In this paper a low-cost link level performance prediction technique is proposed for a single input and multiple output system. Receiver link level abstraction is used in system level simulations of large networks in order to reduce their complexity. Usually, a single lookup table is employed in link level abstraction to predict a receiver's performance under different channel conditions. In the presented work, the mean frame error rate curve of different diverse channels is proposed as the reference for performance prediction in single input multiple output systems. Its generation involves compression of the received code word into a single quality measure based on the postdetection signal to noise ratio values using nonlinear capacity, exponential, and mutual mapping functions. The overall performance difference between simulated and predicted frame error rates shows that the proposed scheme gives very good performance approximations under different modulation and coding schemes, clearly outperforming the classical line of sight channel lookup table.