14 DAY TRIAL // Mantle is an API built by AMD and DICE that will eventually provide a true alternative for Direct3D and OpenGL, but its future in the Linux ecosystem is uncertain, to say the least.
AMD made some bold statements when it announced that it was working on Mantle, which was around the time Valve released the first version of SteamOS. They said that it would be platform-independent and open source, which led people to believe that it will also arrive on the Linux platforms.
Since then, all kinds of rumors, clues, and denials have been circulated in the media. We have now reached a point where we don’t actually know anything for certain about the future of Mantle on Linux and it’s likely that not even AMD itself knows for sure.
Only a few days ago, a blog post from AMD mentioned Linux and Mantle, as if the two should go together, but the company’s representative hasn't said anything more than that. Now, according to Richard Huddy, which presents himself as AMD's gaming scientist, Linux is definitely a target, but it’s not certain when that will be accomplished.
In an interview with pcworld.com, Richard Huddy said that “around 50 games have been developed or will be released soon using Mantle tools, with more in the works. Beyond Windows, AMD sees a vast opportunity to ‘reveal the goodness of gaming’ in Linux.”
“The company has received requests from developers to port Mantle to Linux, AMD over time will dedicate resources to the task. AMD hasn’t provided a time frame for when Mantle-based games for Linux will become available,” also said Huddy.
The vague nature of the statements and the lack of any transparency in the development process is not a good sign for the Linux platform. The fact that Mantle only works for the x86 architecture on Windows is also not encouraging.
If AMD managed to get Mantle on Linux it would be a big boost for Steam and SteamOS, not to mention the fact that it would help Valve and its partners sell many more Steam Machines.
So far, AMD is only promising Linux support for Mantle, but it’s going to be a long time before games for the open source platform is developed. It’s very likely that we won’t even see anything built for Linux this year, but we can only hope that Mantle becomes a success and that gamers fully profit from the competition with DirectX and NVIDIA.