Directx just became obsolete

[MrRiplEy[H]]

http://www.hardocp.com/news/2013/09/25/amd_introduces_mantle_at_gpu_14

Part of the discussion today at AMD's GPU 14 Tech Day Event centered around Mantle, a low-level high-performance cross-platform console-style graphics API for the PC that was built by AMD in close collaboration with DICE. According to AMD, Mantle enables perfect parallel rendering that allows all eight CPU cores to be utilized simultaneously. AMD went on to say that, on Windows based PCs, the Frostbite 3 engine will render natively with Mantle instead of DirectX 11 on Radeon GPUs.

I was going to skip BF4 but this seems very interesting. Now if they only would make Mantle linux compatable...

[Skuzzy]

DirectX is a collection of interfaces to various bits of hardware.  Graphics, sound, and input are all part of DirectX.  Mantle is just the graphics side.  Mantle is competing for the graphics side.

It is a shame it was not done in conjunction with NVidia.  Both companies have complained about the overhead Microsoft keeps adding to the graphics side of DirectX and, at one time, were looking to work together to establish another API.  Obviously, that fell apart.

I am not a fan of the direction Microsoft has taken with DirectX, but without NVidia support, Mantle is going to be relegated to the "neat tech" corner.

[2bighorn]

http://www.hardocp.com/news/2013/09/25/amd_introduces_mantle_at_gpu_14

I was going to skip BF4 but this seems very interesting. Now if they only would make Mantle linux compatable...

AMD claims it's cross platform portable, couple that with SteamOS (Linux based) and in few years you may have something decent on Linux

[MrRiplEy[H]]

DirectX is a collection of interfaces to various bits of hardware.  Graphics, sound, and input are all part of DirectX.  Mantle is just the graphics side.  Mantle is competing for the graphics side.

It is a shame it was not done in conjunction with NVidia.  Both companies have complained about the overhead Microsoft keeps adding to the graphics side of DirectX and, at one time, were looking to work together to establish another API.  Obviously, that fell apart.

I am not a fan of the direction Microsoft has taken with DirectX, but without NVidia support, Mantle is going to be relegated to the "neat tech" corner.

Isn't directsound also pretty much obsolete and migration to OpenAL and ASIO is under way. They messed up hardware acceleration and 3D audio. Creative made the Alchemy but shortsightedly kept it proprietary.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

AMD claims it's cross platform portable, couple that with SteamOS (Linux based) and in few years you may have something decent on Linux

Drool...

[Skuzzy]

Isn't directsound also pretty much obsolete and migration to OpenAL and ASIO is under way. They messed up hardware acceleration and 3D audio. Creative made the Alchemy but shortsightedly kept it proprietary.

Actually, ASIO is messed up in a big way since Vista.  Microsoft has been trying hard to kill ASIO due to ASIO going around all the DRM in Windows.

DirectSound is still there and still works, but it goes through all the DRM nonsense.  Microsoft would like to kill DirectSound, but they have not been able to offer an alternative.  They tried to kill it with DirectMusic, but that API us just horrible and garnered virtually no support.

OpenAL, under Windows, is still pretty rough around the edges.  Not everyone provides OpenAL support for their hardware, for Windows.

Audio, in Windows, is just a mess.  Of all the Windows API's it is the most obfuscated.

[gyrene81]

at one point people tried to say something similar about nvidia's physX...unless the game developer's want to cut their own throats and limit their potential customer base further, they won't get lock in just 1 graphics api.