AMD: Updates to OpenGL and DirectX align with Mantle vision

AMD says the company “looks forward to the announced updates to OpenGL and the DirectX APIs.” They will offer similar functionality as Mantle, as it turned out this week, but according to AMD, that will take a while.

The statement was given by AMD to the TechReport website. The company is responding to the news that DirectX and OpenGL may receive updates that give developers more control over graphics hardware. These updates should reduce the load on CPUs and improve video card performance in a similar way to what AMD Mantle is doing now with Battlefield 4, for example. Mantle is also supposed to come to the new Thief game, but that support has been postponed until March.

The news that OpenGL and DirectX are following Mantle’s lead is apparent from a number of brief summaries posted on the Game Developers Conference 2014 website. Microsoft has planned two meetings that stand out. One is titled “DirectX: Evolving Microsoft’s Graphics Platform.” In the summary, Microsoft speaks of “better tools to squeeze the very last bit of performance out of your PC, tablet, phone and console.” Microsoft also uses the term ‘closer to the metal’ in the text; a designation that AMD has also used for Mantle in the past. In addition, Microsoft has a presentation titled “DirectX: Direct3D Futures,” where they talk about “future enhancements to Direct3D that will give developers unparalleled access and control over hardware and reduce CPU load across a broad ecosystem of hardware.”

The folks behind OpenGL have also prepared a meeting on the topic. In “Approaching Zero Driver Overhead in OpenGL,” people from Nvidia, Intel, and AMD talk about “concepts that reduce driver overhead by a factor of ten or more.” The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco kicks off on March 17 and runs through March 21. The presentations on DirectX and OpenGL will take place on March 20th.