[PCWORLD] Intel approached AMD about access to Mantle

[Final8ty]

Intel has approached AMD about access to its game-boosting Mantle technology, an AMD executive said Friday.

Intel, for its part, confirmed that it has indeed asked AMD for access to the Mantle technology, for what it referred to as an "experiment". However, an Intel spokesman said that it remains committed to what it calls open standards like Microsoft's DirectX API.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2365909/intel-approached-amd-about-access-to-mantle.html

 

[Silverforce11]

Mantle already helps Intel CPU, in BF4 with crossfire, DX11 chokes bad whereas Mantle its always capped at vsync.

Looks like they just want a head start for DX12.

 

[f1sherman]

Yeah Andrew Lauritzen already confirmed that AMD told Intel [that they weren't interested]

Please use appropriate language for this forum.
-- stahlhart

 

[ShintaiDK]

So Intel made a funny out of AMDs claims of "Open".

"At the time of the initial Mantle announcement, we were already investigating rendering overhead based on game developer feedback," an Intel spokesman said in an email. "Our hope was to build consensus on potential approaches to reduce overhead with additional data. We have publicly asked them to share the spec with us several times as part of examination of potential ways to improve APIs and increase efficiencies. At this point though we believe that DirectX 12 and ongoing work with other industry bodies and OS vendors will address the issues that game developers have noted."

Not to mention Intel and others was already busy working on the same issues before the Mantle announcement.

Good thing AMD never complained about closed source...oh wait

Lets see how Huddy spins this one after attacking nVidia for essentially the same.

 

[BrightCandle]

After Huddy's interview we know that Mantle is anything but open and can never be a standard. AMD intends to own it, change it and do what they want with Mantle and the potential to harm their competitors with it means its a very bad idea for any other company to go anywhere near it.

Presumably Intel asked for it so they can do some performance work ahead of DX12 without having to go through the design effort themselves, I doubt they would want to do much else with it than see what its capable of and what impact it has considering the amount of harm AMD could do to Intel if they did actually implement it and release it to their customers.

 

[Lonyo]

After Huddy's interview we know that Mantle is anything but open and can never be a standard. AMD intends to own it, change it and do what they want with Mantle and the potential to harm their competitors with it means its a very bad idea for any other company to go anywhere near it.

Presumably Intel asked for it so they can do some performance work ahead of DX12 without having to go through the design effort themselves, I doubt they would want to do much else with it than see what its capable of and what impact it has considering the amount of harm AMD could do to Intel if they did actually implement it and release it to their customers.

But when you say that about other people's technology, people say "so what?".

So... so what? Apparently it's OK for one company to do that, but not the other, according to various people.

Which is why open is always the best way. That way one competitor can't control the other. It's amazing that with CPUs the market hasn't gone tits up but Intel have anti-competition considerations, thankfully, and massive fines.
Last thing we need is for one GPU company to have control over another.

I also find it hilarious that people are complaining because it's Intel talking about GPUs. I've said for years that people need to look beyond NV vs AMD because Intel will pop up eventually. Maybe now is that time? Suddenly people care about Intel in the GPU sphere and the AMD vs NV "war", and NOW they think things need to be open.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34868481&postcount=114

Each side?
You mean each of the three "sides", AMD, NV and Intel?

The problem that AT Video Forum has is that they are far too focused on AMD vs NV.
AT Video forum needs to wake up and realise Intel is going to join the party, and rather than arguing about AMD vs NV, they should be considering how the future might look with Intel taking part, since we're in a thread about non-3D gaming stuff.

But too many people want to shout about AMD or NV instead and ignore the bigger picture (being the other 50% of the GPU market...)

 

[Hitman928]

Quotes I found interesting (that haven't been mentioned):

The Mantle drivers are part of AMD's Catalyst software, a wrapper for AMD's software drivers. Huddy described Catalyst as "a little long in the tooth," and said his understanding was that AMD planned to "rev it" with a new update soon.

I know that Intel have approached us for access to the Mantle interfaces, et cetera," Huddy said. " And right now, we've said, give us a month or two, this is a closed beta, and we'll go into the 1.0 [public release] phase sometime this year, which is less than five months if you count forward from June. They have asked for access, and we will give it to them when we open this up, and we'll give it to anyone who wants to participate in this.

For now, Mantle's focus is on improving the frame rates of games that tap into it, an easy way to sell AMD's performance to the numbers-obsessed world of gamers and benchmarking sites. That doesn't preclude AMD spending resources to improve the graphical quality, though.

"Our very first iteration has primarily focused on a performance differentiation, but we do know with that extra performance we can spend it on extra [image] quality," Huddy said.

"I would think that a workstation app developer who has looked at any care at what we have done with Mantle so far would realize that there is a pretty significant benefit" with Mantle, he said.

 

[Mand]

But when you say that about other people's technology, people say "so what?".

So... so what? Apparently it's OK for one company to do that, but not the other, according to various people.http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34868481&postcount=114

No, what we complain about is when a company says it's being open because all this closed proprietary stuff sucks...and then is not open.

People who say, straight up, that they're being proprietary we accept much more readily when it turns out to not be open, because it's not a surprise.

AMD has talked about two things now where it claimed it was open and wonderful, and then have turned out to not be open at all. FreeSync, and now it seems from the Huddy interview, Mantle. That's not a good thing, for them to make major bones, publicly, about how wonderful a thing it is for their stuff to be open and then have it turn out to be not the case.

I get that there is a major "open is better for EVERYONE ALWAYS!!!!" contingent, ever since Linux, but it's really just not the case. I really doubt that people think that Maxwell and Volcanic Islands should be open, non-proprietary technology. Okay, maybe some people do, but those with any sense of realism will understand that proprietary products are how each company makes its money. They really do try to make innovative things under proprietary protection in order to make profit off of it.

It'd be wonderful if we could live in a utopia where everyone gives us awesome things for free, but how is that even remotely reasonable to expect?

 

[Leadbox]

No, what we complain about is when a company says it's being open because all this closed proprietary stuff sucks...and then is not open.

People who say, straight up, that they're being proprietary we accept much more readily when it turns out to not be open, because it's not a surprise.

AMD has talked about two things now where it claimed it was open and wonderful, and then have turned out to not be open at all. FreeSync, and now it seems from the Huddy interview, Mantle. That's not a good thing, for them to make major bones, publicly, about how wonderful a thing it is for their stuff to be open and then have it turn out to be not the case.

I get that there is a major "open is better for EVERYONE ALWAYS!!!!" contingent, ever since Linux, but it's really just not the case. I really doubt that people think that Maxwell and Volcanic Islands should be open, non-proprietary technology. Okay, maybe some people do, but those with any sense of realism will understand that proprietary products are how each company makes its money. They really do try to make innovative things under proprietary protection in order to make profit off of it.

It'd be wonderful if we could live in a utopia where everyone gives us awesome things for free, but how is that even remotely reasonable to expect?

When you finally come to understand the difference between Adaptive Sync (the VESA open standard) and Freesync (AMD's software/hardware solution using adaptive sync that can only work with radeons) you will find yourself in a better place

 

[3DVagabond]

Yeah Andrew Lauritzen already confirmed that AMD told Intel [that they weren't interested]

I think AMD is telling everyone to "that they weren't interested" until it's ready. What is the point of other IHV's being involved in the beta process? The last thing AMD wants for Mantle is a design by committee like OpenGL.

So Intel made a funny out of AMDs claims of "Open".

Not to mention Intel and others was already busy working on the same issues before the Mantle announcement.

Good thing AMD never complained about closed source...oh wait

Lets see how Huddy spins this one after attacking nVidia for essentially the same.

I gather you haven't listened to the Huddy interviews, even though you comment like crazy about them? He explains AMD's position, and even comments on Intel's request in particular. You ought to actually listen before you continually go off disparagingly about it.

After Huddy's interview we know that Mantle is anything but open and can never be a standard. AMD intends to own it, change it and do what they want with Mantle and the potential to harm their competitors with it means its a very bad idea for any other company to go anywhere near it.

Presumably Intel asked for it so they can do some performance work ahead of DX12 without having to go through the design effort themselves, I doubt they would want to do much else with it than see what its capable of and what impact it has considering the amount of harm AMD could do to Intel if they did actually implement it and release it to their customers.

Yes, AMD does intend on owning it completely. I think they believe they can run it like Msft runs DX. I guess they believe since it will be totally transparent with the complete source available that people will see they aren't pulling any Shens.

I agree with you it will be difficult for others to adopt it as this open and free attitude could end and then where would the other IHV's be? Different management in the future could decide to change Mantle and disadvantage others. On the other side I can see why AMD wants to keep control so they can develop and add their own features without interference from the other IHV's. While we can debate whether or not nVidia would try and leverage an advantage, there's no doubt that Intel and Msft have done it in the past and can't be trusted.

 

[f1sherman]

Basically Mantle aims to be about as open as CUDA

@3DVagabond
Unless something amazing happens during this monopoly era, and unless DX12 falls short of its goals, Mantle has limited time-window in which it has to impose itself.
Intel asking them for Mantle specs was proly not due to their honest intention of adoption, but this is only the consequence of Mantle time running out.

But what if AMD had approached Intel or Apple or MSFT with Mantle a year ago :hmm:

 

[frozentundra123456]

I could see mantle living on in steam boxes or for linux gaming, but neither of those is exactly taking the gaming landscape by storm so far. Steam OS seems kind of forgotten, and Steam Boxes are delayed. And you would still have the problem of only being able to play a subset of games. (Edit: depending on what games you can play on Steam OS. I am still not sure how that will work.)

 

[3DVagabond]

But what if AMD had approached Intel or Apple or MSFT with Mantle a year ago :hmm:

They said that they have been "sharing" their work with Msft all along. Probably a combination of working with the XBox1 and not wanting to piss them off by blindsiding them with Mantle. I don't think they had any of the other IHV's involved though. Nothing they've said would indicate that. I honestly believe that involving other IHV's would have slowed work considerably and they'd all still be sitting around emailing arguments back and forth about it.

nVidia; We own 65% of the discrete market, we should have a bigger say.
Intel; We are the biggest supplier of GPU's in the industry, you will do as we say.
Msft; We own the world!!!
AMD; But it's ours and we are just trying to include everyone to help adoption.

Meanwhile we'd all still be using DX11.* and if you want DX11.2+ you'll need Windows 9.

AMD is chugging along pretty well with this. They said they will match or surpass DX11's 12mos. adoption rate by years end and they will release an SDK and source code for Mantle. I'm not predicting one way or the other, but up until now I think they are doing better than many would have expected. They are moving in a direction that the industry seems to be ready to follow anyway.

 

[sontin]

Good thing AMD never complained about closed source...oh wait

Lets see how Huddy spins this one after attacking nVidia for essentially the same.

Like i said in the past: AMD is a hypocrite company.

Mantle is closed for nVidia and Intel. Nobody has the right to share AMD's code samples without their permission. They are doing the exact same things they are accusing nVidia and Intel.

 

[MTDEW]

Like i said in the past: AMD is a hypocrite company.

Mantle is closed for nVidia and Intel. Nobody has the right to share AMD's code samples without their permission. They are doing the exact same things they are accusing nVidia and Intel.

You guys keep twisting what he said.
Mantle doesn't prevent others from optimizing a game for their hardware using directx any more than something like nvidia physx doesn't prevent AMD from optimizing a game for their hardware.
Whereas on the other hand, Nvidia Gameworks prevents others from fully optimizing a game for their particular hardware period.

 

[sontin]

Mantle runs only on AMD hardware. Nobody can use a Mantle application outside of AMD.

There is zero difference between a Mantle game and a game with gameworks.

And the only reason why games have a DX path is that no sane person would develop a game for less than 20% of the whole market.

 

[MTDEW]

Mantle is an AMD optimization.
The same as PhysX is a Nvidia optimization.
Neither of those prevents others from optimizing a game for their hardware like gameworks does.

If you cannot see the difference, then you're missing the point he was trying to make.

Just give one example of Mantle preventing Nvidia or Intel from optimizing a game for their hardware.

 

[3DVagabond]

Mantle runs only on AMD hardware. Nobody can use a Mantle application outside of AMD.

There is zero difference between a Mantle game and a game with gameworks.

And the only reason why games have a DX path is that no sane person would develop a game for less than 20% of the whole market.

Mantle is a separate render path that doesn't effect nVidia or Intel. As you said, "Nobody can use a Mantle application outside of AMD." Game works isn't. Game works runs in the DX render path and effects all vendors hardware whether it runs optimally or not with no optimizing by the other IHV's for their own hardware. They aren't the same thing at all.

 

[MTDEW]

It may be a bit out of line for me to mention this. (especially here in VC&G)
But it's on my mind so I'm gonna type it anyway and suffer the consequences. :|

These type of discussions always seem to end up with some on the AMD side and some on the Nvidia side.
And everyone forgets the most import side IMO....the GAMERS side.

Whether you own Intel, AMD or Nvidia hardware, you should know that whatever games you play, they are optimized to run the best they can on whatever hardware you purchased with your hard earned money.

Now some games may favor and run better on some hardware, and other games may run better on other hardware.....that's just the way it will always be.

Paying a developer to ensure the game runs best on your hardware or add features that showoff your hardware is one thing. (and a good thing IMO to entice gamers to buy your hardware)
But anything that prevents games from being optimized on different hardware other than yours, is doing nothing but screwing the GAMERS side IMO.

 

[BrightCandle]

I think people are misunderstanding what Huddy's comments were around Mantle and the implications of them.

- He said that the API would hopefully by the end of the year be open for others to implement without licence. He did not say that Mantle would be open sourced, on the contrary he said they would maintain control (the exact opposite).

- He also said that with Mantle by maintaining control they could release hardware and drivers and Mantle the same day to allow the market access to new hardware features immediately. He did not say that the IHVs would be able to do the same, he actually said the opposite, that AMD maintained control of Mantle.

Thus the implication is that any other IHV that got involved in Mantle could be dramatically hurt by AMD. AMD could introduce new API calls for hardware their competitors don't have or can't implement efficiently and this could impact them for years. The competitors have the right to implement the API but not have any input in how it moves forward, thus AMD's agenda is the only agenda that makes it into the API.

So what does that mean? Well Mantle is a proprietry API, its neither free or open it simple doesn't require a licence to implement it (does DirectX require one? Probably not).

Mantle is a bad deal for all the competitors of AMD if they were to implement it, none of them should agree to those terms. Under these conditions no standards body would be willing to ratify it either, the key point about a standard is that all participants in that standard get to input into it and evolve it. Standards don't have to be open source or free but they do have to have a committee to ensure fair and equal progress. Mantle is not suitable for standardisation in any way.

Not implementing Mantle doesn't impact Nvidia/Intel in any way. But when Huddy says its out of "pride" that Nvidia doesn't implement it you can see right through that, its not pride, its that they aren't stupid. Its kind of ironic he is complaining about Nvidia's gameworks putting them into that situation and yet he is trying to bait Nvidia into a much worse one by calling them names. At least gameworks is using an agreed upon standard API. That would not be an option open to any IHV on Mantle, they would be disadvantaged at the hardware level to the tune of not being able to run games, missing features or terrible comparable performance due to the low level nature of the API and the control AMD exerts.

 

[EvilNodZ]

No AMD has stated mantle is OPEN to everyone including nvidia and intel, as soon as its released from beta.

They are not excluding them, its just they were not in the initial list open beta testers.

Unless you have a source claiming otherwise?

And the advantage is you don't have to licence Mantle either.

The difference is tho that AMD is in control of the API, it does not mean its not open.

 

[sontin]

Paying a developer to ensure the game runs best on your hardware or add features that showoff your hardware is one thing. (and a good thing IMO to entice gamers to buy your hardware)
But anything that prevents games from being optimized on different hardware other than yours, is doing nothing but screwing the GAMERS side IMO.

So AMD has the right to pay developer to cut the DX path from the game because Mantle doesnt hurt anybody? :hmm:

nVidia doesnt prevent developers to work with AMD to implement the same kind of effects. On the other hand AMD wants full access to nVidia's RnD ressources.

 

[Erenhardt]

So AMD has the right to pay developer to cut the DX path from the game because Mantle doesnt hurt anybody? :hmm:

nVidia doesnt prevent developers to work with AMD to implement the same kind of effects. On the other hand AMD wants full access to nVidia's RnD ressources.

but they do.... that is the whole discussion about.

 

[MTDEW]

So AMD has the right to pay developer to cut the DX path from the game because Mantle doesnt hurt anybody? :hmm:

nVidia doesnt prevent developers to work with AMD to implement the same kind of effects. On the other hand AMD wants full access to nVidia's RnD ressources.

Now you're reaching just to suit your own agenda.
Name one time AMD paid a developer to cut the directx api path from a game.
Or anyone mentioning such a thing.

And I didn't say just AMD has a right to pay developers to add features or optimizations to their games, to entice hardware sales, that goes for Nvidia also.
I may have AMD in the rig in my sig, but I have more than one rig and plenty of both AMD and Nvidia cards in my home.

I'll ask again....Name one time Mantle prevented others from optimizing a game for their hardware like gameworks does?

 

[ShintaiDK]

People still defending AMDs every move after listening to their main spindoctor?

Mantle is not opensource, and AMD may or may not change that in a unspecified future time slot. nVidia could say the exact same about CUDA.

Forward+ is not open source either.

TressFX is not really either. It uses DirectCompute on competition, and direct GCN on capable cards.

Both companies do the exact same. If one company have convienced you otherwise, then you fell for their PR propaganda.