AMD Mantle Driver Release Notes Show Huge Performance Gains in BF4 and StarSwarm

By Nathan Kirsch

AMD is working overtime this week trying to get the first Mantle driver out for gamers. We were told last night that they were working on another build of it and that build would be done this morning. Once it passes internal testing it should be available publicly. What can you do with it? Currently the only game that has been updated with Mantle API support is Battlefield 4 by EA-DICE, but there is also a game demo by Oxide Games called Starswarm that also supports Mantle. AMD says that gamers running BF4 will see an average performance uplift of 13.3% at 1920×1080, but there is a 40.9% performance gain to be had in CPU-limited scenarios. It looks like Mantle will bring significant performance improvements for everyone, but those with lower-end or mainstream platforms will get the most benefit.

AMD Mantle Technology

Here are the release notes for the AMD Catalyst 13.35 Beta drivers that should be out today or tomorrow if there are no major issues found with the build that was created overnight.

Battlefield 4 (EA-DICE)

  • CPU-limited scenario: 40.9% (1080p) and 40.1% (1600p) performance improvement under Ultra settings and 4xAA on the AMD A10-7700K with an AMD Radeon R9 290X.
  • GPU-limited scenario: 2.7% (1080p) and 1.4% (1600p) performance improvement under Ultra settings and FXAA on the Core i7-4960X with an AMD Radeon R7 260X
  • Average uplift for 1080p: 13.28% (Average of 290X and 260X data on the i7-4960X, A10-7700K, FX 8350 and i5-4670K)
  • Average uplift for 1600p: 11.35% (Average of 290X and 260X data on the i7-4960X, A10-7700K, FX 8350 and i5-4670K)

StarSwarm (Oxide Games)

Note that the StarSwarm demo is a beautiful use case for Mantle, as the developers are veterans of Firaxis and Microsoft studios, and the brains behind multiple Sid Meiers Civilization titles. The Nitrous engine from Oxide Games, which powers this demo, utilizes Mantles high draw call boundaries to bring more units into play than Oxide could ever achieve under DirectX.

  • CPU-limited scenario: 319% (1080p) and 281% (1600p) performance improvement in the RTS test on Extreme settings with the AMD A10-7700K and an AMD Radeon R9 290X.
  • GPU-limited scenario: 5.1% (1080p) and 16.7% (1600p) performance improvement in the RTS test on Extreme settings with the Core i7-4960X and an AMD Radeon R7 260X
  • Average uplift for 1080p: 115.65% (Average of 290X and 260X data on the i7-4960X, A10-7700K, FX 8350 and i5-4670K)
  • Average uplift for 1600p: 75.19% (Average of 290X and 260X data on the i7-4960X, A10-7700K, FX 8350 and i5-4670K)