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Does 3DMark Predict Game Performance?
aendeuryu writes "Sidhian has up an interesting op-ed and summary piece on whether or not graphics benchmarks like 3dMark are helpful in determining the suitability of a video card for gameplay. It goes on to show how certain tests correlate to specific cards and game engines. The article is from last month, but Sidhian's pretty good for refreshingly frank hardware articles, and this might be good background information for evaluating ATI's upcoming Crossfire line of dual-izable video cards."
Obviously benchmarks try to measure as much as possible, but there are limits. The most significant limit is that the benchmarks simply can't emulate every aspect of every game.
We've got NVidia releasing their new card, but ATI is planning their next one soon too.
However, more horsepower is always good and this year's chips are faster than last year's, so unless you're trying to differentiate between a few microseconds difference in processing time between equivalent competing cards, you're better off just looking at the grand scheme of things and just realize that things are getting better and faster (and more expensive).
the author rightly points out that the benchmark may not be accurately testing the right things. he lists different criteria for different types of games, using FPSs and racing games as the extreme examples. However, he doesn't really explain why the hair's breadth of a difference observed between nVidia and ATI in the benchmark translates to the very dramatic differences in real world performance and more importantly, he never really fully addresses the issue of different games (as the only directX game examined was HL2). If you're going to mention racing games and GTA, why not test GTA? A much more convincing article would have looked at several games spanning the genres (and graphical demands).
One of the things that has always irked me about benchmark testing is the lack of detail on exactly what they did. If you've ever read a scientific paper, then you know what I'm talking about. Oh sure, they need the dumbed down version for when gandma is buying bill a "new-fangled computer card", but what about the rest of us?
There's also the issue that some of us play games or use apps that are not DirectX, but OpenGL. Where are the solid benchmarks for that?
- I voted for Nintendo and against Bush
Benchmarks are overrated and full of overclocking. I know of someone who bought an exact same system tested by sites like tomshardware.com. They can never achieve the same frames-per-second as their benchmarks.
I prefer the use of actual games when benchmarking a card. The synthetic benchmarks from 3dMark do not tell me anything other than how the card will perform in 3Dmark. With various game engines using a wide range of features such as OpenGL, DirectX, SM3.0, HDR, etc. you need to benchmark by using a wide range of "actual" games.
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Hardocp dropped 3Dmark benchmarks along time ago for this reason (among others)
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=816850&
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Even my brain can predict game performance:
Bzzatt....
That game will perform like crap!
No ,but that is for very obvious reasons and give you no real idea of the actual real world (or should i say fake world)abilities.
These tests are next to useless , unless of course you want to see how well your PC does running the test in question.
They are only comparable with themselves , Sure there may be some correlation between game performance and the score on these tests
Perhaps they are of use in contemplation , but they pale in comparison to any real tests (using rl applications with purposes beyond testing alone)
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
I get somewhere around 102937898123704 FPS when playing Doom! I rule! It only goes down slightly when playing Doom II.
how well 3dmark runs on your computer. Case in point, I recently picked up the eVga 6800 (Non-ultra) card recently, and very happy with it BTW. And, after a bit of tuning, I managed to get a score of 85xx with 3dmark03. Next, I successfully unlocked the extra shader pipes with RivaTuner bringing the total number of active pipes to 16. Well, when I reran the test, in the opening sequence "Battle of Proxycon," the FPS jumped from ~55Fps to ~75fps during the first elevator shot. The rest of the demo also ran with about a 20% performance boost. Naturally I was quite pleased with the performance boost (Doom 3 also runs smoother with the extra pipes, and no artifacting even!). The Nature test, on the other hand, ran exactly the same as before hand. No faster or slower. The ogre test was moderately improved in speed. The odd thing is I got a score of 80xx even though the test ran faster! Nothing changed, I just unlocked the pipes. It makes no sense, and I would gladly entertain any theories as why better performance would give a worse score. *shrug* At that point I gave up trying to please 3dmark, uninstalled and got back to playing some games.
wow, guys. welcome to 2003.