Horse Armour
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Update: AMD twitter confirm it's true
AMD have retweeted the Anandtech article as being correct. Lol at people who have no idea what they're talking about doubting them.
https://twitter.com/AMDRadeon/status/383349757428506624
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7371/understanding-amds-mantle-a-lowlevel-graphics-api-for-gcn
If this is true, I hope it forces MS or someone neutral to start developing a console style low level API usable by all since AMD have just proven it's possible. Also, what does this mean for the traditional console optimisation that consoles have leveraged to output graphics better than their PC equivalents? Will consoles be outdated quicker this gen than the last?
AMD have retweeted the Anandtech article as being correct. Lol at people who have no idea what they're talking about doubting them.
https://twitter.com/AMDRadeon/status/383349757428506624
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7371/understanding-amds-mantle-a-lowlevel-graphics-api-for-gcn
What’s not being said, but what becomes increasingly hinted at as we read through AMD’s material is not just that Mantle is a low level API, but rather Mantle is the low level API. As in it’s either a direct copy or a very close derivative of the Xbox One’s low level graphics API. All of the pieces are there; AMD will tell you from the start that Mantle is designed to leverage the optimization work done for games on the next generation consoles, and furthermore Mantle can even use the Direct3D High Level Shader Language (HLSL), the high level shader language Xbox One shaders will be coded against in the first place. Let’s be very clear here: AMD will not discuss the matter let alone confirm it, so this is speculation on our part. But it’s speculation that we believe is well grounded. Based on what we know thus far, we believe Mantle is the Xbox One’s low level API brought to the PC.
If indeed Mantle is the Xbox One’s low level API, then this changes the frame of reference for Mantle dramatically. No longer is Mantle just a new low level API for AMD GCN cards, whose success is defined by whether AMD can get developers to create games specifically for it, but Mantle becomes the bridge for porting over Xbox One games to the PC. Developers who make extensive use of the Xbox One low level API would be able to directly bring over large pieces of their rendering code to the PC and reuse it, and in doing so maintain the benefits of using that low-level code in the first place. Mantle will not (and cannot) preclude the need for developers to also do a proper port to Direct3D – after all AMD is currently the minority party in the discrete PC graphics space – but it does provide the option of keeping that low level code, when in the past that would never be an option.
If this is true, I hope it forces MS or someone neutral to start developing a console style low level API usable by all since AMD have just proven it's possible. Also, what does this mean for the traditional console optimisation that consoles have leveraged to output graphics better than their PC equivalents? Will consoles be outdated quicker this gen than the last?