14 DAY TRIAL // There are lots of operations that happen at a very basic hardware level, operations which, if software/game developers were to gain control over, could make much better and smoother titles. AMD's Mantle allows this.
Mantle is actually the first instance of an application processing interface that enables low-level access to PC graphics hardware.
AMD has been disclosing things about it for a week or so. The latest batch of info came to us thanks to a new blog post where the Sunnyvale company presents the four core principles of AMD’s Mantle.
First off, Mantle helps developers harness the power of GPUs on PCs, and streamline the writing of efficient graphics code on multiple platforms. In a sense, it allows games to become as interactive and immersive as on consoles.
The second principle is to help PC gamers get better performance. Normally, a PC gaming environment is a maze of abstraction layers “or pieces of software that attempt to obfuscate the hardware behind a common software interface.”
Said interface can speak to many different architectures with a common language, but sacrifices performance in exchange for compatibility. It can prevent developers from using unique hardware features too.
Thus, Mantle will let games use the special assets in GCN (graphics core next), only on AMD video cards.
The third aim is to bring innovation back to graphics APIs. DirectX, Direct 3D and all others suffer from CPU bottlenecks and other limitations. Mantle can code and render all in-game effects and is also extensible. It won't replace DirectX, but will definitely give a treat to AMD graphics card/APU owners.
Finally, Mantle aims to optimize games without breaking them. Basically, games that support Mantle and all the assets of GCN will still work on other architectures (specifically NVIDIA cards). Mantle just adds an extra choice to those with the right hardware.