Assume Mantle gets "cloned" by NVidia

[cord]

I was reading /r/buildapc which links to The Tech Report: Mantle to power 15 Frostbite games

The interesting quote is "He added that it's 'not unrealistic that you'd get 20% additional GPU performance' with Mantle."

If it's of interest for EA, it'll definitely get NVidia's attention. I'm assuming NVidia will produce their own response to Mantle and we'll have 2 new "direct rendering" APIs. One from AMD (Mantle) and one from NVidia.

So then we'll have 2 new render systems that will likely show up in OGRE!

[Klaim]

I feel like this will end badly.

[cybereality]

AMD said they were open to allowing other vendors (Nvidia/Intel) to use Mantle on their hardware.

Somehow it seems unlikely Nvidia would want to do this, but its on them at this point.

[cord]

NVidia is not likely to just adopt Mantle directly -- they are famous for the Not Invented Here syndrome.

But Mantle is a big deal. Rebellion just announced Mantle support.

[madmarx]

I think Mantle it self is just a consequence of GNMX (low level 3d on PS4).
And I suppose Opengl should probably have to provide some kind of 'low level access' or 'error free context' too, otherwise it could fallback in terms of performances (concerning batch count notably, from what i read in this thread).

[cord]

Ok, what do you mean, "Opengl should probably have to provide some kind of low level access" ? I thought Mantle was AMD's way of ditching the whole OpenGL stack.

AMD has an open driver. That means they don't need the Khronos group to approve their API if they just publish it --> Mantle.

NVidia has a closed driver. If they want people to use their feature they have to make an ARB or wait for the Khronos group.

P.S. OpenGL was originally for "low level access." Of course, things change and OpenGL is big and bloated now. But mostly there just are not that many GPU companies anymore. There's AMD. There's NVidia. Intel wants to play. Qualcomm bought a Radeon design and made Adreno (anagram). PowerVR and Sigma, and that's all.

[madmarx]

"Opengl should probably have to provide some kind of low level access" ? I thought Mantle was AMD's way of ditching the whole OpenGL stack.

You are correct. But, I suspect that if no one provides a low level API that is more driver friendly, then opengl and directx go to bin, and we simply will be left with a renderer API per constructor for big titles.
And big titles are useful to push the APIs forward.
So If opengl do not provide other kind of lower api-to-manage-them-all, I believe in 3 years from now, you will see games that will be made without D3D or OGL.
Oups, that's already the case on PS4. Soon coming to PC. Ofc that's just what I think, I am not part of the industry, I can't know for sure.

[Herb]

It seems like when OpenCL really took off, it was due to the Kronos group getting all the big players together to decide on the standard together. I wonder Mantle's future without having it more open... Although, it seems like AMD is getting more weight in the GPU discussion now with both PS4 and Xbox One using ATI chipsets, might force NVIDIA to get more involved (hopefully in not making a competing proprietary API).

[cord]

You are correct. But, I suspect that if no one provides a low level API that is more driver friendly, then opengl and directx go to bin, and we simply will be left with a renderer API per constructor for big titles.
And big titles are useful to push the APIs forward.
So If opengl do not provide other kind of lower api-to-manage-them-all, I believe in 3 years from now, you will see games that will be made without D3D or OGL.
Oups, that's already the case on PS4. Soon coming to PC. Ofc that's just what I think, I am not part of the industry, I can't know for sure.

Yes, I think you have said it well: it's already the case on PS4 that you use a low level API instead of OpenGL.

The PS4 is a step closer to a PC. Sony gave up on the Cell and its custom hardware.

Sony does not like open hardware, they like the computing power that comes from the economy of scale.

Microsoft is exactly the same.

OpenGL will not disappear overnight, but if NVidia does something like Mantle then OpenGL is in big trouble. I bet the Khronos group is already having lots and lots of meetings to try to put something together.

If big games want Mantle, it won't be long before everyone wants Mantle. AMD says Mantle will be just as good as OpenGL.

@Herb: yes, exactly. Maybe the Khronos group can put something together. But this isn't a separate niche like OpenCL is, it's a direct threat to OpenGL. Is the Khronos group grown-up enough to accept that OpenGL needs to die?

I haven't used Mantle, so maybe OpenGL doesn't need to die. I'm assuming a lot by accepting what AMD is saying. But I can see their point. OpenGL isn't low level enough anymore.

I wonder what the APIs will look like? Will NVidia just make their own, back to the bad old days of a custom API for each manufacturer? (@madmarx s/constructor/manufacturer/)

Or will it be even worse than the bad old days. Maybe the APIs will never be open. That seems unlikely given AMDs past stance, but it's not impossible. AMD might choose to license it as a closed, for-pay model, and try to extract as much cash as they can. Then AMD would probably die, and OpenGL would probably live.

[Daixiwen]

Not surprisingly, nVidia tries to minimize the improvements brought by Mantle and pretend that you can achieve similar performance with optimized OpenGL:
http://www.nag.co.za/2014/01/23/nvidia- ... antle-api/

I'm not familiar with OpenGL enough to know whether this is true or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if they still were working on their own version of a low level API and ditch OpenGL when they are ready

[iblues1976]

After reading this thread I went to web to read more about Mantle.

What I'm not able to find is the Mantle API, to see how it looks.

Question: What is PS4 using for the graphics API, if they are not using OpenGL or DirectX?

[c6burns]

Question: What is PS4 using for the graphics API, if they are not using OpenGL or DirectX?

You choose between not-quite-as-low-level-as-a-hardware-driver custom API, or higher-level API. I assume the lower level API gives hardcore developers a similar flexibility to achieve performance as Mantle. AFAIK the higher level API is just a wrapper to the lower, and the source for it is provided to devs by Sony.

[iblues1976]

So, the "HIgh-Level" API of Mantle is not available to all?

[c6burns]

So, the "HIgh-Level" API of Mantle is not available to all?

You asked about PS4, so I was just answering the quoted question about PS4. Mantle has nothing to do with PS4's graphics API. AFAIK Mantle is only useful to PC developers. Since I don't make AAA games I don't really know (or care) much about Mantle. But I do happen to know XB1 has it's own hardware extension in DX11. PS4 has it's own entire low level graphics API, with higher level wrapper. So I don't think the latest gen consoles care anything about Mantle either.

[Kojack]

I saw a tweet today listing the mantle dll's exported functions:

MANTLE64.DLL

grInitAndEnumerateGpus
grGetGpuInfo
grCreateDevice
grDestroyDevice
grGetExtensionSupport
grGetDeviceQueue
grQueueSubmit
grQueueWaitIdle
grDeviceWaitIdle
grGetMemoryHeapCount
grGetMemoryHeapInfo
grAllocMemory
grFreeMemory
grMapMemory
grUnmapMemory
grGetMultiGpuCompatibility
grOpenSharedQueueSemaphore
grOpenPeerImage
grDestroyObject
grGetObjectInfo
grBindObjectMemory
grCreateFence
grGetFenceStatus
grCreateQueueSemaphore
grSignalQueueSemaphore
grWaitQueueSemaphore
grCreateEvent
grGetEventStatus
grResetEvent
grCreateQueryPool
grGetQueryPoolResults
grGetFormatInfo
grCreateImage
grGetImageSubresourceInfo
grCreateImageView
grCreateColorTargetView
grCreateDepthStencilView
grCreateShader
grCreateGraphicsPipeline
grCreateComputePipeline
grStorePipeline
grLoadPipeline
grCreateSampler
grCreateDescriptorSet
grBeginDescriptorSetUpdate
grEndDescriptorSetUpdate
grAttachSamplerDescriptors
grAttachImageViewDescriptors
grAttachMemoryViewDescriptors
grClearDescriptorSetSlots
grCreateViewportState
grCreateRasterState
grCreateMsaaState
grCreateColorBlendState
grCreateDepthStencilState
grCreateCommandBuffer
grBeginCommandBuffer
grEndCommandBuffer
grResetCommandBuffer
grCmdBindPipeline
grCmdBindStateObject
grCmdBindDescriptorSet
grCmdBindIndexData
grCmdBindTargets
grCmdPrepareMemoryRegions
grCmdPrepareImages
grCmdDraw
grCmdDrawIndexed
grCmdDrawIndirect
grCmdDispatch
grCmdDispatchIndirect
grCmdCopyMemory
grCmdCopyImage
grCmdCopyMemoryToImage
grCmdCopyImageToMemory
grCmdClearColorImage
grCmdClearDepthStencil
grCmdSetEvent
grCmdBeginQuery
grCmdEndQuery
grCmdResetQueryPool
grCmdWriteTimestamp
grCmdInitAtomicCounters
grCmdLoadAtomicCounters
grCmdSaveAtomicCounters
grDbgSetValidationLevel
grDbgRegisterMsgCallback
grDbgSetObjectTag
grDbgSetGlobalOption
grWsiWinGetDisplays
grWsiWinGetDisplayModeList
grWsiWinTakeFullscreenOwnership
grWsiWinReleaseFullscreenOwnership
grWsiWinCreatePresentableImage
grWsiWinQueuePresent

MANTLEAXL64.DLL

grUpdateBorderColorPalette
grCmdBindBorderColorPalette
grCreateAdvancedMsaaState
grCreateFmaskImageView
grQueueDelay
grCreateBorderColorPalette

[TheSHEEEP]

Looks like OpenGL.

I just hope they have a good guide coming with that. Without good documentation or examples, it is pretty much doomed to fail.
Nobody is going to use something unusable if there are alternatives.

[Klaim]

Apparently there are AMD beta drivers providing Mantle support (but no dev kit yet?): http://www.anandtech.com/show/7729/amd- ... acing-more

Also, some benchmark with artificially attractive title: http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/17588 ... -directx-9

[cord]

Just to be clear: AMD has announced Mantle but hasn't released anything downloadable yet. I'm guessing large game studios can get access for a fee.

This is very atypical for AMD, but then again, if Mantle is as good as they say it is, then I could see why they want to string people along.

Mantle would only affect a small part of Ogre. Or Unity, or Irrlicht, ... The GL3+ rendersystem right now is actually very well positioned to move to a Mantle API.

[Klaim]

Here are some news suggesting that maybe the Mantle announcement had a nice side effect on all other APIs, which would make life easier for Ogre implementations I suppose:

http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Card ... coming-GDC

DirectX 12 and a new OpenGL to challenge AMD Mantle coming at GDC?

[Klaim]

Just in case someone didn't notice already, there is now a Mantle White Paper available: http://www.amd.com/Documents/Mantle_White_Paper.pdf

Looks like a very sane simplification of gpu api.

[cord]

Yes.

NVidia didn't clone it yet. Apple did (with Metal, iOS only at this point). Microsoft says they will some day (with DX12).

[cord]

Well, Intel's getting in on the party. Definitely a linkbait article so feel free to skip over the bikeshedding but:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2365909/ ... antle.html

[cord]

http://techreport.com/news/26922/amd-ho ... pengl-next

Maybe, just maybe, OpenGL-Next will be something cool.

[cord]

Finally! This Hello Triangle Example uses the reverse-engineered Mantle API, and the article also says that Vulkan will have many of the same functions with "gr" just replaced with "vk."

It looks like AMD's plan is to work with the standards body (Khronos) until Vulkan is standardized, then build that into their drivers. (Mantle will maybe be deprecated at that point?)

[cybereality]

Mantle is basically dead at this point. AMD even recommends that devs look to DX12 and GLnext.

if you are a developer interested in Mantle "1.0" functionality, we suggest that you focus your attention on DirectX® 12 or GLnext.

http://wccftech.com/amd-ends-revolution ... ublic-sdk/