Battlefield 4 demoed with AMD's Mantle during CES conference, runs "up to 45% faster"

If PC gaming is a romance, then DirectX represents the high-school era. It's the thing that's passing notes between your games and your graphics cards, possibly while getting a bit bashful and giggling. Cute as this image is, it's hardly the most efficient way to foster a relationship. Step in AMD's new low-level API, Mantle , which has been designed to allow games to directly access GPUs. That sounds like a good thing, although it's going to be awkward when Battlefield 4 realises that your graphics card has been seeing other games behind its back.

At AMD's CES conference, Battlefield 4 was demoed on-stage running the Mantle API. It was presented alongside the claim that it could run "up to 45% faster than the original version on this same hardware." Meaning, up to 45% faster than the DirectX equivalent. You can watch the relevant section at the 31 minute mark of the below video.

YouTube YouTube
Watch On

Really, there's not much we can tell from the footage - especially when it contains a couple of embarrassing lag spikes. If AMD's performance quotes are accurate, though, it'll be a welcome streamlining of performance. Mantle is currently lined up for support in over twenty games - both current and upcoming - including Battlefield 4, Thief, Star Citizen and Sniper Elite 3.

It'll be interesting to see how AMD plan to handle multiple vendor support. Mantle is designed specifically for GCN cards, but AMD have also claimed that certain functionality will be supported in existing modern cards. That could also include Nvidia. While there must be a temptation to keep the tech proprietary, it'll be difficult to promote mass adoption by locking out a significant portion of the PC market.

Thanks, PCGamesN .

Phil Savage
Editor-in-Chief

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.

Latest in FPS
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Ogryn
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide adds a psychic horde murderzone mode and makes Ogryns even smashier
Starfield's companion robot giving a thumbs-up
Former Bethesda dev who quit Starfield to go solo says it's 'much less stressful as an indie' without daily meetings or 'office politics': it's 'very refreshing to just care about the game'
A crew of prospectors in Wildgate, featuring a robot, a rabbit man, and a small aquatic creature in a combination mech/aquarium.
Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime's new company is putting Sea of Thieves-style shenanigans in space with a new crew-based shooter
Team Fortress Spy being shocked
An FPS studio pulled its game from Steam after it got caught linking to malware disguised as a demo, but the dev insists it was actually the victim of a labyrinthine conspiracy
Neighbors Suburban Warfare screenshot a child aims a slingshot at a man from across a cul-de-sac.
A beta of backyard FPS Neighbors: Suburban Warfare is out now, and the balance discussion is hysterical: nerf trash can lids and children
Fragpunk
Somebody finally figured out casual Counter-Strike
Latest in News
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'
Otter AI Meeting Agent
As if your work meetings weren't already fun enough, now Otter has a new all-hearing AI agent that remembers everything anyone has said and can join in the discussion
Monster Hunter Wilds' stockpile master studying a manifest
As layoffs and studio closures continue to deathroll the western AAA industry, analyst points out 5 of 8 major Japanese companies hit all-time share prices this year
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Ogryn
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide adds a psychic horde murderzone mode and makes Ogryns even smashier
A woman wearing a VR headset with dramatic, colourful lighting across the background
'World’s smallest LEDs' could lead to accurately lit screens with 127,000 pixels per inch and much more immersive VR