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Futuremark 3DMark06 Released
jmke writes "Futuremark has released their latest graphics card evaluation software. The 2006 version features all the latest technologies and will stress even the most expensive video cards. From the announcement: 'Continuing forward in the development of advanced game performance benchmarks, Futuremark announced today the release and immediate availability of 3DMark06. A more comprehensive and unrestricted benchmark than previous versions, 3DMark06 includes an array of 3D graphics, CPU and 3D feature tests for overall performance measurement of current and future PC gaming systems.' Futuremark is offering a free download of the software with limited capability while offering an advanced edition for a price. PC Perspectives also has a nice overview of some of the features available."
Yeah, but they're still slashdot users.
If you think that a new version of the standard in gaming benchmarks is no big deal, then YOU must be new here.
Han shot first.
OK, I check the framerates posted at Tom's or other hardware review sites as much as the next guy, but to me an article on slashdot about a new 3D benchmark program is about as exciting as one on a new type of screwdriver. This stuff should just work, and if it were not for the non-stop planned obsolence of video-cards where the obsurdly expensive card you bought three months ago is now obsolete.
DAMN IT!
-ATI
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
On the criteria that 3DMark is the standard for testing gaming performance on Windows, and many of us here on slashdot are gamers who use windows since that's where the games are? Every game console [except maybe 3DO, which is dead] is a closed platform but that doesn't stop slashdot from reporting on 'em.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Tried it, I almost doubled my mark result by upgrading drivers for GPU. :/
But still, 270 isn't really something to brag about
oh well, back to play minesweeper..
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
What if I'm a Linux user, how do I benchmark my card? I see glxgears scores posted on forums sometimes, but somebody always comes along to say that's not a valid benchmark, because it varies with display bit-depth etc.
Is there a free portable graphics card benchmarking tool suitable for comparing two card's Linux performance or for comparing a single card's Linux vs Windows performance?
(Sorry if this is a little off topic)
I probably would have checked the neat graphics on some Windows box of one of my into-games-friends, but the whole things looks like nothing more than a SLIGHTLY revamped 3dmark05. Seems they just had to add more details to the existing demos noone would really notice in fast-paced games at all, just to drive video card sales to new heights. Read: "Nothing really new and exciting to see for you here, please move along."
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g
YTARY!
Someone tell HardOCP.com, so they can be the first to flame it (as always)
You have to take all overclocking claims with a bit of salt, because for some people it's like the size of their penis depends on it. They'll be... very creative and selective in what they tell you, and that's putting it very mildly.
I've briefly been into the overclocker willy-waving scene myself, so you can take that as an admission. Guilty as charged, guv'nor.
Anyway, I've played with it long enough to know that there very rarely is a hard point where the card works 100% flawlessly, and 1 MHz higher it just locks up. There's more of a gradient grey zone where the card sorta works enough to finish one particular benchmark, but glitches, is unstable, or eventually overheats. And where it might work at that frequency in one game or benchmark, but lock up hard in 20 others.
The big overclocking brag-fests you read are usually from this grey area, not from the 100% stable zone.
Yes, you see some screenshots of a mondo 3DMark number there or of some utility showing the card running at 4 gazillion megaherz, but what you don't see is that it runs stable only for the 10 minutes needed to finish the benchmark. After that it overheats and starts artefacting, or outright locking up.
Be even more suspicious of brag-fests where they only ran half of 3DMark, and hand-waved the other tests as "bah, they didn't make much of a difference on the score anyway." (Ever notice how the biggest overclocking claims fall in that category?) Usually it means it crashed or locked up in those tests.
So I wouldn't take those as a baseline or as "_all_ 6800 cards make it that high with no problems, and it's just the mean MBAs at Nvidia marking them down." Fully expect that any card you buy might not be quite stable that high.
Which brings me to another point. To paraphrase another saying "overclocking gives you something for 'free', if your time is worth nothing." Because in the end the price you'll pay is a lot of time tweaking and testing that overclock... for each new game you buy, time replaying 30 minutes worth of something _again_ because the card locked up just before the save point, etc. It can end up a passtime in and by itself.
Fed up with slashdot? I am too.
Or better yet, "where can I download the list of video cards that have Linux, *BSD, etc.. drivers? MMMkay?"
I'm just pissed because I had to STILL use the NE2000 driver for my Linksys Ether 16 card.
Some functions limited to XP? I can deal with that. But what does Excel have to do with 3D Graphic rendering?
Does anyone know of any decent cross-platform OpenGL/openal/SDL benchmarks?
:)
Preferrably in the form of a shiny demo with techno music, of course
It would be nice to compare the performance of OpenGL implementations on different systems.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
http://www.futuremark.com/download/files/3DMark06_ v102_installer.exe.torrent
It requires excel to read a log outputted to excel format. There are other options to output the log, I assume.
Weighing in at a suicidal 575 megabyates, 3DMark06 expands benchmarking from beyond the graphics subsystem to include an array of hard drives, CPU and server failover tests for overall performance measurement of current and future web serving systems when the ever-loving fuck being Slashdotted out of them.
My girlfriend can do the same scan of a face in 0.33 seconds.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
In my opnion 3dmark scores should not be considered in hardware reviews. I have seen video cards get low 3dmark scores, yet play all the latest games out of the box with out problems with speed. I take actual game benchmarks more in to consideration.
I sure Open Office can read the file. Get yourself edumacated and come back when you're not a bunch of n00b bicches. Eh, what do you expect from a bunch of lamers calling themselves ph00t3rm4r|< ?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
a site of Linux, FreeBSD, and OS X users?
Are you (incorrectly) implying that most visitors don't use Windows (they do), or that the Linux, FreeBSD, and OS X users are so fragile and delicate that we must avoid discussing anything that runs outside of these environments?
Or are you just trolling?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Where on Slashdot does it say "only for Linux, FreeBSD and OS X" users?
I believe the "news for nerds" allows for coverage of gaming, as many nerds play computer and video games. The biggest computer game platform is Windows. This benchmark is to show how video cards perform under current Windows gaming technologies (i.e. DirectX).
Oh and by the way, since you seem to have a problem with closed source... how does OS X fit in? Sure Darwin is open source, but OS X is not just Darwin and is just as proprietary as Windows. Indeed with a Mac, Apple ultimately controls both the hardware and software. So this fits into the open source geek mentality exactly how?
Sometimes my arms bend back.
MajorGeeks Torrent here
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. - Douglas Adams
Well, it's pretty, and it's a amazing. I suggest that if you own SM3.0 supported graphics card you should check this out. I don't own such luxurie but I can tell that when I need a update to graphics card without these stypid benchmark programs. They are like computer art and brobably the first programs to be featuring life-a-like graphics. I am fine with my 10~30 frames per second in lastest interesting enought to play games. Think about F.E.A.R it just sucks. I played it thought on hardest level in about 6-7hours. It is only about the graphics it has. Not the story or action. I got bored with it. Doom3 was more about graphics but at least it had that "you are under huge pressure" feeling. I think that since the graphics are advansing game makers like Introvision (they have titles like UpLink and Darwinia) those guys are acctually making games. Or what is a computer game? I think that "games" like FEAR, Doom3 and Half-Life2 are more like "Interactive-Movies" "viewer" "Walks throught". Notice that I didn't use word "player". Say what you say but 3DMark is great Demo for your latest hardware. It takes at least year or two or even more to see that kind of effects in "games" but by then your hardware is already old. I am running on FX7500Ultra and it run Doom3 like 50~70Fps on Medium/High. :]
And no, I haven't downloaded and watched the newest picture slideshow. I already know that I am likely to get as a result.
-Seeing the problem is ½ of solution-
Good luck guys. Ive been following 3dmark for a long time, and since 3dmark2001 downloads keep getting worse. Not only is the benchmark a big file (560+MB) but there is something else going on today... The Empire at War demo is out, coming in at 742MB. For those who dont know, empire at war is a StarWars RTS from the makers of Command and Conquer and has positive reviews. Just a heads up
"I take actual game benchmarks more in to consideration."
So what games do you recommend that'll stress every feature and system on a computer, all across the spectrum?
Indeed with a Mac, Apple ultimately controls both the hardware and software. So this fits into the open source geek mentality exactly how?
It doesn't. Or at least, it shouldn't. But Apply fanboyism is rampant around these parts.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
...there won't be an immediate slashdotting, since MajorGeek has a Torrent of the download posted already
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
how does OS X fit in? Sure Darwin is open source, but OS X is not just Darwin and is just as proprietary as Windows. Indeed with a Mac, Apple ultimately controls both the hardware and software. So this fits into the open source geek mentality exactly how?
Well, from the amount of credit some of the open source geeks take for OS X, you'd think Jobs had put Fluxbox and some hacked-together freeware apps on top of the most wonderful OS in the Universe(tm).
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If my GeForce FX 5500 will break the 1 FPS barrier with this one :)
I had a bit of an emergency at work today - we're doing a demonstration tomorrow and the VIVO (Video In/Video Out) graphics card on one of our demo setups died, so we had to go to a local store and buy *anything* that matched this spec:
/dev/deity
ATI (cos we didn't want to rewrite some of our code)
PCI Express
VIVO
So we got stung for ~£200 for an ATI X800 variant. Which I don't mind, but it came in the biggest-ass box you've ever seen. The cover had some rendered image of a woman with enormous tits and the heatpipe had the manufacturers name stamped in it, as if the thing had been carried down by Moses straight from
Why can't somebody just do a nice card with *stable* 2d and nice video acceleration under Linux, with 3d acceleration as good as you can get without pumping out loads of heat or having a fan? Matrox are nice for 2D but you couldn't ever play the occasional 3D game on them. Why does every card have to be marketed to the sort of kid who has neons underneath their car?
except overclockers showing off their latest cooling miracle...
i mean, i've seen scores:
a pc with a 6600GT getting about 1000 points
a pc with a 7800GTX getting about 5000points
yeah, the 7800gtx is a lot faster, but it'll never be 5 times faster in any game at all...
i don't understand why they gave up the meaning of their benchmarks, the numbers mean nothing, they can't be compared (unless you own identical hardware)...
i've heard some say it because it's just a showcase for the latest technology and overclockers, but i don't see how that would conflict with giving out real numbers that are of any use...
Who is going to buy a program to see how slow your computer really is? Is this program sponsored by the major hardware manufacturars?
The min specs are 2.5GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, 256MB of vram.
How many people can really run this??
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
Sure Darwin is open source, but OS X is not just Darwin and is just as proprietary as Windows. Indeed with a Mac, Apple ultimately controls both the hardware and software. So this fits into the open source geek mentality exactly how?
Because....
1) Apple has cool ads and one of the best marketing teams in the world.
2) OSX runs UNIX apps natively, which geeks really like.
Oh wait, scratch #2, Windows also runs *nix natively with a complete *nix subsystem.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/sfu
I Guess just #1 then?
"If you think that a new version of the standard in gaming benchmarks is no big deal, then YOU must be new here."
The only people this release is of any interest to:
1. nVidia
2. ATi
3. A few hardware review sites, most of whom depend heavily on advertising spend from 1. and 2.
3DMark is a worthless synthetic benchmark and has been an industry laughing stock for some years now.
Preferences > Homepage > Customize stories on homepage > Authors > Zonk > Uncheck
Indeed with a Mac, Apple ultimately controls both the hardware and software.
How does Apple control FreeBSD, KHTML, etc....
"Sufferin' succotash."
http://www.thunderbyte.net/dl/3DMark06_v102_instal ler.exel ler.exe>l ler.exe
http://www.thunderbyte.net/dl/3DMark06_v102_insta
http://www.thunderbyte.net/dl/3DMark06_v102_insta
Apple keeps the entire top layer of Mac OS X proprietary. Is Aqua open source no? Cocoa? Carbon? Quartz? Quicktime?
Apple leverages open source technology in OS X but OS X is not open source.
Understand?
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Yes but some of the demos look pretty cool!
Woo woo!
And it's mostly important to ATI and Nvidia because it will convince people that they need a new video card even if their current one runs all current games fine.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
I don't tend to overclock, but there are some chips that have been released which often times had a lot of overhead for easy overclocking.
Was I stupid to overclock my Celeron 300A to 450Mhz by changing one setting in the bios?
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Erm.... Except for the fact that 3dmark (at least '05) wouldn't let you output it to Excel format unless you had Excel installed.... even Open Office's version isn't recognized.
its the news that matters, that kills it.. what does an article of 3dmark matter?
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
It's about the only place you'll see the shader model 3.0 shininess in?
Shininess makes people happy.
Ooooh, look at the shiny, happy, high polygon models.
*warm feeling*
Sometimes my arms bend back.
<a href="ed2k://|file|3DMark06_v102_installer.exe|604 908520|EE18D41F67465D625B5FDDA95F719723|h=YOIKOJP7 ZCYPTTKJU2QOYYQRC5JHI6DU|/">3DMark06_v102_installe r.exe</a>x e|604908520|EE18D41F67465D625B5FDDA95F719723|h=YOI KOJP7ZCYPTTKJU2QOYYQRC5JHI6DU|/M ark06_v102_installer.exe|604908520|EE18D41F67465D6 25B5FDDA95F719723|h=YOIKOJP7ZCYPTTKJU2QOYYQRC5JHI6 DU|/>
ed2k://|file|3DMark06_v102_installer.e
<ed2k://|file|3D
download the stuff there
Your industry connection being? Seems from your comment history you have a heaping helping of Sony fanboyism. Maybe you work for one of their game divisions?
I got an xbox360 with a 60" Sony HDTV to see that shinyness :)
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
Doesn't Microsoft have a free Excel Reader? I wonder if that'd suffice.
I've got the 2 Meg version, not the inferior 1 Meg card.
Aqua is not open source, but OS X as a whole is packed with a lot of open source. The operating system that the window server Aqua runs on, Darwin, is open source.
Has it sunk in yet?
"Sufferin' succotash."
Part of the OS is open source. Part is not. Darwin stand alone is open source. Mac OS X is only partially constructed from open source components. Want to hack and recompile OS X? Good luck. You can't. You can submit changes to Darwin if you like. OS X is NOT an open source operating system in the same sense as BSD and Linux distros are!
You cannot recompile OS X to run on the hardware of your choice. You cannot have access to the entire source code base of OS X. OS X cannot be freely distributed. OS X is not distributed under an open source license.
It isn't just the Window server. The Apple APIs are not open source either. Take a look at this diagram Mac OS X Architecture. See all the parts above Darwin? Guess what? Most are not open source.
Net result - OS X may benefit from open source software, but you - the end user (or should I say end geek) - do not benefit from OS X in the same manner you do from a fully open source OS such as BSD or GNU/Linux. No full source code access. Absolutely no legal portability of the OS to other non-Apple hardware platforms (even of the same architecture). You can not base your own software off of the source code from anything other than the Darwin portion of OS X.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
I'd love for someone to come out with a video of the benchmark so all of us with underpowered and older cards can see the eye candy for ourselves. Anyone else with me on this one?
Catalyst 6.1
Take a look
http://service.futuremark.com/orb/projectsearch.js p
I got ~1500 on my brand new rig (Athlon X2 3800+, Radeon X800GTO) Someone got over 10000! This makes me sad. :-(
RIAA + Sony = Rootkit of all Evil
It is even more obnoxious than hearing them talk in the first place. If they're truly "fanboys", then just ignore them already. Stop being such a bunch of anti-fanboyismists. You sound like a bunch of high schoolers that feel so awesome because they're not in middle school anymore. Anyone who accuses another of "fanboyism" was likely a "fanboy" themselves, otherwise they wouldn't even know what the term means.
bah, Second Reality was better. It's all been downhill since Assembly 93.
henry -- the human evolution news relay
Aqua is not open source, but OS X as a whole is packed with a lot of open source. The operating system that the window server Aqua runs on, Darwin, is open source
Wow, using your reasoning, Windows would be just as open source or open source friendly as OSX.
Windows uses IPv6, TCP/IP, DNS, and many other open source projects, so this means we love Windows as much as OSX now too then?
Apple is actually 'using' the open source world and giving back very little that is NOT required. The whole GUI that makes OSX, OSX is proprietary, get it yet? Aqua, Adobe 2D Display (PDF), Carbon.
If I was using OSX and only running XWindows on it, then sure it would be a great fully open OS, but then it wouldn't be OSX, it would be BSD/Darwin with XWindows on it.
I might as well run Windows with the *nix subsystem if that was my goal...
Either people know so little about OSX, Open Source, and *nix or they have drank so much of the Apple Marketing Kool-Aid that Macs could hack up their children and we would still have to listen to the same people brag about how well their Mac used a Knife to hack up their children. Then a 200 page debate about how Steve Jobs should be a saint for making more miracle computers and helping the open source world by contribuiting back only the modifications to the TCP Stack from their'iSerial Killer' peripherals.
BTW Anyone really ever work with Jobs or his projects at Apple? Besides being good at marketing, most of his 'innovative' work at Apple were flops. And people look up to him like some god. WTH?
Even OSX, instead of actually bringing something new to the computer world, they slapped a proprietary interface on BSD that they basically ripped off and now I am even running into Mac users that think Steve Jobs invented all the Mach and BSD technologies, and the others are ripping Apple off. Geesh.
(gag) Oh wait, GAG....
I think that Crystal Dreams II (from Vogue and Mr. H) was a bit better, but that was a year later, those times were everything was hand made... no fancy 3d from any graphic card...
Ups. Too much fast reading/browsing. :-)
I read the title and I thought:"Futurama 2006 released" !!!!
I know of some types of screwdrivers - Straight, Phillips, Allen, Torex, and Square. Are there more?
worth mentioning that glxgears is very old and as such doesn't benchmark features that make new games tick. for example; i have a geforce2 ultra and a geforce6500. the geforce2 aces over 2000FPS but the 6500 only scores 1300-ish. any guesses which one's going to struggle running quake4 (if it will even run)? personally, i use it to test if i've managed to get direct rendering working at all. no idea what to use to benchmark under linux, though. any suggestions gladly accepted...
I'm referencing why they may list it as a requirement on the box as being required for a particular functionality, genius.
Minimum System Recommendations
* Intel® or AMD® compatible processor 2.5GHz or higher
* DirectX® 9 compatible graphics adapter with Pixel Shader 2.0 support or later, and graphics memory of 256 MB minimum*
* 1GB of system RAM or more - 1.5GB of free hard disk space
* Windows® XP 32bit operating system with latest Service Packs and updates installed
* DirectX® 9.0c December 2005 or later
* Microsoft Excel® 2003 or XP for some 3DMark functionality
* Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 for some 3DMark functionality
Why not just output the log to an html table? Then anyone can read it in a browser, and excel will open it too if someone wants to mess with it.
Think about it. You can buy the previous generation of video card technology cheap, because many other people are willing to pay top dollar for cutting edge video cards. And that video card will play just about all of the games that are available today, as well as every game that came before. To put it in more concrete terms, you can go out and buy a GeForce 6600 and play almost every game made recently (e.g. Doom 3), all the way back to Lemmings or Super Mario. That card that you buy will always be able to play that same set of games, as well as any new games that come out that aren't more graphically demanding than your card can handle.
Planned obsolescence is the opposite situation. The automotive industry is the most obvious example. Today, for $20000, you can buy a car that can go 100 MPH and gets 25 MPG. In five years, it's just about a 100% certainty that it's going to need some work done to it, and it's probably going to be worth about $5000 (if you're lucky). In ten years, it will be pretty much worthless, because the cost of the needed repairs are going to be more than the car's value. So, the usual solution then is to just buy a new car. But here's the catch -- That new car that you buy is going to cost you $20000 again, and it's going to go 100 MPH and get 25 MPG. The "performance" will have changed 0%. But you have no choice but to buy a new car, because your old one is obsolete.
If the automotive industry paralleled the video card industry, your next car (which you could buy just six months from now) would go twice as fast and get twice the mileage, for the same price you paid for your last car. Yes, it's true that the value of your old car (only six months old) would be driven down pretty harshly, but so what? Just drive it for a few years and skip a few generations of new technology. Then in just a few of years, buy a new car that goes 8000 MPh and gets 2000 MPG.