Xbox One will support work exclusively with Direct3D

Microsoft has opened some more technical details about its new generation Xbox One game console, confirming early rumors that the console only supports Direct3D, and not other technologies like OpenGL and Mantle.

Microsoft is positioning its Xbox One as a very powerful and modern console that borrows from the PC architecture and improves it by using the most modern technologies. In the official Windows blog, Microsoft confirmed that the new graphics APIs like OpenGL or Mantle from AMD will not support Xbox One. Instead, the console of the new generation will work closely with Direct3D.

“We are very pleased that with the launch of Xbox One we will be able to share with you all the charms of Direct3D 11 technology. Xbox One support for the Direct3D 11.x graphics API means that the hardware allows you to fully utilize the functionality of Direct3D 11.2. In turn, such APIs as OpenGL and AMD's Mantle with the new prefix will not be supported, ”Microsoft writes in its blog.

Unfortunately, the company did not explain why it would not use the API data, but the answer to this question (at least with Mantle) came from AMD. For those who do not know, we note that Mantle is a new application programming interface (API), which AMD introduced last week. The API is a kind of alternative to traditional DirectX and allows games on a system with the GCN graphics architecture to work much faster. On the same GCN or Graphics Core Next, AMD AMD Radeon HD 7900 series video cards and the recently announced Radeon R9 290 series were built.

Using the API Mantle promises a significant increase in gaming performance compared to the same DirectX, as well as better optimization and distribution of tasks between components in AMD graphics processors. Check whether this actually helps the release of the shooter Battlefield 4, which will be one of the first games that will receive support for working with this technology. There’s no reason to believe in the word AMD (and other manufacturers), so you will have to wait for independent tests and then draw conclusions.

But back to Microsoft, which announced that there will be no support for Mantle in its Xbox One. In fact, we didn’t really wait, but there are also people who did expect such support. And it is difficult to deny the potential benefits of if the console received the support of the most advanced technologies.

Nevertheless, AMD made it clear that this would not happen and explained why. The essence of the most banal - despite the fact that the environment in which the development was carried out Mantle, most similar to the console (the new generation), this API for consoles is not intended. Instead, the main task of Mantle, in addition to improving overall performance and rendering, is to simplify and reduce the time and cost of developing gaming titles for the PC.

“Mantle creates a new development environment for PCs, very much like a console one, which in turn already offers low-level APIs that are easier to program and work (compared to more complex PC environments),” says AMD.

“Having created Mantle, we were able to solve several key issues at once: reducing the time indicators for working on game titles, the costs of these developments, simplifying and improving the work with rendering and increasing ultimately the performance. The console connection is traced here because the new-generation consoles use Radeon graphics subsystems, so most of the programming tools for the consoles are somehow connected with the modern Radeon graphics architecture for home computers. ”

The article is based on materials https://hi-news.ru/technology/xbox-one-budet-podderzhivat-rabotu-isklyuchitelno-s-direct3d.html.