Carmack:Microsoft and Sony could be hostile to Mantle

26 September 2013

John Carmack, the legendary programmer (now split between his work at id and that at Oculus VR), just commented on Twitter about some of the most recent announcements in the industry. In truth, this also helps us do a brief summary.

Essentially, Valve announced SteamOS, a free gaming focused OS based on Linux. Yesterday they also announced their Steam Machines program, which basically is the much rumored Steambox - only there will be many of them. AMD had a major announcement as well, as they brought DICE on stage at their GPU Tech Day and revealed Mantle, a new graphics API alternative to DirectX and OpenGL. The big news is that this is meant to be a low-level API, enabling developers to squeeze a lot more performance out of players’ hardware in a similar way to what has always happened with consoles.

AMD gave one single, but impressive performance number: Mantle can apparently reduce CPU overhead in order to increase the number of draw calls per second by 9 times in comparison to every other API. The first game to leverage this power will be Battlefield 4 (with a free update releasing in December) as Mantle was developed in synergy with DICE, but apparently all Frostbite 3 games will ultimately use Mantle. It’s also interesting to note that the API is open, so nVidia could technically use it as well, although clearly Mantle has been designed with AMD hardware in mind.

Back to Carmack. As you can read below, he thinks that while this is an interesting opportunity (Carmack has been long advocating a low level API for the PC environment) Microsoft and Sony could be hostile to Mantle, especially if Mantle will soon appear on Steam Machines - a new competitor in the console market for the upcoming PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Well, I can easily see Microsoft’s motive at least, since they have a double interest - one, for Xbox One, and the other for PCs, as clearly all of these announcements have one thing in common: the major companies in the PC gaming space are desperately trying to move away from the Windows monopoly. At any rate, this is a very exciting time to be a gamer - with next generation consoles arriving and big changes in the PC space, there are bound to be steps forward.

I’m especially fond of Mantle as a low level API, as I always hated not being able to fully use all the power of my PC because of DirectX limitations. It would be great for every user if they could get more performance out of their PC hardware.

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Tifa Lockhart

NOOOOOOO, please no more competition. I’m not a multimillionaire gamer. I don’t have that kind of money to buy all the consoles, PC, and now Steambox just because each system has an exclusive game that I want to play. I thought we all wanted a single unified game machine. I think we should stick to PC and be done with all the consoles and steam box.
- / Alessio Palumbo
  
  I totally agree with you on that, Tifa. I wish there was a single unified platform, unfortunately though the platform holders are some of the most powerful companies in the industry and they wouldn’t quite like that - unless that single platform was theirs, mind you.
- Phill A. Sheeo
  
  Competition is important. That way, what works well, is improved upon because someone can always do it better than the last guy. Without competition, there is simply no reason to innovate. That said, consoles are a joke anyway. PC is the way to go.
  - Tifa Lockhart
    
    who says there’s no competition if consoles don’t exist? Also, are you talking about the hardware innovation or software innovation. The biggest innovation for Xbone is the Kinect 2 which can be implemented on PC. The PS4 got streaming to Vita and the control touchpad can also be implemented on PC. However, to me, I think the true innovation is the gameplay that is developed by the game programmers. I’m sure people would want to compete on PC to get their games sell more than other people if only PC exists.
    - Phill A. Sheeo
      
      Sure, I see what you mean. In terms of innovation in the gaming world both, mainly hardware but also software to a smaller degree, a free market and competition ensure that the industry remains fluid.. When one entity is all there is, well, look at Microsoft and their Orwellian clusterfuck, Xbone. Microsoft isn’t happy enough just making and selling great titles for Xbox, they wish to consolidate all entertainment and all of your life into one system. Movies, music, gaming and your first born. We might be suck with this garbage if there were no competition to choose from.
Nintendo Fan 4 Lif3

I want a high end PC NOW!!!
BrothaDave

Developers will do what they have to do to maximize profits and also to get their games in as many games hands as possible. This will cut down on development time and allow for a lot of games to be ported over easily. Sony and Microsoft could get in the way but I doubt they will, they both have money invested in PC, mobile and other hardware (especially Sony since they are a hardware manufacturer and Microsoft isn’t).

Honestly what I think we’ll see with the new generation of consoles is less drama and more games on more platforms, which was the point of all those industry meetings and companies getting on the same page last generation. Nobody wins if only a couple of companies make the money and that’s what happened last time, I don’t think it will happen this time around.
David Brown

As long as the next gen GPU’s can USE both Mantle and DirectX, then I am fine with it. If it turns into a one or the other situation, then forget it.
- / Alessio Palumbo
  
  Well, of course they can. The problem is, with all these different APIs, chances are most games won’t be that optimized.

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