AMD brings Mantle to Sid Meier Civilization Beyond Earth

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 10/27/2014 01:32 PM | source: | 27 comment(s)

AMD today joins Firaxis Games in celebrating the release of Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth, which features day-one support for AMD's Mantle graphics API to enable top gaming performance for AMD Radeon graphics customers.

"AMD Radeon™ GPUs with Mantle are over a year ahead of other graphics companies in delivering high-throughput, high-efficiency graphics to gamers and developers," said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, Product and Platform Solutions Business Unit, AMD. "As gamers settle in for a marathon session of Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth, we're proud that the potent combination of Mantle and the award-winning Graphics Core Next architecture effortlessly enable the definitive experience."

Mantle is a "low-overhead" graphics API that can help improve performance for gamers by making better use of multi-core CPUs, streamlining game code execution, virtually eliminating software bottlenecks and utilizing GPU resources with incredible efficiency.2

In performance testing, the AMD Radeon™ R9 290X GPU with Mantle rendered Sid Meier's Civilization®: Beyond Earth™ at higher frame rates than any other single-GPU graphics card.3 Gamers looking to secure Mantle's blistering performance for their own empires can do so today with the purchase of an AMD Radeon™ R9 or R7 Series GPU starting at just $99 USD.4

Select AMD Radeon graphic cards are based on the GCN Architecture and include its associated features (AMD PowerTune technology, AMD ZeroCore Power technology, PCI Express 3.0, etc.). Not all features are supported by all products -- check with your system manufacturer for specific model capabilities.
Mantle application support is required.
In Sid Meier's Civilization®: Beyond Earth™ internal benchmark test at 3840x2160, the AMD Radeon™ R9 290X 8GB with Mantle outperforms the GeForce GTX 980 with DirectX® 11, NVIDIA's highest-performing single-GPU graphics card as of October 20, 2014, by 45.38 average FPS to 44.89 average FPS using the Ultra in-game preset with 8xAA. Test system: Intel Core i7-4960X, 16GB DDR3-1866, Asus SABERTOOTH X79, Windows 8.1 x64, AMD Catalyst™ 14.9.2 Beta and ForceWare 344.16 WHQL.
AMD suggest e-tail price (SEP) as of October 23, 2014.

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DarkKnightDude
Senior Member

Posts: 1089
Joined: 2010-09-16

#4946485 Posted on: 10/28/2014 02:29 AM

Its not like Mantle is for the 290X + high end cpu, unless your cpu is lacking or you have crossfire. In that case Mantle really shines.

The Postman
Senior Member

Posts: 1773
Joined: 2008-09-10

#4946537 Posted on: 10/28/2014 04:48 AM

This right here, I have no doubt mantle influenced nvidia`s decision to put out the performance drivers but the performance drivers cover all games and dx11 cards not a very select few games and vga`s.

I get the impression that you talk about those drivers like some kind of miracle.Those drivers gave nice boosts to many games and added some profiles to games. That s it. It is not like a new API or left the competition in the dust.
Both companies have good drivers and run as fast as their hardware allow.

I think Mantle just hasn't taken off. BF4 was just an horrible game to showcase the technology. Dragon Age I. will really show if Mantle is meh or not.

GhostXL
Senior Member

Posts: 6084
Joined: 2004-10-30

#4946566 Posted on: 10/28/2014 06:57 AM

PCJack125
Member

Posts: 21
Joined: 2014-10-28

#4946744 Posted on: 10/28/2014 02:00 PM

I'm gonna be called a fanboy, I'm certain. But because of stuff like this I'm less and less tempted to buy AMD. And I cannot find any benchmark that shows the 290x on top. Anyone care to share with me please?

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Civilization-Beyond-Earth-Performance-Maxwell-vs-Hawaii-DX11-vs-Mantle

Here you go sir. =)
From that benchmark, in 1440p Mantle is very impressive.

Yxskaft
Senior Member

Posts: 1486
Joined: 2011-02-17

#4946752 Posted on: 10/28/2014 02:11 PM

Or it's simply the case that it takes a long time to create "performance drivers", and Mantle had no impact on it. Nvidia has always released performance drivers for their cards.

If Nvidia had had those drivers ready two years ago, they would have released them back then. That would have given Nvidia an even bigger advantage to AMD. Nvidia didn't withhold these drivers in waiting for AMD.

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