14 DAY TRIAL // The Mantle Application Programming Interface is one that Advanced Micro Devices is very proud of, and now the Sunnyvale CPU/GPU maker has another reason to feel giddy: the contract with Rebellion Entertainment.
Rebellion Entertainment makes first-person shooters, among other things, and is currently developing the Sniper Elite V3.
The company could have done what everyone else is doing and design the game on DirectX 11. Truth be told, the title is bound to work on it either way.
Nevertheless, Rebellion has chosen to go a different route this once, choosing the Mantle application programming interface instead.
Mantle is a new API that, by allowing direct access to the hardware capabilities of GCN cores (Graphics Core Next) in AMD GPUs, enhances performance (frame rates) by 30%, give or take, compared to DirectX 11.
True, real-world performance will be inconsistent, but Mantle also enables a better level of image quality.
Unfortunately, only Battlefield 4, a shooter by DICE/EA, currently uses the API. This won't last long though.
Much Cloud Imperium Games, Eidos-Montréal, a part of the Square Enix Group, and Oxide Games, Rebellion Entertainment have adopted Mantle.
And since Sniper Elite V3 is based on the Asura engine, it may very well be that all Asura games will henceforth support Mantle rendering.
“It supports more platforms than almost any other engine we can think of and has important cutting edge features, including: tessellation, DirectX 11 compute shaders, AMD Eyefinity technology, multi-GPU support and more,” said Chris Kingsley, chief technology officer and co-founder of Rebellion Entertainment.
“We are excited about the possibilities that Mantle brings to PC gaming and the industry as a whole. We believe that supporting Mantle will enable us to stay on the bleeding edge of PC gaming and ensure that we don’t leave any performance on the table when it comes to offering gamers amazing experiences.”