AMD Mantle

[Arclight]

In a nutshell, how I understand it: AMD plans to introduce a low-level rendering API, where DX and OpenGL are high-level APIs. High-level APIs have a large degree of abstraction, allowing them to function with a large variety of hardware (Nvidia, AMD and Intel) but with a large degree of overhead. So a low-level API could result in substantial performance gains thanks to a lower overhead, but in this case it would only work with select AMD hardware. Having different APIs would make life harder for developers as well, which is a situation this move could create.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7371/u...cs-api-for-gcn

Bit over my head to really comprehend this, but what I do understand is that this is something that has the potential to really shake up PC gaming, for better or worse. Bit early into it, lots of questions that can't yet be answered, but a fascinating move.