AMD Delays Battlefield 4 Mantle Patch

News
By Jane McEntegart
published

AMD hasn't offered a new release date beyond next month.

AMD has announced that its Mantle API has been delayed. The patch, originally set for release this month, is now expected in January of 2014. AMD has not offered a more specific release date than 'January 2014,' but it sounds as though the reason for the delay is on the side of BF4 dev, DICE. AMD released a statement on the delay of the Mantle patch for Battlefield 4, the first title to support Mantle. The statement reads as follows:

"After much consideration, the decision was made to delay the Mantle patch for Battlefield 4. AMD continues to support DICE on the public introduction of Mantle, and we are tremendously excited about the coming release for Battlefield 4! We are now targeting a January release and will have more information to share in the New Year."

AMD announced its low-level high performance graphics API back in September. The API allows developers to ‘speak the native language’ of AMD’s Graphics Core Next architecture, which is present in modern AMD GPUs and APUs.

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Jane McEntegart
70 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Tim Kemp
    I do hope they get it right the first time.
    Reply
  • Jynxin
    This isnt surprising considering all the Issues with the game since launch i love this game so i hope it gets fixed and mantle proves to be as good as i hope, im sick of EA rushing there developers just to make money.
    Reply
  • Cryio
    @ Tim: It's a freakin' new API. I think we can cut AMD some slack.
    Reply
  • goodguy713
    Yea they rushed it just to make the christmas deadline in my opinion. I just hope they dont make it like bf3 where almost all the weapons have the same damage and effects short of shot guns.. and the planes fly like cartoon rockets.. lol
    Reply
  • Jynxin
    @ goofguy713 im pretty sure they rushed it out to beat cod ghosts which came out a week later.
    Reply
  • goodguy713
    it didnt really matter when it came to the next gen platforms though because I'm only counting those.. I have not played a playstation 3 or xbox 360 in years... I did pick up a playstation 4 though rocked it out and then passed it on to my nephew who was more than happy to score a ps4.
    Reply
  • bombebomb
    What sort of performance boosts should we expect?
    Reply
  • ta152h
    This has nothing to do with Mantle, and everything to do with Battlefield 4.

    If the API were flawed you wouldn't have such a late change of dates, to one so close, since it's a building block, not an end product. If it wasn't working right, it would require the rework of the API, and then you'd have to test the engine and software that uses it. That's not a one month move.

    BF4 is a mess right now, and you can't develop for it, because it's a moving target. If you're on the Mantle team, you're testing against release "A". But, they're constantly trying to fix all the issues, so by the time you get it to work on "A", it's no longer what they're sending to customers. It's now got to be tested on a different release, that may or may not break things you already tested for. So you test for that, except when it's ready, that's no longer the release you'll be shipping with, etc... You can't develop for that moving target effectively, until it slows down and stabilizes, and becomes manageable. Otherwise, it's a nightmare, and it never turns out right. They don't want to start the Mantle era with a product that works really poorly because of issues not related to Mantle. And that's what they'd be doing if they don't wait for BF4 to stabilize before trying to throw a Mantle release out there.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    12311183 said:
    @ Tim: It's a freakin' new API. I think we can cut AMD some slack.

    What is interesting is that it is an API to allow access directly to the GCN hardware, it is pretty much a emulation path to what it used to be like in games which used to directly access computer hardware instead of calling through APIs.

    I just hope it is actually impressive enough to do more than when they did the 64bit patch for Far Cry that added a few more trees and birds at best but performance was the same.
    Reply
  • Avus
    Reason: EA/DICE garbage code... remember EA announced they need to stop all post game development to fix this "the world most buggiest AAA title in the gaming history". This garbage is not only buggy on PC (example: like usual Ubisuck PC port). BF4 is buggy on ALL platforms!! AMD is SMART to delay its Mantle debut before EA/DICE fix this shit first. Otherwise AMD Mantle's reputation will be in jeopardy.
    Reply