Greetings Citizens,

We are pleased to announce that Star Citizen will include support for AMD’s new Mantle graphics API. Mantle is a new technology which promises to significantly increase the graphical power of games, which should greatly benefit Star Citizen’s greatly-detailed universe. You can find the entire AMD press release, including comments from Chris Roberts, below.

The Star Citizen team is always eager to investigate new technologies that will better immerse players, whether they’re the new frontiers of virtual reality offered by the Oculus Rift or the under-the-hood GPU-efficiency increasing technology of AMD’s Mantle API.

AMD’s Revolutionary Mantle Graphics API Adopted by Industry Leading Game Developers Cloud Imperium, Eidos-Montréal and Oxide

New developers join AMD to advance PC game performance improvements and simplify PC game development with close-to-the-metal API for AMD Radeon™ GPUs and APUs

SUNNYVALE, Calif. —11/4/2013

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced three new game developer partnerships for Mantle, its highly acclaimed, groundbreaking graphics API. Cloud Imperium Games, Eidos-Montréal™, a part of the Square Enix® Group, and Oxide Games are the latest game developers to join AMD in optimizing the way PC games are developed to extract maximum performance from a modern graphics architecture that spans desktop PCs, notebooks and consumer devices like tablets.

“AMD is proud to play an instrumental role in transforming the world of game development with Mantle,” said Ritche Corpus, director of ISV gaming and alliances, AMD. “With the support and close collaboration between AMD and industry-leading game developers like Cloud Imperium, Eidos-Montréal and Oxide, Mantle can maximize optimization for highly anticipated PC titles, bringing an unparalleled gaming experience for players.”

Cloud Imperium Games is currently developing “Star Citizen,” the highly anticipated, crowd-funded PC space simulator from legendary game designer Chris Roberts.

“AMD’s Mantle will allow us to extract more performance from an AMD Radeon GPU than any other graphics API,” said Chris Roberts, CEO, Cloud Imperium Games. “Mantle is vitally important for a game like Star Citizen, which is being designed with the need for massive GPU horsepower. With Mantle, our team can spend more time achieving our perfect artistic vision, and less time worrying about whether or not today’s gaming hardware will be ready to deliver it.”

Eidos-Montréal is the studio behind “THIEF™,” an upcoming first-person stealth adventure set for release in February 2014. Eidos-Montréal also developed “DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION®,” an AMD Gaming Evolved title.

“Mantle lets you use AMD Radeon GPUs the way they are meant to be used, unlocking many new opportunities and increased CPU and GPU performance,” said David Anfossi, studio head, Eidos-Montréal. “Because of this, Mantle is one of the most important changes to PC graphics in many years.”
Helmed by industry veterans, Oxide Games is designing the new “Nitrous” engine for 64-bit, multi-core processors.

“AMD’s Mantle technology lets us get more out of the hardware than any other solution available,” said Dan Baker, co-founder, Oxide Games. “Adding Mantle support to our multi-platform, 64-bit Nitrous engine realizes significant gains in performance on Mantle-enabled hardware without adding enormous development overhead.”

Cloud Imperium Games, Eidos-Montréal and Oxide Games will join AMD and DICE in speaking about Mantle architecture and implementation at the AMD Developer Summit (APU 13), running Nov. 11-14 in San Jose, Calif. In addition, Oxide Games will be showing a public sneak preview of Mantle performance at the event.

For those interested, complimentary access to all APU 13 keynote sessions is available by registering online, in limited numbers while quantities last. Notable keynote speakers include: Dr. Lisa Su, senior vice president and general manager, Global Business Units, AMD; Johan Andersson, technical director, DICE; Dominic Mallinson, vice president, research and development, Sony; and Mark Papermaster, chief technology officer, AMD.

About AMD

AMD (NYSE: AMD) designs and integrates technology that powers millions of intelligent devices, including personal computers, tablets, game consoles and cloud servers that define the new era of surround computing. AMD solutions enable people everywhere to realize the full potential of their favorite devices and applications to push the boundaries of what is possible. For more information, visit www.amd.com.

About Cloud Imperium Games

Cloud Imperium Games Corporation and its subsidiary Roberts Space Industries was founded in April 2012 by renowned game developer Chris Roberts (Wing Commander, Freelancer, Privateer) and his business partner and long-time international media attorney Ortwin Freyermuth. Under Roberts’ leadership using his long-standing relationships in the game space, Cloud Imperium quickly assembled a top tier development team for the creation of art assets, story elements, and an extensive prototype for its first game Star Citizen. Star Citizen is being marketed and launched via www.robertsspaceindustries.com. Cloud Imperium’s strategy is about customer acquisition through established game designer fan bases. More information about the company, including jobs and contact information can be found at www.cloudimperiumgames.com.