Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth Supports AMD Mantle

[btarunr]

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth, a turn-based strategy game based in the interstellar age, in which you travel to and colonize habitable planets by realpolitik, was announced last weekend, with support for AMD's Mantle API, besides DirectX 11. Mantle should make the game increasingly playable on AMD "Kaveri" APUs with eye-candy cranked up, and at reasonable mainstream resolutions such as 1080p. Mantle reduces the CPU's role in graphics processing, and should benefit APUs. Developer Firaxis announced the game for three PC platforms, Windows, OS X, and Linux (over Steam). Don't add it to your summer bucket-list just yet. It's slated for this fall.



A trailer video follows.

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[Steevo]

yayyyy!!!

Hopefully they have taken out some of the constraints of CIV 5 to make it more playable like all the previous versions.

Plus Mantle, altough I am not sure if it will really be playable with eye candy on a APU, but if it is, that is amazing!

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Excited for this game for sure. Mantle support.......meh.

I dont need to have a game support an API for my card to get better performance and less overhead. Thanks Nvidia driver developers/engineers.

i kid...

 

[Rottenapple]

So... have AMD applied Mantle support for legacy 7900 cards? I upgraded from 5850 to r9 280x hoping for performance boost from Mantle, yet was very disappointed by it wouldn't get much performance boost till later. Have I missed the news? Does Mantle works for 280x?

 

[The Quim Reaper]

Does Mantle works for 280x?

Honestly, if you can afford a card like a 280x, you shouldn't be worrying about stuff like mantle increasing performance for you.

It's really meant for people who run low end cards, which will make the difference between holding a minimum of 30fps, instead of playing with 'slide show' frame rates in the low 20's (or worse).

If you want better performance, you should just buy a 290 or 780.

 

[Mysteoa]

Honestly, if you can afford a card like a 280x, you shouldn't be worrying about stuff like mantle increasing performance for you.

It's really meant for people who run low end cards, which will make the difference between holding a minimum of 30fps, instead of playing with 'slide show' frame rates in the low 20's (or worse).

If you want better performance, you should just buy a 290 or 780.

Mantle is more for low end CPU not GPU.

 

[btarunr]

Does Mantle works for 280x?

Yes, it does. It works for all GCN-based GPUs.

 

[The Quim Reaper]

Mantle is more for low end CPU not GPU.

Yes, but most people who run a low end CPU also run a low end GPU...and those that run high end cards run high end CPUS.

It's why Mantle isn't really aimed at those high end users, who can just afford to 'buy' their way to higher frame rates.

 

[Jack1n]

I have tried mantle on BF4 the other day and it was horrible,FPS gain was negligible to non-existent and it introduced a micro stutter every 5-6 seconds,swapped back to DX11 and it was gone.(also fraps didnt work with mantle)

 

[NC37]

Get a strange Deadlock feel about this.

Sigh...I wish they'd make another Deadlock. That was a fun turn based planetary conquest game. Worked great over LAN too.

 

[Mathragh]

Sounds like a perfect fit!

Civ V has been very heavy on the CPU, and graphics constrained by how much stuff could be displayed on screen simultaneously. Can definitely see mantle being a big help for the game. Also hope Nvidia can manage to make improvements to their drivers (or just up their thermal limit/clocks) so experiences on platforms doesn't get too dissimilar.

 

[tokyoduong]

Yes, but most people who run a low end CPU also run a low end GPU...and those that run high end cards run high end CPUS.

It's why Mantle isn't really aimed at those high end users, who can just afford to 'buy' their way to higher frame rates.

No kidding. If you still don't get it, now you can run high end GCN GPU on low end CPUs. Civilization has always been CPU intensive. We need all the processing we can get out of the CPU. The last thing we need is a massive overhead just for the graphics.

BTW, I welcome Mantle regardless of games or systems. The best thing about Mantle is reduction in latency especially when there's intense action. DirectX falls flat on its face even with the fastest CPU. Mantle doesn't have that problem.

 

[Kaotik]

So... have AMD applied Mantle support for legacy 7900 cards? I upgraded from 5850 to r9 280x hoping for performance boost from Mantle, yet was very disappointed by it wouldn't get much performance boost till later. Have I missed the news? Does Mantle works for 280x?

Mantle has supported all GCN cards, including 7x00's and your R9 280X, since day one.

I don't understand how people can get so confused over the fact that DICE said on their initial Mantle-patch for BF4 that their support for 7x00-series isn't optimized yet.

 

[Eagleye]

This Game is going to be Bad @ss on AMD Mantle, And people with Q6600 etc. can now buy a R9 280X / R9 290 /R9 290X and get the same FPS as people with a high end GPU and i5 CPU.

Not having to build a whole system and just buying a Mantle capable GPU gives you wings lol

 

[Eagleye]

I have tried mantle on BF4 the other day and it was horrible,FPS gain was negligible to non-existent and it introduced a micro stutter every 5-6 seconds,swapped back to DX11 and it was gone.(also fraps didnt work with mantle)

I think there is still a problem with HD7950/HD7970 cards being fully supported in Mantle games. I wouldn't be surprised to see AMD driver fix in future bcoz there are allot of people on 7 Series cards.

 

[pr0n Inspector]

This Game is going to be Bad @ss on AMD Mantle, And people with Q6600 etc. can now buy a R9 280X / R9 290 /R9 290X and get the same FPS as people with a high end GPU and i5 CPU.

Not having to build a whole system and just buying a Mantle capable GPU gives you wings lol

If Civ 5 was any indication you do not want to stick with a Q6600. All the AI, path finding, simulations and stuff are extremely CPU speed dependent. A new GPU will only give you better FPS. A faster CPU will give you faster everything(especially wait time). It's a turned-based strategy game, not a shooter.

 

[HisDivineOrder]

If I was AMD, I'd be trumpeting the crap out of this game having Mantle. At last, they have a game that is coming past Thief that is using Mantle that people have heard of. That's what? Four games with whatever the StarSwarm game winds up being?

It's a nice coup. Seems like that Gaming Evolved arrangement from last year with 2k that led AMD to having Bioshock Infinite as a bundle continues into this year.

AMD needs that kind of win. I think the more salient point about Mantle support for a Civ (or Civ-derived game?) is that this game does not seem to be coming to consoles at all, so supporting Mantle with it is more about Mantle than it is about using existing code from consoles.

That seems like a decently sized deal imo. It's not an AMD game winner or anything, but it's a nice thing for AMD. Especially for their APU's.

 

[renz496]

This Game is going to be Bad @ss on AMD Mantle, And people with Q6600 etc. can now buy a R9 280X / R9 290 /R9 290X and get the same FPS as people with a high end GPU and i5 CPU.

Not having to build a whole system and just buying a Mantle capable GPU gives you wings lol

and then sacrifice the performance for majority of the game that did not take advantage of mantle? i always heard people talking that with mantle now people no longer need to update their cpu as much as before. but the reality is there is not even 1% of game out there support mantle. IMO such statement only valid when there is 80% or more mantle based game out there

 

[MustSeeMelons]

Hooray for Mantle, but not sure how I feel about Civilization set in space, other planets or whatever.

 

[Kaotik]

If I was AMD, I'd be trumpeting the crap out of this game having Mantle. At last, they have a game that is coming past Thief that is using Mantle that people have heard of. That's what? Four games with whatever the StarSwarm game winds up being?

It's a nice coup. Seems like that Gaming Evolved arrangement from last year with 2k that led AMD to having Bioshock Infinite as a bundle continues into this year.

Don't forget 15+ titles from EA using Frostbite (like the next Dragon Age), 3 games using Nitrous Engine (which of 1 could be Star Swarm if it ends up being actual game some day) and x games using Asura Engine from Rebellion (1 of which will be Sniper Elite v3)

I think there is still a problem with HD7950/HD7970 cards being fully supported in Mantle games. I wouldn't be surprised to see AMD driver fix in future bcoz there are allot of people on 7 Series cards.

It's not "in Mantle games", it's just BF4 having some issues with HD7-series and it's only due their own unfinished optimizations, not Mantle itself. Most of those issues have been solved with patches and newest drivers, too, even if not all.

 

[pr0n Inspector]

Hooray for Mantle, but not sure how I feel about Civilization set in space, other planets or whatever.

Firaxis have already made a Civ in space once: Alpha Centauri. This is the sequel but they don't own the IP so they are using the Civilization name instead.

 

[Ahhzz]

.....(also fraps didnt work with mantle)

anyone else confirm this? not a pleasant thought...

 

[Kaotik]

anyone else confirm this? not a pleasant thought...

Of course it doesn't, FRAPS hooks itself to either D3D or OpenGL, depending on application, and so far the author hasn't been able to provide similar hooks for Mantle (and probably won't before the SDK is publicly available)

At the moment only ways to measure Mantle-performance are applications built-in tools, and in case of BF4 FCAT, since DICE/Frostbite built the support for FCAT to BF4's Mantle renderer themselves.

 

[Easy Rhino]

The CIV series would be a lot more fun if you could actually fight the battles yourself like the Total War series.

 

[Ahhzz]

Of course it doesn't, FRAPS hooks itself to either D3D or OpenGL, ......

some of us here are not knowledgeable of the intricates of how some programs work, so they're not Obvious to us. Some others of us might drop the condescending tone.