Unless you are living under a rock you should be aware of AMD’s Mantle. It is an application programming interface that can be used an an alternative to industry standards like OpenGL and Direct3D to achieve nine times more draw calls and reduce CPU overhead. Given that the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One use AMD APUs there might be a possibility that Sony and Microsoft might add that functionality later on to boost performance.
GamingBolt had a chance to speak Oxide Games partner Dan Baker. Oxide Games are currently developing Nitrous, a next gen engine for PS4, Xbox One and PC. Considering that Nitrous will support AMD’s Mantle, we asked Dan whether it will boost visuals for games on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 given the Radeon-based architecture of both consoles, to which he replied:
Both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have APIs for accessing the GCN architecture directly, so Mantle in itself isn’t needed for that. The main advantage Mantle gives us is the ability to have console-like performance, particularly in batch performance, on the PC. At AMD’s recent developer summit, Oxide demonstrated a PC running at over 100,000 batches per frame. Before now, this type of performance on a PC was unheard of.
We also asked him whether PS4 and Xbox One are at a point where they will consistently output 1080p at 60 frames per second.
Sure, this was even possible on the last generation – if it was the priority. However, keep in mind that films play back at 24fps, so a game may choose to trade off raw framerate for other things.
Things will only improve with time given that both the next gen consoles are at the beginning of their respective life cycles. As Sony and Microsoft release updated tools and drivers, and developers get more familiar and smarter in finding out optimized solutions, games will only get better from here.
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