[PCW/YT] Mantle is a Vulkan (Impact of Next Gen APIs)

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artivix

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May 5, 2014
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“The cross-vendor Khronos Group has chosen the best and brightest parts of Mantle to serve as the foundation for 'Vulkan,' the exciting next version of the storied OpenGL API,” (AMD software engineer) Hallock wrote. “Vulkan combines and extensively iterates on (Mantle’s) characteristics as one new and uniquely powerful graphics API. And as the product of an incredible collaboration between many industry hardware and software vendors, Vulkan paves the way for a renaissance in cross-platform and cross-vendor PC games with exceptional performance, image quality and features.”

Why this matters: Although AMD has had unexpected success with developers adopting Mantle, it was unlikely to become a standard without the support of its chief competitor Nvidia. When Microsoft announced DirectX 12, which adopted features of Mantle, AMD's API looked to be a technological dead end.

But with Vulkan being largely based on Mantle, it could potentially give AMD an advantage over Nvidia and Intel since it knows where the proverbial bodies are buried.

Jon Peddie, a graphics analyst with Jon Peddie Research said an advantage for AMD is there but it's pretty remote.

"It might, but I don’t think so. Vulcan (which isn’t even fully spec’ed yet) is an open Khronos-wide API, and so any of the Khronos members have access to it and can exploit it as they wish," Peddie said. "However, one thing about Vulkan is that its power and efficiency comes with the burden of very low-level (i.e, hard) programming. You really have to know how to manage memory, and draw calls to get it to sit up and sing for you, so smaller firms with limited engineering skills and staff won’t be able to get as much out of it as quickly as larger firms."
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Because Khronos Vulkan is based on a number of fundamental elements of Mantle, there probably is a definite advantage in that programmers already versed in Mantle and game console dev software would be better and quicker in fully utilizing the next gen API.

Also next gen APIs like Mantle/Vulkan/DX12 allows fine-tune software control of all the resources of mobile and desktop systems like multicore multithread CPUs and multithreading multi GPUs and APU GPU combinations.

Additionally Vulkan and the other next gen APIs bring forth graphics and GP compute based on next gen OpenCL. That also corresponds to the direction of the major next gen gaming consoles and plays to the demonstrated GP compute efficiency of AMD (see forum thread on Luxmark V3 and the results http://www.luxmark.info/ ).

There is this Youtube video with a GDC 2015 demo of Stardocks "Ashes of Singularity" RTS running in 4K that is utilizing their Nitrous engine and AMD's Mantle. It is easy to see why after Microsoft and Khronos saw these type of demos running on PCs, they ran back to their graphics API R&D team as if their hair was on fire!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t9UACXikdR0 Demo of Stardock Ashes of Singularity 4K


http://www.pcworld.com/article/2894...ises-from-the-ashes-as-opengls-successor.html PCW Mantle is a Vulkan
 
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Paul98

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2010
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I really hope this ends up doing well on windows, as we already know it will be on other systems. Could really help keep things moving in the right direction.
 
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Final8ty

Golden Member
Jun 13, 2007
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http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/59559306

GDC_2015_Vulkan_Thanks_AMD.png
 
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Noctifer616

Senior member
Nov 5, 2013
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Cloudfire777 said:
Its like saying DirectX12 is Mantle...
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No it's not. DX12 is not based on Mantle. It is based around similar ideas (lower overhead, more control to the app etc). Vulkan is actually based on Mantle, it's the foundation of the API. Yes, it's not going to be the same since it will be modified.
 
Vesku

Vesku

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Aug 25, 2005
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An excellent move by AMD for gaming, the Khronos Group (OpenGL foundation) is in a better position to maintain and expand the API in a manner that all capable hardware can utilize. Also greatly reduces the perceived risk of adoption, i.e. "How long and how well will AMD support this?" Hopefully it gains developer mindshare over DirectX given Microsoft's less than stellar treatment of PC gaming.
 
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3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
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Headfoot said:
Vulkan is a fork of Mantle. It is derived from the same codebase. It is patched Mantle. There is no debate.
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^^^THIS^^^
People wanted AMD to turn Mantle over to Khronos so it could truly be open. They've done exactly that. They renamed it Vulkan so the other IHV's can support it and save face. Be happy everyone.
 
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Headfoot

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2008
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3DVagabond said:
^^^THIS^^^
People wanted AMD to turn Mantle over to Khronos so it could truly be open. They've done exactly that. They renamed it Vulkan so the other IHV's can support it and save face. Be happy everyone.
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That, and they've done some additional development on it building some new features to tie in with their OpenCL compatible compute and shader language (SPIR-V) among a few other enhancements. Its like going from Windows 95 to Windows 98, same code base just more built on it
 
loccothan

loccothan

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Mar 8, 2013
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loccothan.blogspot.com
Noctifer616 said:
No it's not. DX12 is not based on Mantle. It is based around similar ideas (lower overhead, more control to the app etc). Vulkan is actually based on Mantle, it's the foundation of the API. Yes, it's not going to be the same since it will be modified.
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Yeah and XboX 1 is on nV GPU ;-)
85% of the code in DX12 and (especialy 12.1) is based on Mantle...

MS have to do something to Boost performance of XbOX cuz they aim for FHD 30/60FPS :D

Thats the facts about Next-Gen my bro :)
 
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monstercameron

Diamond Member
Feb 12, 2013
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loccothan said:
Yeah and XboX 1 is on nV GPU ;-)
85% of the code in DX12 and (especialy 12.1) is based on Mantle...

MS have to do something to Boost performance of XbOX cuz they aim for FHD 30/60FPS :D

Thats the facts about Next-Gen my bro :)
Click to expand...


Please don't represent opinion as facts without providing a credible source.
What makes you think that dx12 is 85% mantle?
 
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Headfoot

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2008
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It's a semantic issue...

Vulkan is literally Mantle, like it is the same code which they handed to them, that's been patched.

What the other posters seem to be saying is that DX12 is figuratively Mantle -- that it is very similar in design, etc. It might have literal Mantle code in it somewhere, but this isn't confirmed (to my knowledge).

Not understanding this distinction will just lead to pointless round-we-go arguments
 
Stuka87

Stuka87

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2010
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Yeah, there is no direct proof that DX12 has Mantle code in it, but thats mostly because the source is not available for people to dig through. But several Devs have said they are very similar to write for. And some things are nearly identical.

I still think Mantle was an 'alpha' of sorts for DX12. Dice goes through and does a lot of the leg work to determine what issues it has, what oversights there may be, etc. while adding it to one of the most complex games ever made. And they did it in just a few months.

But Vulkan is 100% Mantle, no point in arguing it all.
 
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Final8ty

Golden Member
Jun 13, 2007
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