AMD brings Mantle to Sid Meier Civilization Beyond Earth

Spets

2014-10-27 12:55

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

#4945997

Denial

2014-10-27 13:02

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.

#4946003

Krteq

2014-10-27 13:09

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

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

#4946019

fantaskarsef

2014-10-27 13:54

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

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.

#4946034

Keitosha

2014-10-27 14:07

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.

#4946040

schmidtbag

2014-10-27 14:12

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.

Agreed. Considering Mantle is designed to lower CPU overheard, using a high-end i7 is really almost pointless. The only reason it isn't completely pointless is because it did still yield better results. Also, the reviewer for that article is blatantly showing bias toward nvidia.

#4946045

Slikar

2014-10-27 14:17

wait, by 1 fps ? that's groundbreaking

#4946091

Tree Dude

2014-10-27 15:10

Anyone play this with mantle on a 2GB card? I am wondering if it has the same additional vRAM usage as it does with BF4 (making it useless unless you are ok with medium textures).

#4946122

Rich_Guy

2014-10-27 15:48

Theres no need for Mantle, they should have just tried to get Dx11 running better like Nvidia, as its walloping Mantle.

#4946135

shadow_craft

2014-10-27 16:27

For some reason, when using Mantle and zooming into the terrain, it is not smooth, its like the frames are dropping..... DX11 version doesn't suffer from this, Mantle works great in BF4 for me.

#4946203

Cygg

2014-10-27 18:25

Anyone know how to check fps using mantle?

#4946206

xIcarus

2014-10-27 18:27

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.

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?

#4946212

Rich_Guy

2014-10-27 18:32

AMDs own benchmark, has the 290x using Mantle, absolutely destroying the 980! http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/36145-amd-brings-mantle-api-support-for-civilization-beyond-earth :P

#4946216

Denial

2014-10-27 18:38

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?

Does it matter? Anandtech paints the two top end chips at 3fps apart at insanely high settings yet you can get a 290x for $330 vs $550 for 980. Given the memory constraints on the 980 I don't even doubt 290x pulls ahead at 8x, but regardless who cares? It's not like I need 120fps+ for civ. Power/Noise is the only other factor. I want to see APU benchmarks with Mantle for this game.

#4946221

xIcarus

2014-10-27 18:42

AMDs own benchmark, has the 290x using Mantle, absolutely destroying the 980! http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/36145-amd-brings-mantle-api-support-for-civilization-beyond-earth :P

I was gonna say it's perfectly possible, but I realized it doesn't even matter. It's 1 fps. The deal is that the 290x is cheaper, but is outperformed by the 980 in other games. Exclusively concerning this game, it's a fantastic deal. EDIT:

Does it matter? Anandtech paints the two top end chips at 3fps apart at insanely high settings yet you can get a 290x for $330 vs $550 for 980. Given the memory constraints on the 980 I don't even doubt 290x pulls ahead at 8x, but regardless who cares? It's not like I need 120fps+ for civ. Power/Noise is the only other factor. I want to see APU benchmarks with Mantle for this game.

We were replying at the same time. I agree.

#4946243

---TK---

2014-10-27 19:01

Theres no need for Mantle, they should have just tried to get Dx11 running better like Nvidia, as its walloping Mantle.

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.

#4946326

fantaskarsef

2014-10-27 21:33

A 290X/980 is overkill for this game anyways, and here there seems to be a discussion about less than 5fps difference. Just sayin'.

#4946452

Noisiv

2014-10-27 23:59

Turn based strategy - not the best case usage, but I'll take it since it's "free". Not as free as most of use think, but still...The performance is really good and smooth. How about EQAA vs MSAA? Freaking weird they would implement EQAA as mandatory and not even compare it with MSAA. AMD spends time and money to implement Mantle(EQAA) and the best they can compe up with is 2k words blog entry It's not that hard. This is how you make a presentation Like this Not this: [spoiler] http://community.amd.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/38-2776-3050/EQAA_samples.png[/spoiler]

#4946459

CalculuS

2014-10-28 00:10

Anyone with benchmarks with APU/Low end hardware? Would be much more interesting to see than the 4fps difference between a 290x and a 290x with mantle on.

#4946474

Nurmi

2014-10-28 01:01

I'd also like if every game would respect the hardware, but some games like Skyrim simply do not care how strong the CPU is and just do not do it any faster. The best news from Beyond Earth release is the CrossfireX improvements because I'm also expecting to see it at the Dragon Age: Inquisiton.