AMD has revealed Mantle - a new low-level API for PC that offers game developers the opportunity to more directly access graphics hardware, eliminating many of the bottlenecks that hold back PC games performance from reaching its full potential. The new technology was revealed at AMD's GPU14 conference in Hawaii, and is being developed in tandem with EA studio, DICE. Battlefield 4 will be the first Mantle-enabled title, with support enabled via an update scheduled for December.
"Mantle, an AMD initiative to create a new graphics programming model that fully exploits the capabilities of modern GPUs, allows game developers to speak the native language of the AMD Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture, providing a deeper level of hardware optimisation no other graphics card manufacturer can match," AMD said in a statement. "As part of this initiative, we have worked with leading game developers to create an API specification and associated graphics driver that enables this model on PCs with GCN-based graphics hardware. Mantle was created in direct response to requests from leading game developers, so interest is very high."
In short, AMD has maximised the potential of its graphics technology by allowing developers to access its features directly via a stripped down "to the metal" API. Working in combination with a specialised GPU driver, Mantle completely replaces Microsoft's DirectX 11 layer - a one size fits all rendering solution that historically has under-utilised the raw power of graphics hardware.
Mantle appears to have much in common with the GNM API used in PlayStation 4, offering low-level GPU access while retaining a very high level of compatibility with Microsoft's existing programmable pixel shader language (HLSL). The potential here cannot be under-estimated - much of the optimisation work that is carried out on console versions of multi-platform games can now be rolled out to the PC version too. In addition, there is also the opportunity to exploit AMD-specific hardware
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