Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth to Support AMD Mantle

[N.Broekhuijsen]

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth will support AMD's Mantle API.

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth to Support AMD Mantle : Read more

 

[alxianthelast]

What difference does it make for a game designed to be turn based, and hopefully designed to run only on 64bit systems so it isn't hamstrung by 32bit limitations.

As a devout CIV hater I don't care one way or the other, but from what we've seen of RTS with Mantle support, the gains are higher number of unit and more processing power available for units and groups etc. Sure it would be easier to control as a turn based game on an interplanetary or interstellar scale with its customary whacky scale. Anyone know if the world map is still flat 2D or finally 3D? I'm doubting the planets will be 3D like Planetary Annihilation so it won't be too much of a shame if the map is flat too.

 

[PedanticNo1]

Gee, I don't know, what difference would less CPU overhead make for a TBS game- a genre traditionally limited by CPU processing power? Hmm.

Now you know why you were downrated.

 

[firefoxx04]

"Gee, I don't know, what difference would less CPU overhead make for a TBS game- a genre traditionally limited by CPU processing power? Hmm."

Gee I dont know, maybe more FPS? The whole point of mantle is to remove CPU overhead. If the game is already limited by the CPU, Mantle will make a difference.

Its when games ARE NOT limited by the CPU that mantle makes little to no difference. Mantle is good for AMD users with weak cpus and strong graphics cards.

 

[oxiide]

Anyone know if the world map is still flat 2D or finally 3D? I'm doubting the planets will be 3D like Planetary Annihilation so it won't be too much of a shame if the map is flat too.

The map in Civ V isn't 2D, its rendered in 3D (and even includes tesselated geometry) but with a locked camera angle. If you don't like that, that's fine, but its a design choice and part of the style of the franchise. There's plenty of 4X games with a truly adjustable camera.

I think I heard that Beyond Earth will include a new map layer for planetary orbit. But I definitely wouldn't hold my breath for a Planetary Annihilation-style camera. If you want that game, play that game.

 

[rdc85]

For strategies/tactical game, Most of CPU power will be dedicated for Enemy AI.. (CPU bound).

Will mantle helps? time will tells...

 

[falchard]

Excited for the game.

 

[Mathos]

I'm more interested in knowing, is it going to be like the mod for Civ4 where you're colonizing planets, and treating them as "cities" or if it's some kind of replacement/long over due remake for Alpha Centauri.

And on the Mantle support, Civ V is rendered in 3D, terrain, models, etc. But, it also heavily supports OpenCL. Mantle is designed to also improve opencl performance in CPU bound situations, running the game on an APU for example. That would mean better fps on lower end systems. Faster AI turn processing, especially later in the game, when there are hundreds of units, etc. It's not quite as bad, about AI turns in V as it was with IV, due to removing the stacks of doom. But it does still get bogged down later on.

 

[drethon]

I wouldn't think it would be so much about FPS but about turn times while processing the AI moves.

 

[abimocorde]

For the trolls that cried a bunch of crap about Mantle being useless: There you go!!

 

[Wisecracker]

From Tech Report

That's a 10% improvement in FPS with an i7-4770 running a 290X.

The Mantle FPS improvement with the A10-7850K APU can only be characterized as

 

[fandroid]

Hopefully AMD gets Mantle working correctly sometime soon. Its still useless for me with my 280x in BF4 due to insane random lags spikes and lag when zooming weapons where DX runs nice and smooth and pretty much the same frame rate.

 

[vir_cotto]

Awesome I hope this game is good!

 

[Alec Mowat]

BF4 is heavily reliant on CPU, especially in Multiplayer.
@720P in Medium settings, using only a A10-7850k on Mantel, I get an easy 50 - 60 FPS and the game is very playable. A huge improvement over Direct X on that chip.
Mantel will take the workload of the graphics off the CPU and allow the game to run faster between turns, in theory.

 

[alxianthelast]

Gee, I don't know, what difference would less CPU overhead make for a TBS game- a genre traditionally limited by CPU processing power? Hmm.

Now you know why you were downrated.

Because I thought saying modern games on today's PC don't have these limitations anymore.. because you couldn't buy a 32 bit system, or without at least 4 gigs of ram, if you tried.. but apparently it wasn't redundant after all.

 

[alxianthelast]

Anyone know if the world map is still flat 2D or finally 3D? I'm doubting the planets will be 3D like Planetary Annihilation so it won't be too much of a shame if the map is flat too.

The map in Civ V isn't 2D, its rendered in 3D (and even includes tesselated geometry) but with a locked camera angle. If you don't like that, that's fine, but its a design choice and part of the style of the franchise. There's plenty of 4X games with a truly adjustable camera.

I think I heard that Beyond Earth will include a new map layer for planetary orbit. But I definitely wouldn't hold my breath for a Planetary Annihilation-style camera. If you want that game, play that game.

BE seems to be more of the same from the screenshots I found from scrolling down the page, but meant 2D as in flat, 3D as in the example of Planetary Annihilation, or a lesser extent Spore which at least tried wrapping the map around.

CIV 5's map geometry is admirable but it is still flat, static, like a table top.