DirectX and OpenGL will start offering low-level access in order to reduce draw over

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

See,what a little competition ends up doing:

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/direct...ad/#more-62436

Thanks AMD for getting the ball rolling and making MS get off their backsides regarding DX.

“In this session we will discuss future improvements in Direct3D that will allow developers an unprecedented level of hardware control and reduced CPU rendering overhead across a broad ecosystem of hardware.”

“For nearly 20 years, DirectX has been the platform used by game developers to create the fastest, most visually impressive games on the planet.

However, you asked us to do more. You asked us to bring you even closer to the metal and to do so on an unparalleled assortment of hardware. You also asked us for better tools so that you can squeeze every last drop of performance out of your PC, tablet, phone and console.”

“Driver overhead has been a frustrating reality for game developers for the entire life of the PC game industry. On desktop systems, driver overhead can decrease frame rate, while on mobile devices driver overhead is more insidious–robbing both battery life and frame rate. In this unprecedented sponsored session, Graham Sellers (AMD), Tim Foley (Intel), Cass Everitt (NVIDIA) and John McDonald (NVIDIA) will present high-level concepts available in today’s OpenGL implementations that radically reduce driver overhead–by up to 10x or more. The techniques presented will apply to all major vendors and are suitable for use across multiple platforms. Additionally, they will demonstrate practical demos of the techniques in action in an extensible, open source comparison framework.”

[kalniel]

Suspect it will require Windows 9 or 10..

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Suspect it will require Windows 9 or 10..

Probably!! Hopefully by then Metro would have be rejigged to be more tolerable,or either it would have made me tolerate it more!!

[DanceswithUnix]

Suspect it will require Windows 9 or 10..

From the phrase "high-level concepts available in today’s OpenGL" one would suspect not. That makes it sound like these are tricks that are already possible with existing OpenGL API and possibly drivers.

If that is true, then Microsoft have a few paths open to them with DirectX:

1/ Cripple OpenGL on Windows (again) because it makes them look bad.
2/ Release on Win7 as an update, because otherwise devs will just migrate releases to OpenGL to improve user base.
3/ Believe their own propaganda that everything Microsoft do is wonderful, and release on Win 9 to leverage us into parting with more money.

Hmm, perhaps you have a point..

I thought SteamOS was rather an outside bet, but I am starting to think more and more that it might just have a chance.

Edit to add: The phrase "Additionally, they will demonstrate practical demos of the techniques in action in an extensible, open source comparison framework" makes this sound like rather more than just theoretical, more like a Howto.

[shaithis]

Best mantle-related news I've read. Now perhaps developers can stop trying to support multiple APIs and concentrate on one again.

Just a shame so many have had to put up with another shoddy BF4 patch release for this to happen.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Best mantle-related news I've read. Now perhaps developers can stop trying to support multiple APIs and concentrate on one again.

Just a shame so many have had to put up with another shoddy BF4 patch release for this to happen.

Lets hope NVAPI which has been around for years(the reason why BF3 ran so well on Nvidia hardware) also goes away too,and that silly business with closed libraries,in the latest Batman game which excludes Intel and AMD from improving performance even after release. Both companies should move to more open standards.

It also means Intel IGPs have a fairer chance too,although they are starting doing some interesting Intel only tricks to improve performance in GRID2 and Rome too(InstantAccess).

I suspect that we will never see any totally fair fight,as AMD,Nvidia and Intel do want to each get one up on their competition!!

As long as one does,it all will follow.

[jigger]

Great news but it will be a while before we see any benefit from a new Direct X and hardware to support it. Mantle must have a lot of potential to put the fear of God up Microsoft like this. It might be back to the drawing board with regard for planned GPU architecture. Maxwell might not need those on GPU Arm core anymore.

Hopefully they wipe the slate clean and take the best elements Mantle, OpenGL and D3D and drop as much proprietary Fluff as possible but I think that might be a little too much to hope for.

[DanceswithUnix]

Better explanation here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7818/l...ments-gdc-2014

So Microsoft will be promising how they will be improving things in the future, then in a different presentation all the hardware people will show how to get the same result now on OpenGL.

Edit to add: I like the way the Microsoft presentations make out they have a wide range of hardware, when in reality it is the same PC hardware range as OpenGL supports under Linux, and then OpenGL also supports all the popular phones and tablets out there as well. *sigh*

[Pob255]

DX was far from popular with developers when it started, it really wasn't until DX9 that it really started gaining a major foot hold and then it was up against OpenGL 1.4
OpenGL kept beating off dx up to 2.1 but then it hit major issues.
A big part of the problem was that ATi and Nvidia had pushed almost every other company out of the graphics market not just the consumer but also the workstation market and it was the collaboration of these now dead companies that had formed the backbone for OpenGL development (notable SGI and 3DLabs) Dominance of one or two players is a major price behind competition.

OpenGL 3.0 was a disaster little more than 2.1 with a couple of new bits and a lot of baggy code, at this time it was up against dx10 which was better and supported the new hardware coming out from ATi and Nvidia, this pretty much cost them all the headway they had made.

OpenGL finally caught back up with DX in version 3.3 (DX10) and 4.0 (DX11) and is now starting to outstrip it, we're currently up to 4.4, but MS has claimed a solid hold with DX in the gaming industry now so it's uphill for OpenGL.
If SteamOS catches on OpenGL might make a major comeback

[DanceswithUnix]

If SteamOS catches on OpenGL might make a major comeback

I would expect Android and iOS to at least get the exposure up.

Is there a big PC OpenGL title these days? Minecraft isn't exactly a poster child for performance

[kalniel]

Is there a big PC OpenGL title these days? Minecraft isn't exactly a poster child for performance

Rage is the last one I can remember.

[shaithis]

Is there a big PC OpenGL title these days? Minecraft isn't exactly a poster child for performance

I think WoW can be made to run OpenGL...and technically you could say most modern Mac titles.

[Noxvayl]

Sounds good. I hope the demo encourages more OpenGL titles so we can get better cross-OS support for games.

With SteamOS making a big push to be relevant I expect OpenGL to get some more attention, would be nice to have a single open source graphics API for games.

[azrael-]

Probably!! Hopefully by then Metro would have be rejigged to be more tolerable,or either it would have made me tolerate it more!!

Chances are they'll have removed the desktop completely when that particular D3D iteration comes around. Can't wait to play "Angry Flappy Hen" at 550 fps due to low level graphics hardware access. The future ...it's shiny somehow.

[Warsam71]

Hello everyone,

In case you missed it, here is the official statement we have released about this:

"Yesterday several articles were published that reported that DirectX and OpenGL are being extended to include closer-to-metal functionality and reduced CPU overhead. AMD supports and celebrates a direction for game development that is aligned with AMD’s vision of lower-level, ‘closer to the metal’ graphics APIs for PC gaming. While industry experts expect this to take some time, developers can immediately leverage efficient API design using Mantle, and AMD is very excited to share the future of our own API with developers at this year’s Game Developers Conference."

[Bagnaj97]

I think WoW can be made to run OpenGL...and technically you could say most modern Mac titles.

Run WoW with -opengl on the command line. Great for performance in Wine! They haven't updated the Windows GL renderer for ages though. DX renderer has gained lots of pixel shader effects etc (for fancy water mostly) and been updated to DX11, the GL renderer doesn't have any of that.

The Mac version of WoW also uses OpenGL, I don't know if that's had any graphical updates though.