Civilization: Beyond Earth the next Mantle game.

[bystander36]

Before we get too far into Nvidia apologists desperately trying to downplay this, Civ 5 looks noticeably nicer with all of the visual effects turned up, and I'm interested in seeing how much they can pack into the new game with Mantle. I've played Civ 5 on systems where I had to turn down almost everything for it to be playable. That's fine if you just want to play the game but these days I'd also like some nice eye candy. I missed enough meals and forgot to sleep enough times going "just one more turn" playing Civ 1 and 2, if I'm going to do that any more times in my life I'd like to have some pretty things to look at.

And keep any comments about turn-based games not needing good FPS or graphics to yourself. I wasn't aware that FPS players were the only ones who deserved the nicest looking games. The latest Battlefield game or "Call of Duty: Black Ghost Squadron 6: Modern Knife Throwing: Updated Texture Pack" would have the exact same gameplay mechanics with stick figure models using software rendering on old 90MHz Pentiums, so you go have fun with that.

The reason I've downplayed it is because I've played Civ5. The game never dips below 60 FPS when played with the ideas above. You see, you can only see the eye candy if you zoom in to the map enough to see the individual units, but you only get CPU bottlenecked if you zoom out to see the whole world at once, or close to it.

So if you are playing for eye candy, then you do not get bottlenecked, and if you are playing to see everything at once, you can't see the details much anyways.

As far as Mantle goes, it is great for FPS. It'll be great for RPG's, and it should be pretty spectacular for RTS's. While this game may see some benefits from it, it just isn't the type of game I really care has it.

 

[bystander36]

A good Civ title would be welcome, its been since 2005 since Civ4 came out.



There'll just be a DX or OGL renderer too.

I assume you haven't played Civ5? While some die hard fans preferred Civ4, many people prefer Civ5.

 

[Spjut]

Its not draw call based its all pathdfinding and such.

But if Mantle reduces the draw calls load on the main thread, shouldn't most CPU dependant tasks be sped up?

 

[Jodell88]

OpenGL is next in line to get stomped into the ground by Mantle :thumbsup:

That would be interesting for a couple reasons.

1. AMD has been working on reducing OpenGL overhead for a while now and the extensions are supported by the big three already.

2. OpenGL can already hit the limitations of existing hardware.

If Mantle can perform better than OpenGL then more power to AMD, but it isn't going to be easy.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

That would be interesting for a couple reasons.

1. AMD has been working on reducing OpenGL overhead for a while now and the extensions are supported by the big three already.

2. OpenGL can already hit the limitations of existing hardware.

If Mantle can perform better than OpenGL then more power to AMD, but it isn't going to be easy.

I still don't understand all the talk about how awesome open gl is and yet practically no one uses it? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

 

[AtenRa]

This is good news, especially for people with older hardware. Mantle will be a nice addition in every game no matter the genre.

And yes Civ 5 is CPU limited only when you are in full zoom out, zooming in makes it more GPU bound.

 

[Gloomy]

I still don't understand all the talk about how awesome open gl is and yet practically no one uses it? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I could be wrong, but I get the impression that OpenGL's issues are mostly quality of life. I was watching a presentation Valve made at their thing they had a little while ago, and they were describing the tools and general work flow improvements being made for OpenGL and the whole time my face was like "D:" because I couldn't believe those things didn't exist until recently.

Also, the general inconsistency between implementations as described in the presentation was comically bad.

This is an outsider's impression because I don't program either DX or OGL, so take it with a silo full of salt.

 

[Subyman]

Good for laptop users, but Civ has never been a graphically intensive game for anyone with a decent gaming PC. Really looking forward to this game. So glad it is coming out this year.

 

[bystander36]

I still don't understand all the talk about how awesome open gl is and yet practically no one uses it? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I don't honestly know how good it is, due to the above reason, but OpenGL got a big overhaul recently. It's possible that the new OpenGL changes have made it worth using over DirectX again. We'll have to wait and see.

 

[Tohtori]

I know this is offtopic but I just must say it.

Civ in outerspace? BLASPHEMY!
What about master of orion?
What next? Pirates! flying in space?

Damn developers messing around with sacred stuff

 

[Meekers]

I know this is offtopic but I just must say it.

Civ in outerspace? BLASPHEMY!
What about master of orion?
What next? Pirates! flying in space?

Damn developers messing around with sacred stuff

You do know they already did this with Alpha Centauri, which was one of the best Civ games.

 

[bystander36]

The great thing about Civ has been you can set what time frame you want to play in. You can choose not to advanced beyond different eras. I'm sure you'll have that choice in the next one as well.

 

[el etro]

Hope the game becomes a showcase of what Mantle can do for the RTS genre.

This[2].

Tell this to Blizzard too.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Just curious, I tried to check for any actual quotes. But the Mantle information is purely by the arthor of the article. Anyone got a direct quote or link for Mantle on the civilization site?

The game will obviously be for OpenGL as well, since a Mac and Linux release is announced.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Roy from amd on twitter has also made the same statement.

Check out @amd_roy's Tweet: https://twitter.com/amd_roy/status/455150493988159488

Seems like people are surprised mantle is coming out in games. There were many who said that this would not happen.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Roy from amd on twitter has also made the same statement.

Check out @amd_roy's Tweet: https://twitter.com/amd_roy/status/455150493988159488

Seems like people are surprised mantle is coming out in games. There were many who said that this would not happen.

Thanks. Well that will increase the amount of Mantle games to a staggering of 4 this year and 5 on the total list.

Is this another AMD gaming evolved sponsored game?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Thanks. Well that will increase the amount of Mantle games to a staggering of 4 this year and 5 on the total list.

Is this another AMD gaming evolved sponsored game?

You are probably right. Civ: be is the last mantle game we will see.

 

[Skurge]

Thanks. Well that will increase the amount of Mantle games to a staggering of 4 this year and 5 on the total list.

Is this another AMD gaming evolved sponsored game?

Within half a year. I can tell you are impressed.

 

[Jodell88]

I still don't understand all the talk about how awesome open gl is and yet practically no one uses it? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

There's a big world out there besides gaming.

 

[postmortemIA]

This title is a great win for the PC gaming

 

[SirPauly]

Agreed! Welcomed PC title over-all and some added value for AMD customers!

 

[lehtv]

This title is a great win for the PC gaming

It's not released yet...

 

[Tequila]

Civ V was one of the most CPU heavy games I've ever played... always ended up with stuttery 25 fps by the late game, that was on i7-920. With mantle and i7-3770K, it should be pretty much locked to 60fps

Standard size map or huge? As long as I stick to standard map size and pace my i5-760 holds up fine. Large maps not so much fan in late game so I avoided those.

I just loaded a game from a few months ago on standard map on turn 268 right before a SV and fraps says 45fps fully zoomed out and 60fps fully zoomed in.

 

[dighn]

this i like

 

[bystander36]

So has this thread caused anyone else to start a new Civ5 game?