Oxide Games, a group composed of industry veterans from Microsoft and Firaxis, are currently working on Nitrous, which is gonna be a next-generation engine for strategy games. Calling it impressive, honestly, is a bit of an understatement.
The team recently released a demo video showcasing Star Swarm, which is a technology demo built using the engine. It shows a large space battle taking place between over ten thousand units. The surprising part here is that it actually seems to be running at an acceptable framerate, which, according to the video, is the effect of AMD's Mantle API—specifically, its ability to enhance communication between the graphics card and the CPU. Have a look:
Maybe someone could convince Disney to license this thing for a Star Wars game.
Star Swarm Demonstration [YouTube, via DSOGaming]
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