AMD And Crytek Announce Mantle Support For Cryengine-Powered Games
Nvidia may have just announced GameWorks support will be baked into Unreal Engine 4, but the Red Team is firing back with its own announcement today: Upcoming versions of Cryengine will support AMD's Mantle API. Just to be clear, this announcement refers to an upcoming engine that hasn't been used for a shipping title yet -- Cryengine 3, the engine that powered Crysis 3, has been retired in favor of a new-from-the-ground-up approach.
The new CryEngine will support the Xbox One, PS4, Wii U, and PC spaces and we're honestly a bit surprised to see Crytek jumping onboard with AMD. I spoke to Crytek representatives when I attended APU13, and while they were very interested to see what Sunnyvale had to say about its next-generation API, they were also cautious. I was told that Crytek was extremely careful when it came to adopting new standards because those technologies had to fit within the company's workflow without making it too difficult to support multiple vendors or relying on flashy but limited tricks of creating one specific effect or capability. Crytek, in other words, was only interested in supporting standards that were flexible, scalable, and delivered a high enough performance improvement to be interesting. I was left with the impression that the company was still in "Wait and see" mode last November.
Evidently they've seen enough.
"Crytek prides itself on enabling CRYENGINE with the latest and most impressive rendering capabilities,” said Cevat Yerli, Founder, CEO & President of Crytek. “By integrating AMD’s new Mantle API, CRYENGINE will gain a dimension of ‘lower level’ hardware access that enables extraordinary efficiency, performance and hardware control."
Right now, we don't know how many upcoming Cryengine games will use Mantle, or if support will be patched in to later dates. Cryengine-based games expected in 2014 include Homefront 2, Evolve, and Star Citizen (this last was already known as a Mantle title). The open-world roleplaying game Kingdom Come: Deliverance is expected in late 2015.
The new CryEngine will support the Xbox One, PS4, Wii U, and PC spaces and we're honestly a bit surprised to see Crytek jumping onboard with AMD. I spoke to Crytek representatives when I attended APU13, and while they were very interested to see what Sunnyvale had to say about its next-generation API, they were also cautious. I was told that Crytek was extremely careful when it came to adopting new standards because those technologies had to fit within the company's workflow without making it too difficult to support multiple vendors or relying on flashy but limited tricks of creating one specific effect or capability. Crytek, in other words, was only interested in supporting standards that were flexible, scalable, and delivered a high enough performance improvement to be interesting. I was left with the impression that the company was still in "Wait and see" mode last November.
Evidently they've seen enough.
"Crytek prides itself on enabling CRYENGINE with the latest and most impressive rendering capabilities,” said Cevat Yerli, Founder, CEO & President of Crytek. “By integrating AMD’s new Mantle API, CRYENGINE will gain a dimension of ‘lower level’ hardware access that enables extraordinary efficiency, performance and hardware control."
Right now, we don't know how many upcoming Cryengine games will use Mantle, or if support will be patched in to later dates. Cryengine-based games expected in 2014 include Homefront 2, Evolve, and Star Citizen (this last was already known as a Mantle title). The open-world roleplaying game Kingdom Come: Deliverance is expected in late 2015.
