AMD Mantle

Having announced all their new value/bang for buck Volcanic Island cards - with one being reviewed by Phoronix here - AMD/ATI have now announced their new Graphics API Mantle.

It pretty much replaces OpenGL and DirectX, giving developers a closer, lower level access to the graphics card chips and such. This being similar to NVAPI and Glide from 3dfx. Firstly heard it from Star Citizen, which will be supporting it, characteristic of it supporting all cool advancement in PC technologies like the Oculus Rift. What this means is considerable improvement in GPU utilisation, and hopefully a Linux client via Mantle. There could also be a PS4 version if Sony lets CIG do their stuff on it, how they like. Here's some more info:


However, John Carmack (now at Oculus VR) says OpenGL can reach that (9x faster draw calls) performance, when utilising extensions from nVidia. Speaking of Oculus, a post about that should come somewhat later. =)

There should be a lot more info released during the AMD Conference on the 11th-13th this month.

Star Citizen Hangar Module!!! (Patch 3)

Star Citizen, currently at >USD18mil in crowdfunding, getting past the halfway point of the ambitious Ubuntu Edge's goal. I've been screenshot-ing the daily pledge amount graph so analysis can be made later, but currently it's averaged >1mil/month since March, and in the 7 days during Hangar reveal it raised >1mil.

So after reading this forum thread detailing how someone ran Star Citizen's Hangar Module (a pre-pre-alpha) on a DirectX10.1 card, I was totally excited because before I thought I might need an eGPU. Star Citizen runs on CryEngine 3 and officially needs DX11 (and probably some high OpenGL level once Crytek supports Linux - hope they get a good hire). However, now I can wait for later to buy a new rig/Graphics card and get the best bang for buck =D Will probably be using a desktop > laptop to play this intense game though.

The graphics here look amazing!! And I loved the holo-table and being able to sleep in my RSI Aurora! =D I played this on low settings with a resolution of 1280x720 but I'm guessing my FPS was below 10. Maxed my GPU (GT330M) on my Samsung R580-JS02AU with i5-520M and 8GB DDR3.

Originally my GPU was overheating at ~100C and decided to turn my computer off when that happened (although I don't know how I was doing constant 105C while gaming last year before I took apart my laptop and cleaned it, reducing temperatures by ~20C (should make a post about that sometime with all the pics =P).
This time, I opted for the quick airduster into the fan intake, ejecting some dust and that seemed to cool the GPU down 10C so it hovered around 90C during gameplay.
Was doing dual screen 1366x768 and 1280x1024 had Star Citizen windowed at 1280x720 and used Greenshot. Afterwards I realised I could've just used FRAPS and got FPS data. -Facepalm-.

Here is a link to my album, and a slideshow of shots I took:

Star Citizen Hangar Module Test, Patch 3, 8/9/2013

Ubuntu Edge ... Final Hours

While I posted about Ubuntu Edge before, It's at the final hours (17) of the campaign and with only 12.25mil and just under 20mil to go, it doesn't look very likely this crowd-funding campaign will reach its goal.

At the discounted price of $695/phone, that is now 46k units instead of 40k units, which is a decent manufacturing run, although I'm not sure on the exact numbers in the economical analysis of these things.

Spec-wise, and functionality-wise it trumps anything in that price-range, Xperia Z or HTC One. Unfortunately, probably due to inadequate advertisement/social media-ring and just not enough people ready to upgrade/commit (a lot of the early adopters may have already bought something this year like the previously mentioned phones), the campaign won't be breaking crowd-funding records like Star Citizen's record breaking crowd-funding dollars.

Still, 12mil is pretty respectable, it was 11mil yesterday and comes close to the 14.6 mil that Star Citizen had when I posted about Ubuntu Edge before (see previous blog post link). Right now Star Citizen has a whopping 15.7mil and growing everyday. Hangar module comes out 24th August at GamesCon, so can't wait to see the news and test it.
I hope they release something like an OpenGL version soon because apparently it'll be DirectX11 and my GT330m doesn't have that support T_T. Also, recent look at ATI's open source driver support leans me towards getting an ATI graphics next time. These nvidia binary blobs sometimes screw up and took me an hour to get my 319 driver working with Linux 3.8 and jockey -_-.



P.S. So for Systems Engineering Analysis (ENGN2226) I get to look at nanosats woot.

FYEAH - Star Citizen On Linux woot!

I know I've posted some rumoury stuff about CryEngine 3 on Linux but:
Here is a 24 hour livestream past video from twitch on their 1st channel, go to 4:46:51 and enjoy a non-announcement about an announcement they can't make yet that will make Linux and Mac owners "happily surprised" ;P


Watch live video from roberts_space_ind_ch_1 on TwitchTV

Youtube version: (go to 16m48s)

Now this comes over a year since the rumour about a native port of CryEngine 3 on Linux =3
Thanks to the lurkers on the 24hr livestream chat for filling us in! =)


Also, here's some links to Chris Roberts on Linux support for Star Citizen questions on Campaign Reddit's AMA:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/12grru/i_am_chris_roberts_creator_of_wing_commander/c6ux0x3
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/12grru/i_am_chris_roberts_creator_of_wing_commander/c6v1fep


This news comes after this poll during the original fundraising (including kickstarter). You'll find that 21% of votes wanted Linux support! (And 8% for Mac).
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/12760-Poll-Additional-Stretch-Goals

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Also, since I've last posted on Star Citizen on this blog (but have been filling my FB with it =P) CGI's SC is now the most funded crowdfunding project of all time. It surpassed the pebble watch, and make sure you check out the 300i commercial! Fully in-universe an in-engine =)


This 2nd video was released as a director's cut during the 24 hour livestream:

CryEngine 3 on Linux?

So I'd be super hyped if CryEngine 3 did come on Linux - mainly because of Star Citizen.
And there's quite a bit (21% of voters) of support for it over at RSI's Star Citizen

Now, since DirectX is a MS product, and trawling through a few forums seem to suggest that non-MS consoles (ie PS3/4 and Wii/Wii U) must therefore use OpenGL. (I still don't have a concrete answer on this, there is lots of talk about Wii U having DirectX 11 capabilities, but no concrete answer from a reputable source - general forum-poster consensus is that it uses OpenGL)

If that is the case, then this: Cry Engine 3 fully supports Wii U should mean something. Possibly something very shiny.