Not too long ago, IGN broke the story that Battlefield 4 would “ship optimized exclusively for AMD GPUs and CPUs. While Nvidia-based systems will be supported, the company won’t be able to develop and distribute updated drivers until after each game is released.”
Battlefield 4 would have only been one more in a string of games (including hit Tomb Raider revamp and Crysis 3) to jump ship from Nvidia for an exclusive optimization partnership, which could heavily influence the purchase of AMD’s Radeon video cards. Add in the fact that AMD is now the sole graphics supplier for the PS4, Xbox One, and Wii U, “guaranteeing a baseline performance edge for all titles developed with console as the lead platform.”
However, GeForce GTX fans should not be alarmed because recent clarifications have been made from both AMD and EA spokespeople with regards to the company collaboration, stating that while there will be a focus on optimization for Battlefield 4 for AMD hardware, it will not be exclusive to AMD components.
According to AMD:
“At this time, though, our relationship with DICE and EA is exclusively focused on ‘Battlefield 4′ and its performance optimizations for AMD CPUs, GPUs and APUs… Additionally, the AMD Gaming Evolved program undertakes no efforts to prevent our competition from optimizing for games before their release.”
According to EA:
“DICE has a partnership with AMD specifically for Battlefield 4 on PC to showcase and optimize the game for AMD hardware… This does not exclude DICE from working with other partners to ensure players have a great experience across a wide set of PCs for all their titles.”
The takeaway from this is that DICE and AMD have a close relationship in optimizing Battlefield 4, most likely because it is important to both companies that the finished product look its best when released on next-gen consoles, which all run on AMD hardware… and that’s all.
I would not take this to mean that Battlefield 4 will perform noticeably better on AMD than Nvidia. And in any case, at least the option to play on both kinds of hardware is still there.
What do you think? Would the continued trend of popular titles optimized for AMD sway you towards buying Radeon, next time you want to upgrade?
