Mantle (API) - Wikipedia
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move to sidebar hide (Top) 1 Overview Toggle Overview subsection 1.1 CPU-bound scenarios 1.2 GPU-bound scenarios 1.3 Benchmarks 1.4 Other claims 2 Support Toggle Support subsection 2.1 Game engines 2.2 Video games 2.2.1 Originally planned 3 Similar technologies 4 Comments 5 Recording and FPS overlay software 6 See also 7 References 8 External links Toggle the table of contentsMantle (API)
10 languages Deutsch Español 한국어 Italiano 日本語 Português Русский Suomi Українська 中文 Edit links Article Talk English Read Edit View history Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions Read Edit View history General What links here Related changes Upload file Permanent link Page information Cite this page Get shortened URL Download QR code Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikidata item Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Low-overhead rendering API Mantle Developer(s) AMD , DICE [ 1 ] Initial release September 25, 2013 ; 11 years ago ( 2013-09-25 ) [ 2 ] Operating system Windows Platform x86 and x86-64 Successor Vulkan License Proprietary , freeware Website www .amd .com /mantleMantle was a low-overhead rendering API targeted at 3D video games. [ 3 ] AMD originally developed Mantle in cooperation with DICE , starting in 2013. [ 1 ] Mantle was designed as an alternative to Direct3D and OpenGL , primarily for use on personal computers . In 2015, Mantle's public development was suspended and in 2019 completely discontinued, as DirectX 12 and the Mantle-derived Vulkan rose in popularity. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ]
Overview
[ edit ]The draw call improvements of Mantle help alleviate cases where the CPU is the bottleneck. The design goals of Mantle are to allow games and applications to utilize the CPUs and GPUs more efficiently, eliminate CPU bottlenecks by reducing API validation overhead and allowing more effective scaling on multiple CPU cores, provide faster draw routines, and allow greater control over the graphics pipeline by eliminating certain aspects of hardware abstraction inherent to both current prevailing graphics APIs OpenGL and Direct3D. [ 8 ]
CPU-bound scenarios
[ edit ]With a basic implementation, Mantle was designed to improve performance in scenarios where the CPU is the limiting factor:
Low-overhead validation and processing of API commands; [ 9 ] [ 10 ] Explicit command buffer control; [ 9 ] Close to linear performance scaling from reordering command buffers onto multiple CPU cores; [ 9 ] Reduced runtime shader compilation overhead; [ 9 ] AMD claims that Mantle can generate up to 9 times more draw calls per second than comparable APIs by reducing CPU overhead; [ 11 ] Multithreaded parallel CPU rendering support for at least 8 cores. [ 12 ]GPU-bound scenarios
[ edit ]Mantle was also designed to improve situations where high resolutions and "maximum detail" settings are used, although to a somewhat lesser degree, as these settings tax GPU resources in a way that is more difficult to improve at the API level. While Mantle provides some built-in features to improve GPU-bound performance, gains in these cases are largely dependent on how well Mantle features and optimizations are being utilized by the game engine. Some of those features include: [ 13 ] [ 14 ]
Reduction of command buffers submissions Explicit control of resource compression, expands and synchronizations Asynchronous DMA queue for data uploads independent from the graphics engine Asynchronous compute queue for overlapping of compute and graphics workloads Data formats optimizations via flexible buffer/image access Advanced Anti-Aliasing features for MSAA/EQAA optimizations [ 3 ] [ 9 ] Native multi-GPU support [ 3 ]Benchmarks
[ edit ] Performance superior to Direct3D 11 [ 15 ] Improved performance in Battlefield 4 [ 16 ] [ 17 ] [ 18 ] and up to 319% faster in the Star Swarm demo in single GPU configuration [ 19 ] [ 20 ] [ 21 ] in extremely CPU-limited situations.Other claims
[ edit ] This section is in list format but may read better as prose . You can help by converting this section , if appropriate. Editing help is available. ( August 2014 ) Easier to port from Mantle to Direct3D 12 than from Direct3D 11 to Direct3D 12 [ 22 ] At GDC 14 Oxide Games employee Dan Baker stated that Mantle would address fundamental development challenges that could not be addressed by a retrofit of an existing API. It is hard to optimize for the graphics device driver. [ 23 ] [ 24 ] [ 25 ] At the AMD Developer Summit (APU) in November 2013 Johan Andersson, technical director of the Frostbite engine at DICE praised Mantle for making development easier and enabling developers to innovate. [ 26 ] Mantle targets 100K [ 27 ] Monolithic Pipeline [ 3 ] Pipeline saving and loading [ 22 ] Hybrid Resource Model Generalized Resources Control over resource preparation Dynamic flow control without CPU intervention Direct GPU control Reduced runtime shader compilation overhead Better control over the hardware. [ 11 ] "All hardware capabilities are exposed through the API." [ 11 ] Reduction of command buffer submissions Data formats optimizations via flexible buffer/image access Explicit control of resource compression, expansion, and synchronization Asynchronous DMA queue for data uploads independent from the graphics engine Asynchronous compute queue for overlapping of compute and graphics workloads New rendering techniquesSupport
[ edit ]The Mantle API was only available as part of AMD Catalyst prior to 19.5.1, which was available for Microsoft Windows . AMD promised to support their Mantle API only for their graphics cards and APUs which are based on their Graphics Core Next microarchitecture , but not older products based on the TeraScale microarchitecture . [ 28 ] As of July 2014 [update] the implementation of the Mantle API was available for the following hardware: [ citation needed ]
certain Radeon HD 7000 series GPUs certain Radeon HD 8000 series GPUs certain AMD Radeon Rx 200 series GPUs ("R7" and "R9") all Steamroller -based "Kaveri" APUs: AMD A10-7000 series and AMD A8-7000 series all Jaguar -based "Kabini" and "Temash" APUs: AMD E1-2000 series, E2-3000 series, A4-1200 series, A4-1350, A4-5000 series, A6-1450, A6-5200, Sempron 2650, Sempron 3850, Athlon 5150, Athlon 5350, etc. all Puma -based "Beema" and "Mullins" APUs: E1 Micro-6200T, A4 Micro-6400T, A10 Micro-6700T, E1-6010, E2-6110, A4-6210, A6-6310, etc.Mantle was originally planned to be released on other platforms than Windows , including Linux, but it never happened. [ 29 ] [ 30 ]
While the API was officially discontinued, Clément Guérin [ 31 ] started a Mantle to Vulkan translation layer called GRVK [ 32 ] in mid 2020. This allows the API and ultimately the games to live on even without Mantle supporting graphic drivers.
Game engines
[ edit ] Main page: Game engines that support Mantle At GDC 2014, Crytek announced they will support Mantle in their CryEngine . [ 33 ] During a GPU 14 Tech Days presentation, an announcement was made that Frostbite 3 would include a Mantle backend. [ 34 ] [ 11 ] The Nitrous game engine from Oxide Games , alongside DirectX 12. Mantle benchmark is still available in a free Star Swarm stress test. [ 35 ] Thief is based on a modified Unreal Engine 3 that supported Mantle. LORE, a Civilization: Beyond Earth engine supported Mantle. Asura, engine used by Sniper Elite III supported Mantle.Video games
[ edit ] Main page: Video games that support Mantle Battlefield 4 [ 36 ] Battlefield Hardline Thief Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare Civilization: Beyond Earth [ 37 ] Dragon Age: Inquisition Sniper Elite III [ 38 ]Originally planned
[ edit ] Star Citizen [ 39 ] [ 40 ] 15 Frostbite games after Battlefield 4 were planned to support Mantle, potentially including Need for Speed Rivals , Mass Effect: Andromeda , Mirror's Edge Catalyst , The Sims 4 and Star Wars Battlefront (2015) . [ 41 ] There have been rumours about other games from that time, including Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare , Dying Light , Grand Theft Auto V and Rise of the Tomb Raider potentially supporting Mantle, but these reports were not confirmed.Similar technologies
[ edit ]A set of recent OpenGL 4.4 features, coupled with bindless texturing as an extension, can also substantially reduce driver overhead. This approach, termed by the Khronos Group as " AZDO " (Approaching Zero Driver Overhead) has been shown to achieve substantial performance improvements, approaching those stated for Mantle. [ 42 ] [ 43 ] Nvidia has extended OpenGL with a number of features that further reduce driver overhead. [ 44 ]
After details about DirectX 12 were made public, AMD has stated that they fully intend to support DirectX 12, but at the same time they claimed that Mantle "will [still] do some things faster." They have also claimed that due to similarities in the design philosophy of the two APIs, porting games from Mantle to DirectX 12 will be relatively straightforward, [ 45 ] and easier than porting from DirectX 11 to 12. [ 22 ]
Ultimately, AMD discontinued Mantle as a game API due to the similar aims of DirectX 12 and glNext (later renamed Vulkan). [ 4 ] [ 5 ] AMD donated the Mantle API to the Khronos group, which developed it into the Vulkan API. [ 46 ] [ 47 ] [ 48 ] [ 49 ] [ 50 ] [ 51 ]
Comments
[ edit ]Much of the work that drivers used to do on an application’s behalf is now the responsibility of the game engine . It also means that this work, which must still be done, is done by someone with considerably more information . Because the engine knows exactly what it will do and how it will do it, it is able to make design decisions that drivers could not.
— Firaxis on 2014-04-28, Why We Went With MantleRecording and FPS overlay software
[ edit ]PC gamers and professionals traditionally used programs such as Fraps and Bandicam to record gameplay, measure game FPS and display FPS overlay, but because Mantle is new, most traditional recording software does not work with new titles while using the new API.
In partnership with AMD, PC gaming community and game recording software maker Raptr have overhauled their client and have since re-branded it as the AMD Gaming Evolved client in conjunction with AMD's Gaming Evolved initiative in the PC gaming space. Out of the partnership, players who install and use the client while in-game can earn points to spend on digital items like games or computer hardware, chat with friends, keep their game library optimized, check for graphics card driver updates, stream their games to Twitch and record gameplay of their own with a built-in GVR, a feature similar to Nvidia Shadowplay software in its own GeForce Experience software that allows users to define a custom buffer length in their game for retroactive game recording with the push of a button so no moment gets missed and users typically do not need expensive hard drive setups to record to. In late 2014, AMD updated the client to support the recording and streaming of titles using Mantle. [ 52 ] As of its initial update into the client, the Gaming Evolved software was the only software to officially support the recording and streaming of Mantle enabled games.
Besides Raptr, D3DGear [ 53 ] was the only other commercial game recording software that supported Mantle API based games.
See also
[ edit ] Direct3D 12 – low-level API from Microsoft Vulkan – low-overhead API from Khronos, developed from Mantle Glide – another low-level API, by the now defunct 3dfx GNM – low-level API of the PlayStation 4 GNMX – high-level API of the PlayStation 4 Metal – low-level API for Apple iOS and macOSReferences
[ edit ] ^ a b Altavilla, Dave (2013-09-30). "AMD and DICE To Co-Develop Console Style API For Radeon Graphics" . Forbes . Retrieved 2014-07-14 . ^ "AMD Radeon R9 and R7 Series Graphics Cards Usher in a New Era of Gaming Realism" . AMD . Retrieved 22 June 2021 . ^ a b c d "Mantle WhitePaper" (PDF) . AMD . ^ a b Smith, Ryan (2 March 2015). "AMD Lays Out Future of Mantle" . Anandtech.com . Retrieved 28 June 2016 . ^ a b "One of Mantle's Futures: Vulkan | AMD Blogs" . ^ "AMD's Revolutionary Mantle Graphics API" . Retrieved 2017-10-04 . ^ "Farewell Mantle… AMD has ended all support for DirectX 12's API inspiration" . 14 May 2019 . Retrieved 2019-05-15 . ^ "Some Mantle benchmarks by AMD" . AMD. 2014-02-01. ^ a b c d e "Mantle 101" . AMD. 2014-05-28. Archived from the original on 2014-05-30. ^ "AMD Gaming" . 2014-02-01. ^ a b c d "AMD Livestream at GPU 14 Tech Days" . 2013. Archived from the original on September 27, 2013. ^ Smith, Ryan (Sep 26, 2013). "Understanding AMD's Mantle: A Low-Level Graphics API For GCN" . anandtech.com . AnandTech . Retrieved Oct 1, 2013 . ^ "The Next Generation of Graphics APIs" . Oxide Games. 2014-05-21. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04 . Retrieved 2014-07-18 . ^ "The Race to the Metal" . Josh Barczak. 2014-05-23. ^ "The performance of Mantle" . AMD. 2014-05-28. ^ "AMD Mantle API Performance Analysis With Radeon R7 260X, R9 270X, R9 280X" . 2 February 2014. ^ "Tłumacz Google" . February 2014. ^ "AMD claim performance boosts of up to 45% using Mantle over DirectX | PCGamesN" . 6 January 2014. ^ "AMD Mantle Powered Flagship Nitrous Engine "Star Swarm Benchmark" Released on Steam" . 31 January 2014. ^ "Page 2 - AMD's Mantle benchmarked: The biggest innovation in gaming since DirectX 9 | ExtremeTech" . ^ "AMD releases Mantle, shares performance numbers" . ^ a b c "Mantle: the start of a low-overhead future" . AMD. 2014-05-28. ^ "Combining Efficient Engine Design with a modern API" . 2014-03-20. ^ "Mantle in the words of game developers" . AMD. 2014-05-28. ^ "How Mantle changes the game" (PDF) . 2013-11-21. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-08-11 . Retrieved 2014-07-18 . ^ "Mantle for Developers (by Johan Andersson, DICE)" . 2013-11-21. ^ "Empowering 3D Graphics Innovation" . 2013-11-21. ^ Smith, Ryan (26 September 2013). "Understanding AMD's Mantle" . Anandtech.com . Retrieved 28 June 2016 . ^ "AMD wants to improve gaming in Linux and Steam boxes with its Mantle tools" . 2014-06-18. ^ "Linux support isn't ruled out completely" . Phoronix . 2014-05-31. ^ "libcg on Github" . GitHub . ^ "GRVK on GitHub" . GitHub . ^ "AMD Mantle support is headed to another game engine" . 14 January 2022. ^ Parrish, Kevin (Sep 25, 2013). "AMD's Mantle API Gives Devs Direct Hardware Control" . tomshardware.com . Tom's Hardware . Retrieved Oct 1, 2013 . ^ "Star Swarm Stress Test on Steam" . ^ "Mantle Renderer now available in Battlefield 4" . ^ "Mantle Takes to the Stars with Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth" . ^ "Sniper Elite 3 to tap AMD's Mantle API" . 21 November 2013. ^ "AMD's Revolutionary Mantle Graphics API Adopted by Industry Leading Game Developers Cloud Imperium, Eidos-Montréal and Oxide" . AMD . NYSE: AMD. November 4, 2013. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014 . Retrieved November 5, 2013 . ^ "Star Citizen to Include Mantle Support" . Transmission . Cloud Imperium Games. 5 November 2013 . Retrieved 6 November 2013 . ^ "Mantle to power 15 Frostbite games; DICE calls for multi-vendor support - The Tech Report" . 13 November 2013. ^ "OpenGL Efficiency: AZDO" (PDF) . Khronos Group . March 2014 . Retrieved 2020-10-07 . ^ "Beyond Porting: How Modern OpenGL Can Radically Reduce Driver Overhead" . YouTube . 2014-02-11 . Retrieved 2020-10-07 . ^ "OpenGL NVIDIA Command-List: Approaching Zero Driver Overhead" . 2014-12-04 . Retrieved 2020-10-07 . ^ "A closer look at DirectX 12" . The Tech Report . 2014-03-30 . Retrieved 2020-10-07 . ^ "More on Vulkan and SPIR - V: The future of high-performance graphics" (PDF) . Khronos Group. p. 10 . Retrieved 27 June 2015 . Thanks AMD! ^ Mah Ung, Gordon (6 March 2015). "Mantle is a Vulkan: AMD's dead graphics API rises from the ashes in OpenGL's successor" . PCWorld. ^ "AMD Gaming: One of Mantle's Futures: Vulkan | AMD Blogs" . Community.amd.com . Retrieved 2015-03-05 . ^ Hruska, Joel (4 March 2015). "Not dead yet: AMD's Mantle powers new Vulkan API, VR efforts" . ExtremeTech . Retrieved 2015-03-05 . ^ "AMD's Mantle Lives On In Vulkan - Lays The Foundation For The Next OpenGL" . Wccftech.com. 2014-06-20 . Retrieved 2020-10-07 . ^ Kirsch, Nathan (2015-03-03). "Is AMD Mantle Dead As We Have Known It? Vulcan API Uses Mantle Technology for OpenGL" . Legit Reviews . Retrieved 2020-10-07 . ^ "AMD Gaming Evolved Now Supports Mantle" . ^ "D3DGear Mantle Recording Software" .External links
[ edit ] Mantle Programming Guide and API Reference v t e AMD graphics Radeon -brandList of GPUs ( GPU features template ) and List of APUs ( APU features template ) Fixed pipeline Wonder Mach Rage All-in-Wonder (before 2000) Vertex and fragment shaders R100 R200 R300 R400 R500 All-in-Wonder (after 1999) Unified shaders TeraScale HD 2000 HD 3000 HD 4000 HD 5000 HD 6000 Unified shaders & memory GCN HD 7000 HD 8000 200 300 400 500 RX Vega 600 RDNA RX 5000 RX 6000 RX 7000 RX 9000 Current technologies and software Audio/Video acceleration Unified Video Decoder (UVD) Video Coding Engine (VCE) Video Core Next (VCN) TrueAudio GPU technologies Eyefinity FreeSync PowerTune CrossFire Hybrid Graphics HyperMemory HyperZ HSA RDNA 2 3 4 Software Current AMD Radeon Software HD3D ROCm AMDGPU GPUOpen TressFX HLSL2GLSL Obsolete AMD APP SDK Catalyst Close to Metal CodeAnalyst GPU PerfStudio Mantle CodeXL Other brands and products Workstations
& supercomputers Current Radeon Pro Radeon Instinct Obsolete FireGL/FirePro FireMV FireStream Consoles
& handheld PCs Flipper ( GameCube ) Xenos ( Xbox 360 ) Hollywood ( Wii ) Liverpool ( PlayStation 4 ) Durango ( Xbox One ) Neo ( PlayStation 4 Pro ) Scorpio ( Xbox One X ) Atari VCS (2021) PlayStation 5 Xbox Series X/S Steam Deck Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mantle_(API)&oldid=1289819864 " Categories : Mantle (API) 3D graphics APIs AMD software Application programming interfaces Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Articles needing cleanup from August 2014 All pages needing cleanup Articles with sections that need to be turned into prose from August 2014 Articles containing potentially dated statements from July 2014 All articles containing potentially dated statements All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from September 2015 This page was last edited on 11 May 2025, at 02:08 (UTC) . Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy . Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. , a non-profit organization. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Code of Conduct Developers Statistics Cookie statement Mobile view Search Toggle the table of contents Mantle (API) 10 languages Add topic