AMD's Mantle Launches, But No Linux Love Yet

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD's Mantle Launches, But No Linux Love Yet

AMD launched their new Windows graphics driver today that supports their new Mantle API as an alternative for game developers to Direct3D or OpenGL. However, there's still no indications of foreseeable Linux support...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTU4Nzc

[schmidtbag]

If I were AMD I would put this at a very low priority. Independent devs are not going to use Mantle, I'm sure the open source drivers won't be supporting it anywhere in the next few years, and so far there aren't enough AAA companies that support linux with anything worth playing. I'm all for the idea of free performance improvements, but I'd rather they fix the current issues of fglrx, or, finish the entire openGL standard on the open source drivers.

[mark45]

It's not really for "users" it's for devs using the API.
OpenGL - even its core profile is bloated and arcane, but the user doesn't have to deal with it, so he won't notice a difference between using Mantle or GL.

To a degree it's like Wayland vs X.org - most users either won't notice the difference (or only a minor one) between X.org and Wayland, but to the devs using/developing graphics toolkits etc it will make a world of difference, because looking at the X.org API makes one wanna puke.

[zxy_thf]

No specs again
I'd like to see whether Mantle is really as "portable" as AMD said.

[zxy_thf]

It's not really for "users" it's for devs using the API.
OpenGL - even its core profile is bloated and arcane, but the user doesn't have to deal with it, so he won't notice a difference between using Mantle or GL.

To a degree it's like Wayland vs X.org - most users either won't notice the difference (or only a minor one) between X.org and Wayland, but to the devs using/developing graphics toolkits etc it will make a world of difference, because looking at the X.org API makes one wanna puke.

AMD's OpenGL implementation is really buggy. It's a good chance to make their buggy OpenGL lib irrelevant by pushing Mantle on Linux.

[Detructor]

Didn't we've an AMD driver developer in this forum? Would like to hear about this topic from him.

[ldesnogu]

I'd like to see whether Mantle is really as "portable" as AMD said.

Good question and we have a hint. Some GCN cards won't fully support Mantle optimally (basically most of HD 7x00 cards). Can't say I'm surprised, I never trusted AMD when they said it could be ported to any GPU; they even said right from the start you'd need a GCN card, and now we learn you need a GCN "2.0" card.

[pete910]

Another article that hasn't checked up on facts, The reason that AMD HAVEN'T released the 14.1 driver is so ALL cgn cards are supported!


https://twitter.com/AMDAPU/status/428909053998141442

[Guest]

Another article that hasn't checked up on facts, The reason that AMD HAVEN'T released the 14.1 driver is so ALL cgn cards are supported!


https://twitter.com/AMDAPU/status/428909053998141442

I thought all GCN cards were already supported; it was EA that messed up the wording on their article earlier.

[Ouroboros]

Small performance improvement, not cross-platform, only specific AMD cards supports GCN. Why the hell would developers ever want to support Mantle/learn yet another API/spend money and valuable time on this?
I was looking forward to Mantle, but going by the way they're releasing it, I highly doubt it will succeed.