DirectX and OpenGL to get low level access according to leaked statements (GDC 2014)

[ShintaiDK]

Both the OpenGL and DX announcement was way before Mantle. Its delusional to think Mantle had any effect. And there is still only 1 Mantle game, filled with bugs and issues. Thats not how you showcase something thats supposed to be better. You wait until you can do it correctly. As a result we may see 3 Mantle games in 2014, if we are lucky. BF4, Thief and Sniper Elite 3. And the first two are flops.

 

[TerryMathews]

Both the OpenGL and DX announcement was way before Mantle. Its delusional to think Mantle had any effect. And there is still only 1 Mantle game, filled with bugs and issues. Thats not how you showcase something thats supposed to be better. You wait until you can do it correctly. As a result we may see 3 Mantle games in 2014, if we are lucky. BF4, Thief and Sniper Elite 3. And the first two are flops.

BF4 is a flop? Link?

 

[Grooveriding]

BF4 is a flop? Link?

The 100 best-selling boxed games of 2013

1. Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar)
2. FIFA 14 (EA)
3. Call of Duty: Ghosts (Activision)
4. Battlefield 4 (EA)
5. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (Ubisoft)
6. Tomb Raider (Square Enix)
7. FIFA 13 (EA)
8. LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (Warner Bros)
9. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition (Microsoft)
10. The Last of Us (Sony)

 

[ShintaiDK]

BF4 is a flop? Link?

http://seekingalpha.com/article/197...sses-q3-2014-results-earnings-call-transcript

http://www.hardwarepal.com/ea-stocks-nosedive-due-battlefield-4-sales-decrease/

And sofar it seems the Xbox One and PS4 only sold around 65000 copies combined. But console sales are in free fall:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/02/sony-ps4-nearly-doubles-xbox-ones-us-sales-in-january/

Not even 2 games sold per Xbox One. 2.7mio games in the US for just around 2mio consoles.

 

[Nintendesert]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/197...sses-q3-2014-results-earnings-call-transcript

http://n4g.com/news/1398828/ea-stocks-nosedive-due-to-battlefield-4-sales-decrease

And sofar it seems the Xbox One and PS4 only sold around 65000 copies combined.

Can you please quote the portion on BF4 sales, I can't read the entire article. Thank you. :biggrin:



And the second link, really? An article covering the first two weeks of the game?

 

[ShintaiDK]

The 100 best-selling boxed games of 2013

Boxed UK only

http://www.chart-track.co.uk/index.jsp?c=p/software/uk/latest/index_test.jsp&ct=110022

Also why you see Simcity as the current number 15th for the month. Just to show how wrong it is. Not to mention the disaster called Rome 2. And there is no mention of volume.

 

[OCGuy]

Please don't derail the thread with opinions on sales performance.

If that was a metric that PC gamers lived and died on, we would be discussing Mantle Versus DX in the new hit Summer Release: Angry Flappy Birds II: Mahjong Revolution

 

[ShintaiDK]

Please don't derail the thread with opinions on sales performance.

If that was a metric that PC gamers lived and died on, we would be discussing Mantle Versus DX in the new hit Summer Release: Angry Flappy Birds II: Mahjong Revolution

 

[Grooveriding]

Boxed UK only

http://www.chart-track.co.uk/index.jsp?c=p/software/uk/latest/index_test.jsp&ct=110022

Also why you see Simcity as the current number 15th for the month. Just to show how wrong it is. Not to mention the disaster called Rome 2. And there is no mention of volume.

Global Yearly Chart 2013

1 Grand Theft Auto V (PS3)
Take-Two Interactive, Action 16 16,392,968 16,392,968 2
2 Grand Theft Auto V (X360)
Take-Two Interactive, Action 16 13,097,535 13,097,535 3
3 Pokemon X/Y (3DS)
Nintendo, Role-Playing 13 9,943,660 9,943,660 4
4 Call of Duty: Ghosts (X360)
Activision, Shooter 9 7,767,550 7,767,550 5
5 Call of Duty: Ghosts (PS3)
Activision, Shooter 9 7,026,083 7,026,083 6
6 FIFA Soccer 14 (PS3)
Electronic Arts, Sports 15 5,148,550 5,148,550 7
7 The Last of Us (PS3)
Sony Computer Entertainment America, Adventure 30 4,207,301 4,207,301 8
8 Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS)
Nintendo, Action 61 4,185,260 6,251,519 9
9 FIFA Soccer 14 (X360)
Electronic Arts, Sports 15 3,563,482 3,563,482 10
10 Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (3DS)
Nintendo, Adventure 42 3,402,410 3,402,410 11
11 Monster Hunter 4 (3DS)
Capcom, Role-Playing 17 3,234,463 3,234,463 12
12 Minecraft (X360)
Microsoft Game Studios, Adventure 31 3,219,571 3,219,571 13
13 Just Dance 2014 (Wii)
Ubisoft, Misc 14 2,723,677 2,723,677 14
14 Battlefield 4 (X360)
Electronic Arts, Shooter 10 2,512,808 2,512,808 15
15 Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (PS3)
Ubisoft, Action 10 2,430,648 2,430,648 16
16 Call of Duty: Black Ops II (PS3)
Activision, Shooter 60 2,252,719 11,013,864 17
17 New Super Mario Bros. U (WiiU)
Nintendo, Action 59 2,225,412 3,516,111 18
18 Battlefield 4 (PS3)
Electronic Arts, Shooter 10 2,215,295 2,215,295

 

[Nintendesert]

Back on topic, this is the kind of good results Mantle and even SteamOS can truly bring to PC gaming. MS vastly improves DX. Hopefully it pans out. As for announcement timelines, it doesn't matter unless we know when the private discussions were occurring.

Better DX performance on lower end CPU/GPU with a non-fragmented environment is the best result for gamers and the PC game market in general.

 

[OCGuy]

Back on topic, this is the kind of good results Mantle and even SteamOS can truly bring to PC gaming. MS vastly improves DX. Hopefully it pans out. As for announcement timelines, it doesn't matter unless we know when the private discussions were occurring.

To this day I have yet to see Mantle provide something that could even be remotely considered "gotta-have."

With the delay of the API at another game launch, it really makes you have to consider that maybe it isn't so easy for developers to port from consoles.

 

[AnandThenMan]

I'll believe it when I see it. D3D has been a bloated mess for so long and we're supposed to believe all of a sudden it's going to be magically transformed into a lean and thin API like Mantle?

Riiiiiiiiiight.

 

[Nintendesert]

To this day I have yet to see Mantle provide something that could even be remotely considered "gotta-have."

With the delay of the API at another game launch, it really makes you have to consider that maybe it isn't so easy for developers to port from consoles.

What it actually does isn't that important, what MS perceives the potential threat in it is though. As a 680 owner Mantle only interests me in how it shakes up MS to act, which I hope it has.

To me what Mantle did do was give life to low end CPUs, which is great for PC gamers. Our numbers can demand more exclusive attention vs. all the console ports we get shoveled.

 

[f1sherman]

http://www.slideshare.net/CassEveritt/beyond-porting

 

[VulgarDisplay]

To this day I have yet to see Mantle provide something that could even be remotely considered "gotta-have."

With the delay of the API at another game launch, it really makes you have to consider that maybe it isn't so easy for developers to port from consoles.

Mantle increased my BF4 minimums by 47 fps. If you don't consider that a gotta have scenario then there is something wrong with your brain.

As for DX making Mantle irrelevant, I could care less if it gives me the performance of Mantle.

 

[biostud]

I'm all for better technology and drivers. But we still need games that aren't low polygon console ports.......and are fun to play

hopefully once they drop support for PS3 and Xbox 360, better graphics will be coming to PC as well.

 

[OCGuy]

Mantle increased my BF4 minimums by 47 fps. If you don't consider that a gotta have scenario then there is something wrong with your brain.

As for DX making Mantle irrelevant. I could care less if it gives me the performance of Mantle.

That actually could be awesome, is there a comparable system to yours in a review?

 

[tolis626]

hopefully once they drop support for PS3 and Xbox 360, better graphics will be coming to PC as well.

I think I remember that being the case during the last console cycle,when the PS3 was released (Never owned an XBox so can't comment on that).Initially available games were somewhat terrible,but were still better than their PS2 counterparts (CoD 3 comes in mind-terrible game btw) IQ-wise.When they finally let the PS2 die,and after the celebrations and fireworks stopped,graphics improved quite a bit.I don't see why this can't happen this time round too.

 

[3DVagabond]

With Mantle being delayed on another title, I think any DX improvements are welcome.

Why the spin? DX improvements are able to stand on their own. It surely isn't welcome due to Mantle not coming with Thief on release day. Absolutely irrelevant.

Any close to the metal API refinements that MS implement are a direct result of AMD inventing and delivering with Mantle.
Everyone wants Direct X to be more granular and allow greater freedom to developers whilst still being hardware agnostic.
AMD is right there at the Microsoft meeting,that's a smart move and is hard to fault.

It's impossible to fault on AMD's part. The only problem I see is it puts the ball back in Microsoft's court. Which means they can continue to bend us over by holding us hostage to their next OS update if we want the latest DX features. Hopefully with the other players they can be controlled a bit. I would much rather see the OpenGL version take over, but Microsoft will have too much resources pulling in their direction.

 

[Jodell88]

For OpenGL this was approved by the ARB in June 2013, and ratified by the Khronos Group in July 2013.

http://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/ARB/shader_draw_parameters.txt

Here's a link to it in action.
http://www.openglsuperbible.com/2013/10/16/the-road-to-one-million-draws/

 

[VulgarDisplay]

That actually could be awesome, is there a comparable system to yours in a review?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36066461&postcount=16

No reviews, but there's my testing. Full 32 man server, found the lowest FPS spot I could, and checked with mantle and DX. Mantle actually just hits my FPS cap so it could be more than 46fps increase. I play at CPU limited settings, but so do many other competitive players on 120hz monitors.

Mantle has been a godsend.

 

[OCGuy]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36066461&postcount=16

No reviews, but there's my testing. Full 32 man server, found the lowest FPS spot I could, and checked with mantle and DX. Mantle actually just hits my FPS cap so it could be more than 46fps increase. I play at CPU limited settings, but so do many other competitive players on 120hz monitors.

Yea there is no way to say (scientifically, not saying you dont know what runs better on your system) that the API caused the difference and quantify it.

Trying to keep 120FPS going with all of the eye-candy off seems counter-intuitive to me personally.

 

[f1sherman]

OK so what happens with Mantle when MS/NV start throwing $$ on DX12/OpenGL

Well deserved retirement?

 

[OCGuy]

OK so what happens with Mantle when MS/NV start throwing $$ on DX12/OpenGL

Well deserved retirement?

All that needs to happen for Mantle to "retire" is for AMD to stop pumping money into it. Could it someday get a natural/native following? Sure. But basic math says that it takes time to implement it, and time = money, and game-studios are not going to pick up that tab.

 

[Jodell88]

OK so what happens with Mantle when MS/NV start throwing $$ on DX12/OpenGL

Well deserved retirement?

AMD is going to try to get mantle into the OpenGL specification, or implement them as extensions to OpenGL in their driver. Microsoft will spend money on DirectX.