Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.
Isn't this just a definition of one or another form of geek?? More power to them I say. I just sit on my lame ass and mess with in-game settings until it looks right. The oc'ers you talk about are at least doing justice to the game medium by viewing it in the best possible light.
Your argument could be carried to any engineering extreme and indeed most sports and past-times
bah!*@%!
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?