AMD’s ‘Mantle’ API #Low-Level High-Performance Console-Style Graphics API for PC

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Taking cue from the realm of game console development, AMD has announced a new game development model called ‘Mantle’ at the GPU14 Tech Day event in Hawaii. Using a collaboration of both API specifications and GPU drivers, Mantle will provide developers the platform to extract a higher degree of utilization from the existing GCN architecture as well as the GCN 2.0 architecture of the new Radeon series, via low-level high-performance drivers.



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Battlefield 4 will be the first title to make use of Mantle, although it will not be available at the time of the game’s launch. The technology will be implemented through a free update in December. Mantle offers more control of the GPU and CPU to game developers, allowing games to extract the maximum potential of AMD GPUs. The concept behind this model is similar to what is found on console game development, where developers have a significant amount of control over the hardware.



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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.





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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