AMD brings Mantle to Sid Meier Civilization Beyond Earth

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 10/27/2014 12:32 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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Spets
Senior Member

Posts: 3059
Joined: 2011-05-10

#4945985 Posted on: 10/27/2014 12:55 PM

3.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.

Their internal benchmark was done with a driver that didn't support Civ BE.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8640/benchmarked-civilization-beyond-earth/2

Denial
Senior Member

Posts: 13153
Joined: 2004-05-16

#4945997 Posted on: 10/27/2014 01:02 PM

I actually kinda wish the anandtech benchmark had an APU on Mantle tested as well. It would be interesting to see if it would actually make the game playable on low end hardware. I've built a lot of machines recently with FM2/FM2+ CPU's.

Krteq
Senior Member

Posts: 678
Joined: 2009-09-03

#4946003 Posted on: 10/27/2014 01:09 PM

Their internal benchmark was done with a driver that didn't support Civ BE.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8640/benchmarked-civilization-beyond-earth/2Hmmm, I can't find results with 8x MSAA there :rolleyes:

fantaskarsef
Senior Member

Posts: 11874
Joined: 2014-07-21

#4946019 Posted on: 10/27/2014 01:54 PM

Hmmm, I can't find results with 8x MSAA there :rolleyes:

Me neither... with this article, actually the 290X with mantle still doesn't surpass the 980 average fps, not even at 3840x2160. Yes, minimum framerates are higher. But no average fps win for the 290X on mantle, and no 8xMSAA tested in this review.

Keitosha
Senior Member

Posts: 4869
Joined: 2004-11-16

#4946034 Posted on: 10/27/2014 02:07 PM

While mantle works fine on my main rig, I can't get past the "click to continue" page using it on my 2nd pc. The mouse cursor just doesn't respond while the game is active. It may have to do with the 1080p issues with HDMI connected tv's/monitors. DX11 works fine.

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