AMD unveil Mantle and EA/BF4 drops DirectX

[The Joker]

At AMD's GPU14 Tech Day event in Hawaii, alongside the brand new Radeon R9 290X GPU, the company has also unveiled a new development model called 'Mantle'. As a combination of both API specifications and GPU drivers, Mantle will allow developers to fully unlock the graphics potential of the GCN architecture of the new (and likely the previous) Radeon series, through low-level high-performance drivers.

Battlefield 4 will be the first title to use Mantle, with the technology coming through a free update in December. Mantle brings greater control of the GPU and CPU to game developers, especially in the memory department, which will allow games to harness the full potential of graphics cards. This model will be more similar to what is found on consoles, where developers have huge control over what hardware they use in their games.

While the technology is still in early stages, EA says it will allow PC game developers to harness even more graphics power than ever before. Where possible, Mantle will be used instead of DirectX 11 on compatible AMD hardware, although it's still compatible with other rendering APIs. AMD claims Mantle enables nine times more draw calls per second than other APIs, which is a huge increase in performance.

We've been told at the GPU14 Tech Day event that the Mantle API is open, so theoretically Nvidia could purpose the technology in their GPUs. It should also make cross-development between PC and console games a lot easier, and also more incredible for those with a high-performance AMD GPU.

http://www.techspot.com/news/54134-a...rformance.html

This is pretty insane, I never thought anyone would drop DX lol
All in all really good news for us gamers though.

[Edelweiss]

On my birthday!

[The Joker]

For the 1st time in history it'll finally benefit gamers to buy one gpu over another.
If this is the future I am all for it.

[AlphaJohn]

Looks like everyone is dropping DX, hell even Steam's Source 2 engine is said to be OpenGL based instead of DX.

Guess Microsoft's grip on gaming is finally coming to an end?

[Isengard]

Very very interesting development. And seeing as how I have an AMD GPU, this is very compelling.

[The Joker]

Looks like everyone is dropping DX, hell even Steam's Source 2 engine is said to be OpenGL based instead of DX.

Guess Microsoft's grip on gaming is finally coming to an end?

Very very interesting development. And seeing as how I have an AMD GPU, this is very compelling.

Yip, The future of gaming is looking bright

[BeoTeK]

How will it fair with older AMD GPU's ?

Seeing as I have a HD5970, will the tech still be viable?

[MetalSoup]

Does this mean we're going back to proprietary API's, or am I understanding this wrong? I hope that's not the case.

[AlphaJohn]

Does this mean we're going back to proprietary API's, or am I understanding this wrong? I hope that's not the case.

Well almost, at least they opened it up so iIts a "Use if you want" scenario so not as bad as the old days before DX.

We've been told at the GPU14 Tech Day event that the Mantle API is open, so theoretically Nvidia could purpose the technology in their GPUs.

[Grievous]

Ok I don't really understand. Will this apply to all AMD graphics cards? I buying a new card, pretty much for battlefield. so should I go for AMD?