At the Nvidia G-Sync launch event, John Carmack spoke about AMD’s low level API, Mantle. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’d know that Mantle is an application programming interface that will reduce CPU overhead by calling up to 9 times more draw cells when compared to other APIs like Direct3D and OpenGL. On top of that, Mantle will also allow direct access to the GPU and give developers more control over the hardware.
However Carmack does not believe that Sony and Microsoft will be using the API for their respective next gen systems.
“If Microsoft and Sony both embraced it that would be very, very powerful for AMD but it doesn’t look like they are going to, at least Microsoft from the words that they’re mouthing. I mean if I was still doing all of the major technology coding for next-gen game stuff I probably would not be embracing Mantle right now but there would be days when it would be extremely tempting, but I would dispassionately step back and look at it… I probably wouldn’t come down on the side saying it’s worth the effort there. Obviously others have come to different conclusions,” Carmack said at the event [transcribed by EuroGamer]
Given that both consoles have x86 architecture with an AMD CPU and GPU, patching them to support Mantle might not be a difficult task. But is it going to be worth the effort? This is a question that is yet to be answered. Many next generation PC games like Thief and Star Citizen will be utilizing AMD Mantle API for programming, and Battlefield 4 will be receiving a patch next month for it. So the support for this new API is definitely rising. Whether Sony and Microsoft should look into adding support, if they want to keep the consoles abreast of the latest optimization methods, remains to be seen.
Do you think that down the line Sony and Microsoft should support AMD Mantle? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
