1.
1 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
MANTLE
INTRODUCING A NEW API FOR GRAPHICS
Guennadi Riguer

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2 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
MORE MANTLE @ GDC 2014
Rendering Battlefield 4 with Mantle
Johan Andersson, Technical Director, DICE/EA
Location: Room 2009, West Hall, Date: Wednesday, March 19, Time: 3:30pm-4:30pm
Nitrous & Mantle: Combining Efficient Engine Design with a Modern API
Dan Baker, Partner, Oxide Games
Tim Kipp, Partner, Oxide Games
Location: Room 2009, West Hall, Date: Wednesday, March 19, Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm

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3 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
Direct3D and the Future of Graphics APIs
Johan Andersson, Technical Director, DICE/EA
Dan Baker, Partner, Oxide Games
Dave Oldcorn, Software Engineering Fellow, AMD
Location: Room 3020, West Hall, Date: Thursday, March 20, 5:30pm-6:30pm

4.
Cevat Yerli
Founder, CEO & President
of Crytek

5.
CRYENGINE
Mantle Support
© 2014 Crytek

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6 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
CRYENGINE
Crytek‘s proprietary game development
solution CRYENGINE is used in all nine
Crytek studios across the globe.
CRYENGINE support for more than 70
Licensees in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
STUDIO NOTTINGHAM
STUDIO FRANKFURT AM MAIN
STUDIO BUDAPEST
STUDIO SOFIA
STUDIO KIEV
STUDIO ISTANBUL
STUDIO SHANGHAI
STUDIO SEOULSTUDIO AUSTIN

7.
1999
2002
2003
2004
Crytek is founded in Coburg, Germany.
The first CryENGINE® is born.TIMELINE
The first iteration of CryENGINE®.
Development of Far Cry.
CryENGINE® is showcased for the first time at GDC.
Far Cry is released.
Crytek partners with EA to develop its second game, Crysis.
CryENGINE® 2 debuts at GDC.
Sci-fi FPS Crysis is released and wins critical acclaim for its high quality graphics and gameplay.
2007
The new and improved CryENGINE® 3 is released. Crysis 2 is announced, again in partnership with EA. It
is Crytek’s first game for the PlayStation® 3 and Xbox 360, as well as the PC.2009
The new CRYENGINE is released for XBoxOne, PS4, Wii-U and PC
RYSE is released.20132013
2014
CRYENGINE adds full native Linux support

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8 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
CRYTEK & AMD
Over 10 years of collaboration
AMD and CRYTEK share an intense passion for games
and technology advancement .
Crytek has always been on the cutting edge of making
the most of the hardware available to deliver best
visuals possible to our gamers and the best
technology to our CRYENGINE developers.
Close collaboration with AMD’s developer relations,
driver, hardware architecture and HSA teams.

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9 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
CRYENGINE AND MANTLE
Getting closer to the metal
To achieve our vision of CG quality, real-time graphics this generation
we need lower-level access to the hardware on PC and console.
Working with AMD we look forward to greater flexibility and power
using Mantle with CRYENGINE – the first game engine to support
Mantle.
Finally the GPU and CPU are at our mercy… 

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10 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
EXCITING FUTURE
Games are going to look even better!
We have pioneered effects in Ryse: Son Of Rome, but had to use
them sparingly.
In future these complex simulations and graphics effects will work
in tandem, and be much more widespread.
Thanks to our long term relationship with AMD we’ve been able
to see this vision together.
We are looking forward to showing the results of Mantle and
CRYENGINE very soon…

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11 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
Thank you!

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12 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
AGENDA
Mantle Innovation
Mantle “Hello, world!”
Mantle SDK
Tools

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13 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
WHAT IS MANTLE
Mantle is a new graphics API
–“Just right” abstraction level
–Modern API for modern GPUs
–Designed by developers for developers
What Mantle is not:
–It’s not quite “down to the metal” API
–It’s not some “magic” solution

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14 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
DESIGN GOALS
Aggressive performance goals
–100K draws/frame
–Faster GPU performance
Efficient multi-threading
–Linear scaling with CPU cores
Multi-platform

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15 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
MANTLE INNOVATIONS
Generalized memory
Command buffer building/execution model
Memory/image state management
Monolithic pipelines
New resource binding model

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16 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
“HELLO, WORLD!”

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17 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
GPUS AND DEVICES
GPU
Device
GPU
Device
Application

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18 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
GPU DETECTION EXAMPLE
GR_APPLICATION_INFO appInfo = {};
appInfo.pAppName = “myApp”;
appInfo.pEngineName = “myEngine”;
appInfo.apiVersion = GR_API_VERSION;
GR_UINT32 gpuCount;
GR_PHYSICAL_GPU gpus[GR_MAX_PHYSICAL_GPUS];
GR_RESULT result = grInitAndEnumerateGpus(
&appInfo, NULL, &gpuCount, &gpus[0]);
if (result == GR_SUCCESS)
{
FindSuitableGpu(gpus, gpuCount);
}

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19 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
DEVICE CREATION EXAMPLE
GR_DEVICE_QUEUE_CREATE_INFO dqci = {};
dqci.queueCount = 1;
dqci.queueType = GR_QUEUE_UNIVERSAL;
GR_CHAR* extNames[] = {"GR_WSI_WINDOWS", "GR_BORDER_COLOR_PALETTE"};
GR_DEVICE_CREATE_INFO info = {};
info.queueRecordCount = 1;
info.pRequestedQueues = &dqci;
info.extensionCount = 2;
info.ppEnabledExtensionNames = extNames;
info.maxValidationLevel = GR_VALIDATION_LEVEL_0;
GR_RESULT result = grCreateDevice(gpu, &info, &device);

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20 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
MEMORY MODEL
Memory heap 1 Memory heap 2 Memory heap N
. . .
Mem
Mem
Mem
Mem
Mem
Mem
Mem
Mem

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21 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
MEMORY MODEL
More general GPU memory access
Application controls almost all GPU memory
Page granularity allocations with control of heaps
–Sub-allocate for small resources from pools
Leverages GPU virtual address space
No direct CPU access

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22 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
ALLOCATION EXAMPLE
GR_MEMORY_ALLOC_INFO allocInfo = {};
allocInfo.memPriority = GR_MEMORY_PRIORITY_NORMAL;
allocInfo.size = numPages * gpuPageSize;
allocInfo.heapCount = 2;
allocInfo.heaps[0] = firstChoiceHeapId;
allocInfo.heaps[1] = secondChoiceHeapId;
GR_RESULT result = grAllocMemory(device, &allocInfo, memory);

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23 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
MEMORY MANAGEMENT
Mantle is on top of OS video memory manager
Application tracks use of memory
–Provides memory references for GPU
Could get really smart, just like on consoles
–Use of memory pools is encouraged
–Reduces amount of memory tracking

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24 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
RESOURCES
Generalized GPU resources
Other APIs
Index buffers
Vertex buffers
Constant buffers
Staging resources
Textures
UAVs
Texture Arrays
. . .
Memory
Mantle
Images

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25 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
Application manages internal object memory
DECOUPLED OBJECT MEMORY
Memory
State
API object
Other APIs Mantle
Memory
State
API object

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26 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
OBJECT MEMORY BINDING EXAMPLE
GR_MEMORY_REQUIREMENTS memReqs = {};
GR_SIZE reqSize = sizeof(GR_MEMORY_REQUIREMENTS);
GR_RESULT result = grGetObjectInfo(object,
GR_INFO_TYPE_MEMORY_REQUIREMENTS,
&reqSize, &memReqs);
if (memReqs.size > 0)
{
GR_GPU_SIZE bindOffs = 0;
GR_GPU_MEMORY mem = GetMatchingMemObject(&memReqs, &bindOffs);
grBindObjectMemory(object, mem, bindOffs);
}

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27 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
PROGRAMMING MODEL
Graphics
Compute
DMA
GPU
. . .
Queues
Application
App thread
App thread
App thread
App thread
App thread

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28 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
DEVICE QUEUES
Queue per physical HW engine
–Universal: graphics & compute
–Async compute
–Async DMA (extension)
More efficient use of HW resources
–Parallel execution

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29 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
PARALLEL EXECUTION SPEEDUP
Universal
queue
Universal
queue
Async. compute
queue
Async. DMA
queue

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30 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
COMMAND BUFFER EXAMPLE
GR_CMD_BUFFER cmdBuffer = GR_NULL_HANDLE;
GR_CMD_BUFFER_CREATE_INFO info = {};
info.queueType = GR_QUEUE_UNIVERSAL;
grCreateCommandBuffer(device, &info, &cmdBuffer);
grBeginCommandBuffer(cmdBuffer, 0);
grCmdSetEvent(cmdBuffer, event);
. . .
grEndCommandBuffer(cmdBuffer);

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31 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
COMMAND BUFFER SUBMISSION
Flexible command buffer submission:
–Multiple submissions of once recorded buffer
–Batch submission of multiple buffers
Application provides all memory references

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32 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
SUBMISSION EXAMPLE
for (GR_UINT bufIdx = 0; bufIdx < NumCmdBuf; bufIdx++)
RecordCmdBuffer(cmdBuffer[bufIdx]);
GR_MEMORY_REF memRefs[MAX_REFS];
GR_UINT numMemRefs = 0;
memRefs[numMemRefs].mem = someMemory;
memRefs[numMemRefs++].flags = 0;
memRefs[numMemRefs].mem = someOtherMemory;
memRefs[numMemRefs++].flags = GR_MEMORY_REF_READ_ONLY;
grQueueSubmit(queue, NumCmdBuf, &cmdBuffer[0],
numMemRefs, memRefs, fence);

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33 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
RESOURCE PREPARATION
Mantle doesn’t perform any hazard tracking
Application notifies of hazard conditions
–Uses preparation operation
–Includes WAW hazard (e.g. back-to-back compute)
Usage-based state model
–Indicates transition of usage (e.g. from image write to
read)

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34 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
RESOURCE PREPARATION
Render target Shader resource
Cache flush
Decompression
. . .

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35 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
MEMORY PREPARATION EXAMPLE
GR_MEMORY_STATE_TRANSITION memPrep[2] = {};
memPrep[0].mem = firstMem;
memPrep[0].oldState = GR_MEMORY_STATE_DATA_TRANSFER;
memPrep[0].newState = GR_MEMORY_STATE_GRAPHICS_SHADER_READ_ONLY;
memPrep[0].offset = 0;
memPrep[0].regionSize = 100;
memPrep[1].mem = otherMem;
memPrep[1].oldState = GR_MEMORY_STATE_COMPUTE_SHADER_WRITE_ONLY;
memPrep[1].newState = GR_MEMORY_STATE_COMPUTE_SHADER_WRITE_ONLY;
memPrep[1].offset = 384;
memPrep[1].regionSize = 768;
grCmdPrepareMemoryRegions(cmdBuffer, 2, memPrep);

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36 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
PIPELINES
Monolithic pipeline combines shaders and state
–Serialization to reduce compile time
Benefits
–Reduced runtime validation
–Shader linkage optimizations
–Forward looking abstraction model

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37 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
PIPELINE STATE
Some state is bundled with pipeline
–Affects shader compilation
–E.g. target formats, blending enable, topology, etc.
If abused, could lead to more pipelines
–States carefully selected to avoid this
Pipeline state has to match dynamic state

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38 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
GRAPHICS PIPELINE
IA VS HS DS
Tessellator
GS RS PS
DB
CB
Pipeline state
Index Data Resources TargetsDynamic state

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39 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
RESOURCE BINDING MODEL
Conventional binding is costly
Bindless has pros and cons
New binding model
–Best of both worlds

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40 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
DESCRIPTOR SETS
Pre-build data structures
–Containers for arrays of resource descriptors
–Can be nested
–Can be bound with an offset
Multiple bind points
Globally accessible by all pipeline shaders

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41 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
DESCRIPTOR SET HIERARCHY
Pipeline
Memory
Image
Memory

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42 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
PIPELINE RESOURCE MAPPING
Maps shader resources to descriptor sets
–Shader IL – linear resource namespaces (t#, s#, u#, …)
–Descriptor set – hierarchical structure
Matches descriptor set layout at execution time
–Relative to the bind point
–Separate per shader stage
Specified at pipeline creation

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43 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
BETTER EXPERIENCE WITH MANTLE
Improved CPU & GPU efficiency
–Increased application responsiveness
–Empowering lower spec systems
More predictable performance and behavior
Sharing PC optimizations with consoles
Opportunity for novel techniques

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44 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
MANTLE SDK
Stephan Hodes

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45 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
MANTLE SDK - BETA
Mantle Beta SDK developer website
–Opening in April
Web based access of Mantle SDK files,
samples and documentation
–Selected access only
–NDA required
–Contact AMD Developer
Relations to register interest

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46 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
MANTLE SDK - CONTENT
Core SDK
–Libraries
–Header files
–Extensions
–Shader IL Converter
Documentation
Samples
Developer Forum

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47 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
MANTLE SDK - CONTENT
Core SDK
Documentation
–API reference
–Programming Guide
–Extension Specifications
–Best Practices
Samples
Developer Forum

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48 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
MANTLE SDK - CONTENT
Core SDK
Documentation
Samples
–Show how to use Mantle
–Demonstrate features
 HLSL pipeline creation source
Developer Forum

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49 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
MANTLE SDK – TOOLS
Validation and profiling layer
GPU PerfStudio for Mantle

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50 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
MANTLE TOOLS
Gordon Selley
John Larkin

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51 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
GPU PERFSTUDIO2
AMD’s GPU performance and debugging tool for graphics
applications
Supports DirectX11® and OpenGL applications
Recently added support for Steam Linux®
Mantle support currently in development
–Demonstrate the API and GPU trace tools with a Mantle application
–Point out the main Mantle API features in the tool

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52 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
GPU PERFSTUDIO2
Visit us at the AMD Booth 1024 South Hall:
– GPU PerfStudio2 demos with
Mantle
Steam Linux (OpenGL)
DirectX11 ®
– CodeXL
OpenCL™ and OpenGL Optimization and Debugging
–AMD is hiring

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53 | AMD Gaming Evolved – GDC 2014 | March 19, 2014
GPU PERFSTUDIO2 – MANTLE DEMO