AMD's new Mantle API

[BiggieShady]

Tell me again how many great PC games don't use Unreal Engine.

These were great games not because of the engine, rather in spite of the engine.

 

[Assimilator]

These were great games not because of the engine, rather in spite of the engine.

Awesome! What exactly does that have to do with my disproving of crazyeyesreaper's assertion that he "can't say many great games on PC are UE games"?

The engine doesn't make the game good or bad. It's possible to make a great game with a shit engine and vice versa. However, a good engine makes it easier to develop a game because you can spend more time on the content and gameplay and waste less time trying to get the engine to play nice... and this is why the Unreal Engine is so widely used and well regarded, and why UE3, a 7-year-old engine, is still so widely used. Because Epic makes it easy to work with.

Now, if your definition of "great game" or "great engine" revolves around graphics fidelity, then I have some news for you: you're the problem with the games industry. Games that push PC graphics to their limits are great, but games with actual gameplay are far more important.

 

[BiggieShady]

Awesome! What exactly does that have to do with my disproving of crazyeyesreaper's assertion that he "can't say many great games on PC are UE games"?

The engine doesn't make the game good or bad. It's possible to make a great game with a shit engine and vice versa. However, a good engine makes it easier to develop a game because you can spend more time on the content and gameplay and waste less time trying to get the engine to play nice... and this is why the Unreal Engine is so widely used and well regarded, and why UE3, a 7-year-old engine, is still so widely used. Because Epic makes it easy to work with.

Now, if your definition of "great game" or "great engine" revolves around graphics fidelity, then I have some news for you: you're the problem with the games industry. Games that push PC graphics to their limits are great, but games with actual gameplay are far more important.

Fair enough. You are making a good point. But, to clarify mine, Unreal engine was for a long time only binary space partition algorithm optimized (indoors levels, tunnel shooter games syndrome and all that) only recently it's becoming more versatile. Borderlands were first open world game on unreal engine and it was heavily zoned. For some reason for most people openness is what makes great game and that's what UE to some extent is still missing. Maybe it's just me, but I cant' escape a feeling that Arkham City would be a better game if it was made in Cryengine rather than Unreal engine - not for the visuals, but for occlusion system and LOD.

 

[Phobia9651]

Few things worth mentioning after reading through most comments:
- Matt Skynner claims: “I'll put it this way. We're not going to develop an entirely new API just for a performance gain of 3 or 4 percent. It will be a significant increase.”
Offcourse it makes sense for him to say that, but still.
Source: http://us.hardware.info/reviews/485...on-cards-mantle-performance-and-compatibility
- In case people were wondering Nvidia has NVAPI: https://developer.nvidia.com/nvapi
Not sure on how well adopted it is/will be though.
- EA Sports games aren't going to use Frostbite 3, but the new Ignite engine by EA.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City, Batman: Arkham Origins
Recycled in game objects / Hardware biased render paths and feature exclusions good game crap engine. Everyone looks like there on roids.

Bioshock Infinite - Decent game the cel shading helped it stand out compared to the more mundane overly roided characters in other titles.

Borderlands, Borderlands 2 again cell shading helped greatly to set it apart. Solid games but heavy compartmentalized lots of loading screens jumping back and forth.

Bulletstorm - Generic shooter same overly roided characters look like Batman / Gears of War aka Generic nothing special.

Dishonored - Solid game set apart due to visual style.

Gears of War - overly generic roided characters again same as Bulletstorm and Batman in that regard.

Mass Effect 1, 2, 3 decent games but having played many other games on UE3 they all feel the same. Boring repetitive gunplay.

Mirror's Edge interesting game however Dice developed an entirely new lighting system for it so it would look good they made serious changes under the hood for it to function properly. Game is good due to the team not the engine.

Spec Ops: The Line
decent game nothing special the story was more intriguing than the gun play etc

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas
never bothered wit hthe new games in this series.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown
decent game but they went in a different direction compared to other UE games. aka instead of being generic they did somethitng different and the game was good hmmm interesting how that works.

... and those are only UE3 games.

Tell me again how many great PC games don't use Unreal Engine.

Now how about a list of terrible PC games that don't function right have terrible aiming due to mouse smoothing and other issues.

Medal Of Honor Airborne
mouse smoothing issues game just feels like shit when playing it

Brothers in Arms games had serious issues with ATi / AMD gpus many of which were never fixed.

Chronicles of Spell born an mmorpg had serious issues again with all AMD / ATi hardware

Splinter Cell series also suffers from terrible AMD/ ATI gpu support glitches etc

50 cent blood on the sand

I can keep going but the key thing here is that every Unreal Engine shooter feels either like shit or exactly the same as every other UE shooter. Essentially clone syndrome. A few games do rise above but for the most part your either have mediocre shit or a sense of deja vu from crappy shooters. EPIC has begun changing this slightly but from Unreal 2 to 3 most characters in there games are just overly muscled no neck dudes that talk gruff and shoot guns that all feel the same.

On an engine level I am not impressed by UE at all its the go to its generic its what everyone uses so games all feel the fucking same. I enjoy actual new experiences with interesting twists and solid gameplay not the same tired formula with the same tired mechanics with the same tired animations and cookie cutter character designs. If you do thats cool. I just dont find many games on your list that compelling.

Essentially mechanically most wont notice but.

Mass Effect / Gears of War / Spec Ops The Line / Alpha Protocol / etc etc etc all play exactly the same there generic.

Maybe I pick up on these things and others don't but I am not so easily impressed by the crap that gets released on Unreal Engine and considering its flaws and track record with hardware support its not that great of a game engine. Then again it takes alot to impress me when it comes to a game so most titles are meh these days.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Those games weren't made great by the engine, they were made great by the developers, and many of them stuttered badly BECAUSE of the engine used.

 

[AsRock]

Unreal engine is boring and got bored of it many years back with Unreal Tournament. Although some of the games if a good story is done can make the game fun which is why i liked Bioshock but the engine sucks compered to some as every tim i play a game using the unreal engine makes me feel like i should be playing it on a console.

 

[Nordic]

I like unreal engine in multiplayer games. Typically these games do not require much performance to play. I am not sure what this would be called but the "physics" feel right, such how the guns work and general movement. In contrast, crytech engine is one of the better looking and typically requires higher performing hardware; it did in crisis 1 at the very least. The same movement and gun mechanics just feel weird to me. I can not put my figure on it but it is purely a subjective measure.

@crazyeyereaper, would any of those bad games of been good if they used another engine? I have played so few of them so I can not judge. I did not play them because they looked like the same generic shooters I did not like to begin with.

 

[Frick]

@crazyeyes: Wait, are you saying all games are the same because they use the same engine? What you are describing is the decline of gaming in general and it would be that way no matter the engine used.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Not so much its the differences in game mechanics due to the same engine what can be done to improve it is ignored so how the games feel when playing it feels the same as every other game on that engine. Gamebryo suffers from this as well.

Its one thing if the mechanics work well and are solid, its entirely another when they are utter shit and nothing is done to improve on them. Ala most developers and UE = ah good enough fuck it. It has made what were interesting games that should have been enjoyable turn out to be frustrating garbage that with mouse smoothing on actually makes me feel nauseous.

Some game engines are improving and doing well adapting but Unreal Engine feels very much stuck in the past resting on its market share and nothing more. So in a sense Frick I guess yes I would say UE is contributing to the decline of gaming by making shit controls and mechanics the norm.

Todays game industry is just retarded in general

V-sync is a feature, mouse smoothing and auto aim half the time can't be disabled, easy is kiddy mode where you dont even have to shoot and hard is easy. EPIC knows how to properly use their own engine most developers however don't seem to have a clue.

As for the whole graphics argument yea I dont care i spend more time playing older titles like Baldurs Gate 1 + 2 etc than I do newer stuff. Deeper stories character relationships and plot devices that span longer than 30 seconds are better than graphics but these games also have no issues with the controls and mechanics either and can and have been improved on. Go figure.

 

[Nordic]

As frick mentioned, you seem to be describing the decline of gaming in general. Unreal engine is used a lot so you seem to be blaming it for this decline.

Personally I don't play those games and fall more into indie games like Natural Selection 2 (Spark Engine), Chivalry (Unreal Engine). At least right now that is.


Edit: I wonder if there is even a decline. I only started pc gaming about 5 years ago. My knowledge is limited by that. I wonder if it is like movies. It sometimes appears there are so many bad movies come out every year. That the movies in the past were better. There were just as many bad movies then but as time past people only remember the good ones which contrast with the current mix of bad and good.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Ill put this way in terms of characters and relationships between them


Bioware: Oh you said something nice to the blue alien girl 3 times? lets fuck

Black Isle / Troika / Obisidian
Baldurs Gate 2: some 100 + lines of dialogue with answers that if you fuck up the relationship is pretty much over. Due to D&D rules characters will disagree with you and leave your party or in games like NWN2 actually turn against you.

Older games had choices much like todays games but there was far more gray area, less instant gratification.

And I dont think UE games are inherently bad. Some of them are good again Airborn wasnt a bad FPS game just the inability to turn off mouse smoothing ment aiming felt like shit.

The big problem though is just the copy cat shit that never ends.

Bulletstorm is kinda like Gears of War but with points for shooting dudes in the nuts.

Batman has great fighting mechanic thankfull due to a lack of shooting it doesnt have the same clone feel. However the enemy character designs are always extremely overly muscular. It seems to be something thats just the norm on UE games. Lets make all the characters look like they took a tanker trailer full of steroids for even the low level goons. They lack true character and depth or even originality yes beating up 50 dudes in white tank tops with shaved heads and huge muscles is so original lol.

Add to that pre baked lighting maps with no real dynamic shadowing tiny levels. and just general crap support by developers with various hardware when using the engine its hard to like UE.

Half the bad rap is due to the number of shit games using it but it can be so easily avoided the documentation is there anyone can get access to it. So why is it so hard to not fuck up the simple stuff. The best gameplay ideas and the most enjoyable story can be completely screwed when the controls and mechanics are crap. Thats all i am saying and I attribute this to hand holding and dumbing down of nearly every aspect of gaming. UE just kinda made it popular and marketable. Here we have a game engine with all this cool stuff you can edit it to hearts content. Sadly most developers do that and just make worse. Only a few have done well with Gearbox being one of them.

I can't really fault the industry either the typical human being is in fact getting more and more ignorant which each passing year. Lazier wanting to experience a game but not have to put in effort a good example is CoD Black Ops where you can beat the entire game never firing your gun.

Overall though Most games on Unreal Engine feel like every other Unreal Engine game. Its like being stuck in a rut.

The Mantle API wont fix that but w.e I enjoy truly unique experiences and games. Most of todays mainstream stuff is just regurgitated garbage in some ways thats fine as just mindlessly playing a game can be fun. The fact is tho the avg gamer is not an ignorant 13 year old anymore yet most of the junk that gets turned out is targeted at that audience.

 

[Fourstaff]

And I dont think UE games are inherently bad.

Not all UE games are bad, but the fact that they decide to use UE over some other homebrew or heavily modified ones speaks volumes about their resources and their commitment.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

pretty much since UE = $1,000,000 to license.

Other engines like Unity are $99 or was it $199 but they get a % of sales but scales to phones consoles and PC of course etc

So we get games where a huge amount is spent on licensing UE and the game gets lackluster funds for development unless its a AAA title after which it gets marketed to hell and back. In the end we get crappier games due to this.

Good example is The Creative Assembly and Rome 2 Total war they design their games with a 90+ metacritic score so for Rome 2 they actually cut fulling finished featured and even 90% done features because reviewers wouldnt like those aspects of the game. So their true fans get a lackluster game in favor of better review scores. 40% larger budget for Rome 2 and it has less features than Rome 2 or even previous games is more simplified and to even enjoy the game perod requires mods vanilla the game is just a mess.

To much emphasis on being mainstream using a big engine and getting review scores. rather than good games so I guess in the end Mantle API could be successful but if its only on shitty games or lackluster copy paste titles why would I switch to AMD to run them 10-15% better. I might be a negative nancy about it but I know in the back of the minds of many people here they have seen it sensed it know full well the gaming industry is diseased at this point with ballooning budgets and to much emphasis casual and broad appeal. We as gamers have lost those gems that really made gaming great. Indie developers are trying to carry the torch but its not going as well as hoped.

 

[Frick]

Edit: I wonder if there is even a decline. I only started pc gaming about 5 years ago. My knowledge is limited by that. I wonder if it is like movies. It sometimes appears there are so many bad movies come out every year. That the movies in the past were better. There were just as many bad movies then but as time past people only remember the good ones which contrast with the current mix of bad and good.

It is a clear decline IMO. The best computer gaming experiences that can be had (with some exceptions) are decades old by now.

Ill put this way in terms of characters and relationships between them


Bioware: Oh you said something nice to the blue alien girl 3 times? lets fuck

Black Isle / Troika / Obisidian
Baldurs Gate 2: some 100 + lines of dialogue with answers that if you fuck up the relationship is pretty much over. Due to D&D rules characters will disagree with you and leave your party or in games like NWN2 actually turn against you.

Older games had choices much like todays games but there was far more gray area, less instant gratification.

And I dont think UE games are inherently bad. Some of them are good again Airborn wasnt a bad FPS game just the inability to turn off mouse smoothing ment aiming felt like shit.

The big problem though is just the copy cat shit that never ends.

snip

The Mantle API wont fix that but w.e I enjoy truly unique experiences and games. Most of todays mainstream stuff is just regurgitated garbage in some ways thats fine as just mindlessly playing a game can be fun. The fact is tho the avg gamer is not an ignorant 13 year old anymore yet most of the junk that gets turned out is targeted at that audience.

And this somehow relates to the UE engine being shit? And why are you surprised that DnD-based RPG's are pretty similar? And why are you surprised that cover based shooters are like other cover based shooters? And again, what does that have to do with the engines?

Here are some games using two different engines. As you say, the problem is what I think of as general decline, but I don't see how forcing every single developer to make it's own engine from scratch could help anything, except eating those bloated budgets and freeing up the bloated money from at least solid voice acting?

In short, I have no idea what your point is, unless that point is that gaming is in a decline, which can be said in five words.

If your point is that Bioware suck however, I agree.

 

[BiggieShady]

In short, I have no idea what your point is, unless that point is that gaming is in a decline, which can be said in five words.

Let me intercept and for no apparent reason explain how I got crazy's point.
UE comes with hefty licence price and brings heaps of features out-of-the-box that are "good enough" to use in production.
Devs tend to use these features as-is, modifying it minimally if at all, saving some money but resulting in games that "feel" somewhat similar. That goes even as far as using character design that is heavily derived from sample meshes.
Now, thankfully, that is not a rule, and great example for that is Dishonored which is done in Unreal engine.

 

[Frick]

Let me intercept and for no apparent reason explain how I got crazy's point.
UE comes with hefty licence price and brings heaps of features out-of-the-box that are "good enough" to use in production.
Devs tend to use these features as-is, modifying it minimally if at all, saving some money but resulting in games that "feel" somewhat similar. That goes even as far as using character design that is heavily derived from sample meshes.
Now, thankfully, that is not a rule, and great example for that is Dishonored which is done in Unreal engine.

I got that too, but that isn't the engines problem.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

No its lazy developers with an engine that literally includes base meshes to start with that they seldom seem to change these days.

 

[Nordic]

So your upset because the engine enables lazy developers?

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Yes I am.

Lazy = Bethesda with Oblivion where they out sourced the character models for the races etc thus we got an Orangutan for characters.

Because of lazy design choices and the pulling of features we get casual garbage.

The example of this is paying $60 for a blu ray for a B-movie that sucks.

Honestly who wants to pay $60 for a base game with $60 + for DLC that adds what should have been there to begin with. Pay more get less and its dumbed down.

Because everyone wants to sell a game like Blizzard does or Activision with CoD etc everything is becoming more more similar. Those diverse experiences are gone. I am more excited these days for things on Kickstarter. The Double Fine adventure game. Obsidian and Project Eternity etc.

I went to school with alot of talent people that put a lot of effort into the products they work on for alot of it to get scrapped or chopped up in favor of mass appeal. Or the push for every game to have multiplayer.

Spec Ops the Line is a great example. That shooter was never going to have a multiplayer mode but the publisher forced the issue. So time / money / effort had to be diverted from what could have been a pinnacle experience to include a shitty buggy multiplayer NO ONE PLAYS.

Publishers have to much sway over developers no add in laziness to the design process and you get sub par games but because it got a 90 on Metacritic its amazing and in todays gaming experience if you dont like it your just a tool cause everyone else loves it.

The major problem here is Unreal Engine is damn prevalent in the market that so many games feel the same play the same with the same character designs and dialogue with the same cliche action scenes. Its just become so homogenized that Unreal games just don't inspire me. The batman games were good but thats just one series thats soon to be milked dry. But the unique experiences when it comes to UE games is very few and far between.

Laziness / Publisher nit picking / Bloated game engine license fees / Content cutting for DLC / multiplayer in every game no matter what / focus on casual / lack of depth / removal of features for higher review scores. / timed exclusives / hardware vendor sabotage

All of this is common in the industry and all its done is hurt the quality of the games and their stories features and impact. The industry as a whole wants to be treated on the same terms as film yet. with so much of the above and with less and less inspiring titles each year its becoming more of a running joke than anything else.

The proliferation of Unreal Engine has just help exacerbate the issue. It is what it is.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Yes I am.

Lazy = Bethesda with Oblivion where they out sourced the character models for the races etc thus we got an Orangutan for characters.

Because of lazy design choices and the pulling of features we get casual garbage.

The example of this is paying $60 for a blu ray for a B-movie that sucks.

Honestly who wants to pay $60 for a base game with $60 + for DLC that adds what should have been there to begin with. Pay more get less and its dumbed down.

Because everyone wants to sell a game like Blizzard does or Activision with CoD etc everything is becoming more more similar. Those diverse experiences are gone. I am more excited these days for things on Kickstarter. The Double Fine adventure game. Obsidian and Project Eternity etc.

I went to school with alot of talent people that put a lot of effort into the products they work on for alot of it to get scrapped or chopped up in favor of mass appeal. Or the push for every game to have multiplayer.

Spec Ops the Line is a great example. That shooter was never going to have a multiplayer mode but the publisher forced the issue. So time / money / effort had to be diverted from what could have been a pinnacle experience to include a shitty buggy multiplayer NO ONE PLAYS.

Publishers have to much sway over developers no add in laziness to the design process and you get sub par games but because it got a 90 on Metacritic its amazing and in todays gaming experience if you dont like it your just a tool cause everyone else loves it.

The major problem here is Unreal Engine is damn prevalent in the market that so many games feel the same play the same with the same character designs and dialogue with the same cliche action scenes. Its just become so homogenized that Unreal games just don't inspire me. The batman games were good but thats just one series thats soon to be milked dry. But the unique experiences when it comes to UE games is very few and far between.

Laziness / Publisher nit picking / Bloated game engine license fees / Content cutting for DLC / multiplayer in every game no matter what / focus on casual / lack of depth / removal of features for higher review scores. / timed exclusives / hardware vendor sabotage

All of this is common in the industry and all its done is hurt the quality of the games and their stories features and impact. The industry as a whole wants to be treated on the same terms as film yet. with so much of the above and with less and less inspiring titles each year its becoming more of a running joke than anything else.

The proliferation of Unreal Engine has just help exacerbate the issue. It is what it is.

You have been epic post ranting a while now crazy but imho this is not mantels fault and is off topic start an actual thread for it fella as it seems like amd hate in all ways and its not there fault.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Where did I hate on mantle everyone here wants to jump for joy at a 15-20% performance bump and thats fine, but Mantle as an API doesnt make games better it just means more of the same shit runs better lol. And yes this is totally off topic surprised it took this long for someone to say something.

But tell me what is there to truly be excited about with Mantle?

if a game runs at 100 fps already and it can be pushed to 120 oooo it must be infinitely better right ?

or from 25 fps to 30 fps its gonna change the world of gaming.

A new API is interesting but then Mantle isnt really new. It doesnt make games better it just helps developers get a bit more performance now so they can slap on more shit later lol.

Good example DX11 its far faster than DX10 and DX9 its the inclusion of ever more post process filters that has slowed DX11 down. Go figure. Regardless I Hope Mantle proves to be game changing in terms of performance I really do but I just highly doubt it knowing AMD's track record.

AMD = tessellation 10 + years ago just now becoming mainstream
AMD = multi- gpu is prone to issues
AMD = latency issues in games with their branding on it with multi-gpu making it worse
AMD = takes 6 months to a year to fix said issue its not fully fixed yet
This same company now wants to provide a unified graphics API that allows closer access to the GPU awesome lets see how that plays out

This is coming from someone that has run a Ati 9600 / 4870x2 / 5850 xfire / 6950 xfire / 6970 xfire / 7970. Only ran Nvidia with the 7800 GTX / 8800 GTS and GTX 670. My faith in AMD is lacking do to many past mistakes and screw ups. Its rather hard to believe in an API created by a corporation that has a hard enough time getting products out the door with proper support.

 

[AsRock]

Well part of the problem is that developers do not expend a game from a console to PC they are more of a copy from.

Games are not as complex or as good as the good old mid 90's and games like Ghost Recon and Rv6.

UR engine is like hitting the same pussy for 10 years you\they need to find other ways to hit it.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Where did I hate on mantle everyone here wants to jump for joy at a 15-20% performance bump and thats fine, but Mantle as an API doesnt make games better it just means more of the same shit runs better lol. And yes this is totally off topic surprised it took this long for someone to say something.

But tell me what is there to truly be excited about with Mantle?

if a game runs at 100 fps already and it can be pushed to 120 oooo it must be infinitely better right ?

or from 25 fps to 30 fps its gonna change the world of gaming.

A new API is interesting but then Mantle isnt really new. It doesnt make games better it just helps developers get a bit more performance now so they can slap on more shit later lol.

Good example DX11 its far faster than DX10 and DX9 its the inclusion of ever more post process filters that has slowed DX11 down. Go figure. Regardless I Hope Mantle proves to be game changing in terms of performance I really do but I just highly doubt it knowing AMD's track record.

AMD = tessellation 10 + years ago just now becoming mainstream
AMD = multi- gpu is prone to issues
AMD = latency issues in games with their branding on it with multi-gpu making it worse
AMD = takes 6 months to a year to fix said issue its not fully fixed yet
This same company now wants to provide a unified graphics API that allows closer access to the GPU awesome lets see how that plays out

This is coming from someone that has run a Ati 9600 / 4870x2 / 5850 xfire / 6950 xfire / 6970 xfire / 7970. Only ran Nvidia with the 7800 GTX / 8800 GTS and GTX 670. My faith in AMD is lacking do to many past mistakes and screw ups. Its rather hard to believe in an API created by a corporation that has a hard enough time getting products out the door with proper support.

Read up man amd announced that mantel was worked on with dice but also others yet to be announced that could be a lot of people but likely includes microsoft and sony.
Amd are part of the hsa foundation, are getting into arm and co operate on hsa with many.
All these dots join up at some point.
Now like I said start a thread entitled

Crazy moans about game devs and ill join in ,on your side too

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Read up man amd announced that mantel was worked on with dice but also others yet to be announced that could be a lot of people but likely includes microsoft and sony.
Amd are part of the hsa foundation, are getting into arm and co operate on hsa with many.
All these dots join up at some point.
Now like I said start a thread entitled

Crazy moans about game devs and ill join in ,on your side too

You do realize you are arguing with a guy with an education in game design right? He easily has more knowledge on the subject then everyone combined in this thread.