This Is The Most Awkward Moment In Nvidia's Montreal Event - Fan Asks A Question About AMD's Mantle

DSOGaming writes: "Okay, we knew this was going to happen. It was just a matter of time. During Nvidia’s event, a fan asked John Carmack, Tim Sweeney and Johan Andersson their opinion about AMD’s Mantle. This was the weirdest question asked, and all three programmers felt a bit… well… uncomfortable."

[iGAM3R-VIII]

Interesting, they should've prepared for that type of a question but they really did have to answer it because it is in the public.

[badz149]

arrogance! that 1 word sums up nVidia these days!

[Letros]

It's good on paper, but like Sweeney and Carmack said, no developer wants to work with a bunch of APIs for one game. If there is Mantle, there will be one from Nvidia. With as much raw power that a $300 GPU has over todays consoles, APIs like DX and OGL are likely more than good enough.

[wishingW3L]

that's what I always say but all I get is a bunch of disagrees from the non-thinkers. If anything Mantle is only good for those with low end cards and nothing more because those with high-end cards have so much raw power that they won't give a crap about it.

On top of it, PC gaming's cons will always be that, that there's a bunch of HW configurations so why waste time coding low level for certain cards when you have DX and openGL that practically accommodate any type of configuration?

Mantle is just a waste of time for game devs if it's not present for every GPU in the market and that includes Nvidia's GPUs too.

[pete007]

hi wishingW, keep in mind that mantle isnt even present on all AMD cards either and AMD didnt point out wich card will and wich wont, and why. i too believe mantle is just a marketting trick. it kinda works and give the illusion of beeing superior than competition, besides they are on all next gen consoles, they just released the new Rx series, and on top of it... Mantle. as if the pc market needed another proprietary technology.
itll go the same way as openCL, open GL, and alot other apis....
last AMD card i had was a 5870, since then i swched to nvidia

[Razputin]

Wishing this is the problem though. Too many people have low end PCs, and for the fact that by next year in terms of power and on paper "next gen" consoles will be out dated.

Look at the Steam hardware stats, a huge portion of people are running DX9 cards, not even 10, and barely many with DX11 GPUs. This is the main issue.

I hope this can bring more games to the PC market.

This is all I care about, more games on the PC. Better ports, more customization, and more games.

[Codey47]

I would of asked John C "Do you masturbate to binary code?"

That would've been more awkward tbph.

[S2Killinit]

I feel that Nvidia may have antagonized some gamers recently with their comments.

[jeffgoldwin]

Personally I buy gpu's for their quality, price, and performance. Only a kids with fragile egos would really take such comments personally or for that matter even care.

[FantasyStar]

There's a lot of kids in this world with credit cards and a 401k.

[S2Killinit]

maybe that is true, but your social commentary doesn't disprove anything. Also, you may believe that you make decisions purely based on rationale but the truth of the matter is that you, me, and everybody else, make decisions with consideration of our subjective perceptions. Your comment is like saying I feel nothing (and I'm pretty sure you do)

[ATi_Elite]

Seriously these guys were ALL put on the spot and since they are in Nvidia's Pocket they pretty much LIED like a bunch of politicians.

MANTLE is BRILLIANT as it lets Devs program on the GPU or closer to it than DirectX and OPen GL.

It gives Gamers better performance from their Hardware than ever before. These are things that are a WIN WIN for everyone.

If Nvidia comes out with their API SO WHAT! you already have DirectX, OpenGl, Nvidia's Physx, AMD's MAntle and then Nvidia's API which would further eliminate Directx.

Devs would switch to Mantle for some games and Nvidia for others JUST like they optimize games for AMD GPU's or for Nvidia GPU's TODAY.

So basically you would see NO CHANGE just better Performance and Tools.

In the future we are looking at SteamOS Mantle and Nvidia Api. All should provide Devs with low level programming and give gamers better performance.

[ZoyosJD]

Exactly how long have you been a PC gamer?

Do you remember the days when the hardware you had determined the games you could play BECAUSE OF APIs?

They either need to write the code for both companies APIs, or write code for the middle ground (direct X) and the API for one of the companies.

Anything less and you get a game can easily wind up unplayable on half the hardware.

Either way devs are coding the same thing more than necessary OR fragmenting the market.

Coding to a single API is NOT JUST LIKE optimizing to a single GPU manufacturer. It's more time consuming (for devs impacting resources and when consumers get games overall) and less open to change in architecture even within the same brand.

TLDR; look up Glide API.

[deecee33]

^ I knew someone was going to mention Glide, haha. I think Mantle is a good idea in theory, but I wonder how much real world performance increase we'll get. Just because it handles extreme amounts of draw calls to the GPU as they have explained to us, does that mean an appreciable increase in FPS for anything more than the slowest of GCN cards? You better believe when Mantle-enhanced BF4 comes out I'll be checking the framerates before and after on my 7870. Something tells me Carmack may be right- the engine may be the biggest factor in a game's average performance and there may not be that much to gain through another API. If DICE was seeing a 20-30% increase in performance on BF4 with Mantle, don't you think AMD would be blasting that info everywhere? They're being very secretive about what benefits have been seen so far.

[Dante81]

Mantle is open so why not ask?

[Lykon]

I don't care how good the graphics are , I'm not playing games on a bloody word processor

[Bladesfist]

I hope you don't play games on consoles either, I really don't want to meet more ignorant kids online.

[deecee33]

@Lykon:

You do realize that you can hook a computer up to an HDTV with an HDMI cable, just like a console, right? Add a wireless controller and you've basically got a next gen game console.

[AndrewLB]

Yep. Much like a next-gen console.... only much faster. :)

[Lykon]

Yes I do realise that. My recent spate of trolling and tongue in cheek digs at gaming PCs came after reading a lot of comments from PC gamers that came across as smug. I'm sure I'd really enjoy a powerful rig, but the extra effort and expense involved isn't right for me. not currently anyway. Also I stopped smoking recently which sent me a bit crazy.

[Edvin1984]

Being Open source I see no reason why it wouldn't be a good idea unless you are getting a check from nVidia, and cant really speak on the other guys tool set. I am on the green teams side all the time, but I think this is silly how they dodged it and rather disappointing. Unless they just don't know, and than say ahhh....no clue dude never used it.

[Saithraphim]

Those guys should have been prepared for that question imo, one thing i personally got from the article though is that if Mantle wasn't a real threat they would have been loaded to the tilt with quality responses

[MontyQ]

when I fart clibby b gets a chubby