industry (and will be returning end of May) by the way, I'm not just making this stuff up.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Most proper games courses should teach you engine level development as these are the most desirable and transferable skills. It will take years of real world experience to reach the level of knowledge required for such a position. Unless you have a PhD/masters in Mathematics and you're taken on due to sufficient research in a particular area. I used to work in the games industry (and will be returning end of May) by the way, I'm not just making this stuff up.

So the engine devs do know what they are doing. Sounds promising and gives me more confidence that mantle is big enough to make a big difference in future games.