Steam OS + Mantle?

[J Tyran]

With AMD unveiling their 2014 lineup an interesting side note is the way they announced their own API called mantle, a new console style API they claim is more efficient than Direct X and already developers are getting on board with it.

The reason for this is obvious with each of the next gen consoles using AMD chips its going to be attractive for them to have the PC as close to the consoles as possible, to reduce costs and ease of development.

So with Steam OS and the possibility of a new API could the days of Windows really be numbered?

http://www.techpowerup.com/191453/amd-gpu14-event-detailed-announces-radeon-r9-290x.html

 

[Weaver]

Sort of wish we would all just go back to OpenGL.

 

[lacktheknack]

I think Nvidia already signed a big fat contract with Valve. I don't know how they'll like it, seeing how AMD = ATI.

But if so, then YUSS. I'm very OK with all of this.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I'd just like to add that new AMD R9 series shits all over next-gen consoles. Check out the freakin' specs:

Three pillars of the R9 series: GCN 2.0, 4K, TrueAudio, etc.
DirectX 11.2 and improved energy efficiency
>5 TFLOP/s compute power
>300 GB/s memory bandwidth
>4 billion trig/sec
>6 billion transistors
etc.


I knew it would happen, but I didn't know it would be this soon. We've known for a while now that next-gen using x86 architecture means that PC porting will be easier. And with Mantle API that should make it EVEN MORE easier to port from consoles to the PC. Bad ports should theoretically be a thing of the past. On top of that we have SteamOS which is made for gaming, and it's a good day to be a PC gamer. Damn, this gen has the potential to be freakin' awesome if developers can find a way to use all that power in a creative way, instead of giving us pretty fps games every year.

Microsoft did this to themselves. They didn't care, they let PC gaming grow without them and now they're about to be left behind. Good riddance.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

First it was big business, now it looks like gaming will be leaving Windows.

I for one will be extremely interested how Mantle plays out, and what NVIDA will do in response.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

It certainly is an interesting time in pc gaming, if Valve can truly establish Steam OS as the go to gaming OS and both AMD and Nvidia adopt Mantle as the new standard API over Direct X then I have to wonder how Microsoft will react to that shift. For long time they could really afford to ignore pc gaming as pc gamers really had no where else to go, but that may be changing.

I'm looking forward to seeing how all this pans out.