AMD’s Graphics & Mantle API Taking The Gaming World By Storm

he term “gaming system” isn’t terribly because of the myriad of hardware Mantle API to run these games at 1080p T informative these days. It might have configurations, developers had to lean on or better. Be prepared to dial up your meant something 10, maybe five, years the CPU in order to translate and queue ago, but now we’re gaming on every data for the GPU. Mantle largely tears device we own. And just below the surface away this clunky approach, so much of a lot of these devices you’ll find AMD’s of the work only passes between the graphics technology running the show. game, AMD’s Catalyst driver, and A big reason why AMD is driving the the GCN. graphics in high-end multi-GPU systems, The end result is better videogame consoles, and laptops of every games, period. Gamers of kind is its scalable GPU architectures, and all kinds stand to benefit, now AMD has a specialized API that lets too. Hardcore types will game developers fully tap into the power of be pleased to know that AMD’s architecture. upcoming titles such as The API, called Mantle, was designed : Inquisition because game devs themselves called for a and will better way to get their games to interface have Mantle support. A graphics card with the GPU architecture. Previously, like AMD’s R9 280 will make use of the

Advertisement Drilling Into Mantle: Q&A With AMD We sat down with AMD to explore the company’s new Mantle API and bring our findings to the surface. Here’s what they had to say.

Q: What exactly is Mantle?

A: Mantle is an AMD initiative to create a new graphics programming model that fully exploits the capabilities of the GCN architecture of AMD Radeon GPUs. As part of this initiative, we have worked with leading game developers to create an API specification and an updated graphics driver that enables this programming model in GPUs that utilize AMD’s own Graphics Core Next architecture.

Q: Is Mantle a proprietary AMD technology? Isn’t this contrary to AMD’s oft-stated belief in promoting open standards?

A: Our commitment to industry standards for game developers has not wavered. quality settings and feast on the extra eye 4K resolutions wherever you want. The The initial implementations of Mantle candy, too. Satellite P50T is down for other power technology will be designed specifically The casual crowd gets some love, user tasks, too. Advanced photographers for systems based on the GCN archi- too. Fans of PopCap Games’ Plants vs. can edit photos at an incredibly high tecture, but we believe that many of Zombies: Garden Warfare should find resolution, and the inclusion of Adobe the key concepts will eventually be that the game plays smooth and looks Lightroom gives them even more power. applicable to other architectures, as well. stunning on a Radeon GPU. There isn’t Other notebooks, like Alienware’s We plan to release detailed specifications a better way to blow off steam after a 17 gaming laptop, simply go all-out for for the Mantle API publicly as part of a midterm or corporate presentation than games. The Alienware 17 is equipped with development kit in 2014. cracking open your laptop and wrecking a Radeon R9 M290X mobile GPU, an hordes of undead. Intel Core i7 CPU, and a whole lot of Q: Why would a game developer be And it’s on laptops where the mobile other high-end hardware. It runs Windows interested in coding for an AMD-specific variants of AMD’s R9 GPU really 8.1 and fully supports DirectX 11.2. API? Will AMD have to pay developers to shine. It won’t be long before we start AMD has a long history of producing use it? seeing a huge assortment of laptops that cutting-edge GPUs, and we see no easily perform tasks that you needed a indication that’s going to change. But A: Mantle was created in direct desktop to do a few years ago. We’re with Mantle, AMD is actively working response to requests from leading game now spoiled on high-end laptops such as to write the future. As more and more developers, so interest is very high. All Toshiba’s Satellite P50T, which uses an developers throw their support behind of our initial development partners are AMD Radeon R9 M265X GPU as its Mantle, the games we love will be easier investing their resources to implement weapon of choice. The R9 M265X that to code, and they’ll perform better, too. this technology. has 2GB of VRAM, so you can game at That sounds like a pretty good future. ■