AMD @ GDC: Partnership with MS next-generation graphics.

[3DVagabond]

On the topic, there will be some new DX12 features as well. So for a card to be real DX12 new hardware is needed. No current hardware supports all functions. But all DX11.0 hardware is capable of the benefit.

Source? What new features? Since it will run on hardware all the way back to Fermi, I can't see that it has a new feature set, except for direct GPU access.

 

[f1sherman]

Source? What new features? Since it will run on hardware all the way back to Fermi, I can't see that it has a new feature set, except for direct GPU access.

DirectX 12 will also add new features for next-gen GPUs

 

[3DVagabond]

DirectX 12 will also add new features for next-gen GPUs

Thanks. :thumbsup:

Seems like them saying GCN, Fermi, Kepler, and Maxwell already support it is a matter of interpretation then.

 

[NTMBK]

Go read article of Dx12 Both Nvidia and AMD both Said we are deeply involved with Ms for development of DX12 since 4 years go read that than we talk.

DX12>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Mantle.

The actual quote in question is this:

Our work with Microsoft on DirectX 12 began more than four years ago with discussions about reducing resource overhead. For the past year, NVIDIA has been working closely with the DirectX team to deliver a working design and implementation of DX12 at GDC.

They had "discussions" four years ago, the same way that DICE had "discussions" with Microsoft- and DICE had no success convincing Microsoft to improve their API, and had to go to AMD. Then the actual active development starts last year, oddly enough when Mantle appears on the scene.

 

[f1sherman]

Remember this piece of history about AMD/Microsoft DX12 partnership?

AMD : DirectX Comments Taken Out of Context

AMD is performing damage control, announcing its full support for DirectX after last week's interview with Richard Huddy.

Just over a week after AMD's worldwide developer relations manager of its GPU division, Richard Huddy, spoke out against DirectX and other APIs,
the company now says that it supports DirectX and that the previous comments were taken out of context and exaggerated.
While that may be true, Huddy's latest interview with CRN-- along with senior director of ISV relations at AMD Neal Robison--also comes across as damage control.


They said they fully support it, yet they never bothered to implement one of the biggest DX11 features and to make MT driver.
Instead of that, they decided to deliver powerful API which is all about MT.
But now they have to go back and finish their D3D MultiThreading chores.

Someone else draw conclusions from this, I cant see clearly just how all this has unfolded.

 

[jpiniero]

Yeah, that's what it sounds like. IOW, AMD had to make Mantle to get MS interested in fixing the overhead.

 

[krumme]

Remember this piece of history about AMD/Microsoft DX12 partnership?

AMD : DirectX Comments Taken Out of Context

AMD is performing damage control, announcing its full support for DirectX after last week's interview with Richard Huddy.

Just over a week after AMD's worldwide developer relations manager of its GPU division, Richard Huddy, spoke out against DirectX and other APIs,
the company now says that it supports DirectX and that the previous comments were taken out of context and exaggerated.
While that may be true, Huddy's latest interview with CRN-- along with senior director of ISV relations at AMD Neal Robison--also comes across as damage control.


They said they fully support it, yet they never bothered to implement one of the biggest DX11 features and to make MT driver.
Instead of that, they decided to deliver powerful API which is all about MT.
But now they have to go back and finish their D3D MultiThreading chores.

Someone else draw conclusions from this, I cant see clearly just how all this has unfolded.

DX11 MT was broken. Several devs have said it. And thats why it didnt have any support. Secondly it was not worth it, as it wasnt nessesary for the consoles.

As for what eg AMD, NV, whatever say when MS is in the room and not, is clearly two different things. Its all bowing and sleazing when MS is there, - sweet talk, but they all act like MS is just on old person from the past and invent all kinds of tech and take strategic decisions that point to a future non Win market.

And what did Qualcomm and AMD actually say at the presentation? AMD talk could just as well had been the first 4 mins at the mantle presentation, and Qualcomm said something like graphics is important - mehhh.

The meager quote from Tweeney just shows how weak the enthusiasm is for MS as a platform. Everyone just wants them to stay away.

The Xbox sales numbers is disapointing and disturbing. Win as a tablet platform is a sales failure. Win 8 sales is an outright disaster. No dev support for MS just confirms what everyone know and speaks about behind closed doors (with someone speaking "out of context" woops lol), but nobody wants to speak out loud; - The emperor has no clothes

 

[frozentundra123456]

Despite all the bad mouthing of Microsoft, and all the arguments about how similar dx12 is to mantle, who did what, when, why, etc, all the irrelevant comments about Xbox sales, there is one big difference between mantle and dx12. DX 12 will remove the biggest weakness of mantle-- the inability to run on anything except gcn hardware. This makes it hugely more significant than mantle, no matter how much amd fans want to deny it.

It is really ironic that those who hailed mantle as a game changer when it applies to only 30% of the market are now so roundly condemning an API that will hopefully bring the same benefits to the entire market.

 

[NTMBK]

Despite all the bad mouthing of Microsoft, and all the arguments about how similar dx12 is to mantle, who did what, when, why, etc, all the irrelevant comments about Xbox sales, there is one big difference between mantle and dx12. DX 12 will remove the biggest weakness of mantle-- the inability to run on anything except gcn hardware. This makes it hugely more significant than mantle, no matter how much amd fans want to deny it.

It is really ironic that those who hailed mantle as a game changer when it applies to only 30% of the market are now so roundly condemning an API that will hopefully bring the same benefits to the entire market.

Hey, I'm all for it. We get the benefits of Mantle, but supported on more hardware and hence in more games. And if it genuinely is a copy-paste of Mantle then that means that porting games between DX12 and Mantle should be pretty easy- certainly easier than porting between DX11 and OpenGL 4- which will help Linux gaming out if AMD ever get their act together and port Mantle to Linux. Bring on DX12.

I'm just sick of people trying to use it as an excuse to badmouth AMD, when it's basically a validation of Mantle's ideals.

 

[krumme]

Despite all the bad mouthing of Microsoft, and all the arguments about how similar dx12 is to mantle, who did what, when, why, etc, all the irrelevant comments about Xbox sales, there is one big difference between mantle and dx12. DX 12 will remove the biggest weakness of mantle-- the inability to run on anything except gcn hardware. This makes it hugely more significant than mantle, no matter how much amd fans want to deny it.

It is really ironic that those who hailed mantle as a game changer when it applies to only 30% of the market are now so roundly condemning an API that will hopefully bring the same benefits to the entire market.

Its difficult to condemm something hardly different from Mantle that gives gamer a huge free benefit. I think its safe to assume dx12 can give the same benefits. Its great.

But its still 2 years away and we dont know if anyone is going to program for it and to what degree. After all at that time the gcn consoles constitute the major market, who know where steam is, and if dx12 is tied to win9 it can be utterly irrelevant for the devs. Its not about mantle or amd its about linux and other platform eradiating the market. This low level api should just have been here 2 years ago and not 2 years from now. The problems is as obvious as the benefit of a low level api.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Hey, I'm all for it. We get the benefits of Mantle, but supported on more hardware and hence in more games. And if it genuinely is a copy-paste of Mantle then that means that porting games between DX12 and Mantle should be pretty easy- certainly easier than porting between DX11 and OpenGL 4- which will help Linux gaming out if AMD ever get their act together and port Mantle to Linux. Bring on DX12.

I'm just sick of people trying to use it as an excuse to badmouth AMD, when it's basically a validation of Mantle's ideals.

Bad mouthing AMD? Have you and I been reading the same thread? This whole thread has been a diatribe against Microsoft (not addressing you personally). I am no fan of microsoft, and undoubtedly DX needs improvement, and was pushed towards it by mantle. I also hate windows 8, and think MS has gotten arrogant. But personally, I dont care who was first, who copied who, or what went on behind the scenes. In fact despite statements from some of those involved, we probably will never know that. But now MS is bringing the benefits of mantle to the other 60 plus percent of the market that does not run gcn hardware. It may be late and patterned off mantle, but I still cant see that as a bad thing.

PC gaming most likely would never have reached the point it has today without an overriding API that allows all games to be played on hardware from all vendors.
I can play any game I want on a 600.00 PC with a added in 100 dollar video card. Sure I cant play BF4 at a constant 120 fps, but that does not bother me. DX has to have something going for it to allow that.

 

[Carfax83]

I see no angst against dx12, but endless amounts of it towards mantle. Why would anyone posting about the pros of mantle be mad? They are the same pros as dx12. Once dx12 hits all the amd users will continue to enjoy the same low level api they already did for 1.5 years.

The angst towards Mantle was driven by it's exclusive nature, and the fact that AMD pretty much mislead everyone in the beginning into believing they were trying to position it as a replacement for DirectX, when in truth it was never meant to be..

I actually sense a lot of jealousy from posters here and PR folks trying to save face with the dx12 press conference.

Jealousy? Is that what you call it? Mantle is great and useful no doubt, but I can still hit triple digit frame rates in BF4 on DX11.1 at 1440p max detail..

Because of Mantle's exclusionary nature, you will never see what the API is truly capable of because developers will always develop for DirectX first and foremost..

 

[Carfax83]

DX11 MT was broken. Several devs have said it. And thats why it didnt have any support. Secondly it was not worth it, as it wasnt nessesary for the consoles.

Don't talk such nonsense.. DX11 MT wasn't broken. If it was broken, then it wouldn't have been implemented in any games at all, even in a game like Project CARS that's due out this year.

The Xbox sales numbers is disapointing and disturbing. Win as a tablet platform is a sales failure. Win 8 sales is an outright disaster. No dev support for MS just confirms what everyone know and speaks about behind closed doors (with someone speaking "out of context" woops lol), but nobody wants to speak out loud; - The emperor has no clothes

Not even worth responding to, as this is just inflammatory nonsense. Also, the Xbox One sales aren't disappointing or disturbing. Both next gen consoles are selling well.

In fact, with the release of Titanfall and the greater overall supply of the Xbox One, Microsoft is starting to catch up to Sony whilst retaining a higher profit margins.

 

[Carfax83]

They had "discussions" four years ago, the same way that DICE had "discussions" with Microsoft- and DICE had no success convincing Microsoft to improve their API, and had to go to AMD. Then the actual active development starts last year, oddly enough when Mantle appears on the scene.

Comments like this are the "angst" about DX12 I was referring to in my post. Talk about wishful thinking.. The comment said "work" began on DX12 four years ago with discussions.

If you think they are just going to start engineering it without first seriously debating and discussing what will eventually become an industry standard with very wide adoption then you are sadly mistaken and hopelessly ignorant when it comes to how the development process works.

Mantle was in development for 3 years before it was even announced (although there were plenty of hints), and Mantle only runs on one architecture, and not several like DirectX..

 

[AnandThenMan]

Saying "work began" 4 years ago on DX12 is not a compliment, or an endorsement or a positive. It's an extremely puzzling statement at best because that would mean it will take 6+ years for DX12 to see be released.

Rather than MS or AMD ripping off each other for the same idea/goals, isn't it more believable to see them actually working together to implement this new API, Xbone/Mantle -> DX12, because a console hardware and dev SDK would also take years to finalize and thus, would have to be co-developed.

It was tweeted (forget by who ATM) that DX12 is Microsoft's own creation, not exactly sure to what end we're supposed to take that statement.

The angst towards Mantle was driven by it's exclusive nature, and the fact that AMD pretty much mislead everyone in the beginning into believing they were trying to position it as a replacement for DirectX, when in truth it was never meant to be..

Source please.

 

[sontin]

Comments like this are the "angst" about DX12 I was referring to in my post. Talk about wishful thinking.. The comment said "work" began on DX12 four years ago with discussions.

If you think they are just going to start engineering it without first seriously debating and discussing what will eventually become an industry standard with very wide adoption then you are sadly mistaken and hopelessly ignorant when it comes to how the development process works.

Mantle was in development for 3 years before it was even announced (although there were plenty of hints), and Mantle only runs on one architecture, and not several like DirectX..

And dont forget, guys:
Microsoft started the Xbox One DX11.x API right after the Mantle announcement end of september and released it 1 1/2 months later. D:

BTW: How can anybody call "DX11 MT broken" when it increase the performance in the Star Swarm demo more than 2x with deferred context.

 

[Gloomy]

Yeah and MS have been working on DX12 for over fifteen years. What a BS and inflated statement that was, that only serves to make MS and Nvidia seem incompetent. If Nvidia and MS and AMD and Intel have been working on DX12 for four years, then how does that not make them look like bumbling morons and the process look flawed, since AMD by itself could make and ship an API in two years?

And let's be clear here, Mantle is running on two games already-- it's done, shipped, working. It's way ahead.

Since I don't think these companies are totally incompetent, I'd prefer to think that Nvidia's statement, while true, mostly means they started talking about it 4 years ago after DX11 was finalized and Microsoft took their usual lackadaisical approach to progress, which probably resulted in the ultimately abortive DX11 multithreading extension.

To put that statement further into perspective, the first DX11 games were still being released four years ago.

Please don't drink Nvidia's Kool-Aid.

 

[TreVader]

Despite all the bad mouthing of Microsoft, and all the arguments about how similar dx12 is to mantle, who did what, when, why, etc, all the irrelevant comments about Xbox sales, there is one big difference between mantle and dx12. DX 12 will remove the biggest weakness of mantle-- the inability to run on anything except gcn hardware. This makes it hugely more significant than mantle, no matter how much amd fans want to deny it.

It is really ironic that those who hailed mantle as a game changer when it applies to only 30% of the market are now so roundly condemning an API that will hopefully bring the same benefits to the entire market.

So 2 years later, MS is HOPING to match mantle? Where do you think mantle will be then?



DX12 is the definition of vaporware and it's ironic that all the mantle haters who called it vaporware when it was weeks from coming out are now elated at the release of vaporware that doesn't even have benchmarks or demos.

 

[R0H1T]

Yeah and MS have been working on DX12 for over fifteen years. What a BS and inflated statement that was, that only serves to make MS and Nvidia seem incompetent. If Nvidia and MS and AMD and Intel have been working on DX12 for four years, then how does that not make them look like bumbling morons and the process look flawed, since AMD by itself could make and ship an API in two years?

And let's be clear here, Mantle is running on two games already-- it's done, shipped, working. It's way ahead.

Since I don't think these companies are totally incompetent, I'd prefer to think that Nvidia's statement, while true, mostly means they started talking about it 4 years ago after DX11 was finalized and Microsoft took their usual lackadaisical approach to progress, which probably resulted in the ultimately abortive DX11 multithreading extension.

To put that statement further into perspective, the first DX11 games were still being released four years ago.

Please don't drink Nvidia's Kool-Aid.

Only AMD haters would give credence to such a comment, I've been beta testing win8 (& later versions) for nearly 3yrs now & I can safely say that there was no DX12 4yrs back & there wouldn't have been one in 2015 if it weren't for the utter failure of win8, on all platforms !

 

[ams23]

Mantle is in it's beta stages, and even support for GCN 1.0 cards has been shaky at best. Considering all the bugs, it is very obvious that Mantle was rushed out even after being initially delayed following the launch of BF4. Obviously it is much easier and quicker for one IHV to push out an IHV-specific and GPU-specific API than for Microsoft to push out an IHV-agnostic and industry standard API that will shape gaming on all Windows and Xbox platforms for years and years to come.

 

[wand3r3r]

Mantle is in it's beta stages, and even support for GCN 1.0 cards has been shaky at best. Considering all the bugs, it is very obvious that Mantle was rushed out even after being initially delayed following the launch of BF4. Obviously it is much easier and quicker for one IHV to push out an IHV-specific and GPU-specific API than for Microsoft to push out an IHV-agnostic and industry standard API that will shape gaming on all Windows and Xbox platforms for years and years to come.

Please do expand about all the bugs and "shakyness".

I played BF4 yesterday for a while on 290x crossfire and was very satisfied. It worked very well imo.

How has your experience with mantle been lately, I'm going to assume you are experiencing some bugs since you claim there are so "many"?

 

[wand3r3r]

This thread is too funny.

All the mantle haters/bashers have switched from it will never get marketshare etc. to DX12 is coming! It will save us all. You guys can give credit where credit is due and look forward to getting some of the benefits of the low level API you have been bashing for months.

I look forward to DX12, I have no axes to grind against any of the companies involved but it does appear AMD hit a home run with mantle and will be well positioned to benefit from the work they have put into it. Those without GCN can enjoy (presumably) similar benefits in 2015 or 2016 or whenever the DX12 games start coming. I wonder if FrostBite will be easy/easier to port to DX12 now that they have already done the groundwork to port to mantle.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Mantle has succeeded in smacking the entire gaming landscape square in the face. Even if Mantle were to cease to exist tomorrow, Pandora's box has been opened and there is no going back. Microsoft has acknowledged that there is an urgent need for DirectX to clean up its act, without Mantle that would likely have never happened.

I don't see the downside at all, if you don't like Mantle then wait 2 years and hope for the best. If you want to experience what a thin API can do now, you have that choice.

 

[ams23]

LOL, you can't be serious. Mantle was riddled with bugs when it was released (with both game code and accompanying drivers), and is very much a work in progress even now in it's beta stages (with bugs being sorted out along the way). And let's not forget that Mantle is IHV-specific and GCN-specific too. On the other hand, D3D12 represents the future for all Windows and Xbox gaming platforms.

 

[krumme]

BTW: How can anybody call "DX11 MT broken" when it increase the performance in the Star Swarm demo more than 2x with deferred context.

How about Dan Baker, the creator of Star Swarm demo himself?

"The main difference between OpenGL and D3D is that D3D made an attempt to be threaded, and failed, whereas OpenGL has not yet attempted it. "

http://www.maximumpc.com/AMD_Mantle_Interview_2014