AMD Mantle & Final Fantasy XIV - A Realm Reborn ?

[MoKiChU]

Hello everyone,

This message is about the PC version of the game and instead address SQUARE ENIX but if someone information, I'm interested.

Currently the PC game uses the standardized APIs DirectX 9.x
Naoki Yoshida told us that the release of the PS4 version of the game, the PC version will use the standardized API DirectX 11.x In parallel with DirectX 11.x does Square Enix plans to bring the game on AMD APIs Mantle (which allow maximum optimization with graphics cards of the HD 7000 series and newer) as does EA / DICE in partnership with AMD for Battlefield 4 (see this article: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd...d-4,24418.html)?

Thank you in advance.


PS : Sorry for my english, Google Traduction :/

[mrwuss]

You mean the non standard, non finalized and vendor specific low level API?

No one is going to use it for a released game. We can only hope that it gets used to write working drivers in a nix enviroment.

[ZohnoReecho]

I think EA got some money from AMD to use those

[Nekodar]

MANTLE sounds very much like AMD's response to NVAPI from nVidia.
They may not be equal, but they seem to share the same goal.

I very much doubt that SE would think it worth going deep into the low level like that other than for consoles.

[KisaiTenshi]

MANTLE sounds very much like AMD's response to NVAPI from nVidia.
They may not be equal, but they seem to share the same goal.

I very much doubt that SE would think it worth going deep into the low level like that other than for consoles.

I'm going to say the reverse, since AMD parts have been in the last 3 generations of consoles (GC,Wii,WiiU, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbone), it's far more likely that this is an answer to bad driver support on a platform rather than trying to push cruft through DirectX. (The PS4 and Xbone have GCN GPU's, which this applies to, and alluded to in the slideshow on it.)

For example, having "Mantle" on Windows, MacOS, Linux, PS4 and Xbone means they can have one unified drawing layer instead of DirectX, OpenGL, and the variations of OpenGL used on PS4/Wii/WiiU. Likely it also includes alternatives to OpenCL as well. We'll never actually know unless AMD releases a demo application that demonstrates all these API's weaknesses.

As for SE using it, not in the DX9 version. We might see it's effect in the PS4 version however.

[ZohnoReecho]

Yoshida already said that they are going to use DirectX 11 since PS4 supports a subset of it. At this stage they are probably already deep into writing the DirectX 11 client and I hardly think that they are going to write one more.

[Nin-Lil-izi]

Mantle as a single unified drawing layer breaks down when half your PC users are running GPU's from competing companies.

But, as any decent engine can just query the gpu to ask what extensions it supports.. And use whats necesary. It wouldn't be unheard of.
But, there is a big difference in implimentation complexity between turning on and off a few effects based on available pipeline. And switching out chunks of the renderer itself.

Which is why GPU driver updates that optimize for a specific game are a thing. Because its easier to push that job to the driver writers, than optimize for each piece of hardware inside what would become a collosally huge codebase.
If anything is mapping too those functions. It'll be one of those FFXIV now 20% cooler patches in a driver.

[KisaiTenshi]

Yoshida already said that they are going to use DirectX 11 since PS4 supports a subset of it. At this stage they are probably already deep into writing the DirectX 11 client and I hardly think that they are going to write one more.

Mantle's "subset" is the HLSL shading language. The PS4 doesn't support DirectX in any capacity, however the (nVidia) GPU's originally started with Cg, which is what HLSL is derived from, and isn't exactly what is in the PS4.
http://www.gameranx.com/features/id/...uding-ps4-eye/

PlayStation Shader Language, similar to HLSL, supports shaders similar to DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.0

This may also interest you
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr.../dn166865.aspx

There's enough overlap for developers to write against what is available in the operating system, however I feel "Mantle" is likely targeted at Linux/Steambox rather than Windows, since Linux has no standardized API's to speak of, let alone quality drivers.

On the other hand, I think a DX11 version of the game on a high end system may negate any need to develop a Mantle version unless that is what they're already doing on the PS4 version. This AMD announcement wasn't too long ago, so it's also possible Yoshida had no idea what it's called.

[ZohnoReecho]

Strange, because based on how Yoshida replied it let me though that the PS4 supported it:

GW: PS4 hardware supports the DirectX 11, but you’re not going to use the DirectX 11 features?

Yoshida: We’ll use parts of the DirectX 11 features, but unlike the PC version it’s not fully supported.

[KisaiTenshi]

Strange, because based on how Yoshida replied it let me though that the PS4 supported it:

It's kinda impossible to implement DirectX features on FreeBSD since it's not a Microsoft platform and that would result it various intellectual property disputes. HLSL was derived from nVidia Cg, and since all cards support HLSL, that means -that- feature is portable, even without directX.

HLSL is a "shader program" that doesn't actually communicate (within reason) with the OS, it's something that simply runs on the GPU itself. If you go look at
https://developer.nvidia.com/cg-toolkit
You'll see this always supported OpenGL. It's probably close enough that nothing actually has to be changed except for API names.