What is AMD Mantle & Why Does it Matter to Gamers

So you want to play BF4 on an APU? Then listen up to what AMD Mantle is!

Have you heard of AMD Mantle API? If you are running high end graphics cards then you probably won’t care about what AMD Mantle is but if you are wanting to buy an APU like the AMD A10-7850K that was recently released you may want to pay attention. According to AMD this is what Mantle is,

AMD’s Mantle is a groundbreaking graphics API that promises to transform the world of game development to help bring better, faster games to the PC. Read on to discover how AMD is working with the game development community to revolutionize the PC gaming experience.

AMD goes on that one a big dilemma with developers is processing power vs development time. As most PC gamers understand in the never ending war between PC vs console is that PC by nature is a very fragmented industry when it comes to building and optimizing games. Consoles on the other hand a very easy since you only have to work with one platform and the time you spend making your game work for this manufacturer or that model, a console developer can devote all his time to optimizing his code for just one piece of hardware so that what a PC gamer consider is mid grade machine (which the Xbox One and PS4 are in comparison) they can produce high quality graphics.

So basically the issue is how do you build a game with breath taking graphics such as Battlefield 4 (regardless of its bugs and problems) but make it easy so that way DICE or any other studios can make their game and have it playable at high frames rates and graphics settings using lower end hardware components. This is where AMD Mantle comes into play by creating a software component to AMD Graphics Core Next (GCN).

How do AMD Mantle and GCN work?

So you bought yourself a shiny new AMD graphics card or APU with their Graphics Core Next technology embedded inside then you will soon be ready to use Mantle when it releases. AMD GCN is a unified hardware solution between console and PC hardware so that programmers and developers have a common hardware ecosystem to work with while AMD Mantle is the software component to that GCN that lets developers and programmers apply optimization techniques for both console and PC.

AMD Mantle Three Essentials

1. A driver within the AMD Catalyst™ software suite that allows applications to speak directly to the Graphics Core Next architecture

2. A Graphics Core Next GPU, like the AMD Radeon™ R9 Series, R7 Series or HD 7000 Series GPUs

3. An application or game engine written to use the Mantle SDK

What game gets AMD Mantle first?

Currently the Mantle API is in the AMD Catalyst 14.1 beta drivers but isn’t usable for any games yet! Battlefield 4 is the first game that is suppose to utilize AMD Mantle but due to issues with bugs that have plagued the game it is being delayed. The idea though is that AMD Mantle will be able to optimize Battlefield 4 so well that the AMD A10-7850K will be able to play Battlefield 4 with acceptable frame rates at 1080p resolution.

Per AMD is that Star Citizen and Thief will be the next games to be able to use Mantle along with all future games built on the Frostbite 3 engine.

Oxide Games and AMD Mantle Presentation and Demo

Johan Andersson Discussion of AMD Mantle

 

So what do you think of the API? Think AMD Mantle can deliver?