News 3DMark Next details emerge

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/11...etails_emerge/

[RotoSequence]

I wonder if they'll do something more interesting with this release, like making a high resource consumption AI that navigates around those ultra rediculously detailed worlds they create.

[Tim S]

I dunno, they seem to be masters of the flyby™

[Firehed]

Umm.. WTF is heterogeneous fog?

Pretty, but I still severely doubt it has any relation to real-world performance. I'd much rather see a Pro-only version that simply does a flyby-type runthrough of several current games, but instead of an actual flyby or timedemo, it would really just send the exact same keystrokes and mouse controls every time for basically an ultra-repeatable version of what Bit does now. That way it should be (in theory, assuming AI doesn't get thrown in too much) as similar run-to-run as a timedemo but giving actual performance results.

(for the record, pro-only to cover the monumental licensing costs)

[RotoSequence]

Heterogeneous... as opposed to homogenous. Meaning the fog can have variable "thickness" within a single volume I imagine.

[Tim S]

Originally Posted by RotoSequence

Heterogeneous... as opposed to homogenous. Meaning the fog can have variable "thickness" within a single volume I imagine.

In essence, yes

[Shadowed_fury]

Originally Posted by RotoSequence

Heterogeneous... as opposed to homogenous. Meaning the fog can have variable "thickness" within a single volume I imagine.

Thanks for clearing that up.... Pun not intended.

[-EVRE-]

my ti4200 will run that right?

[Tim S]

depends how big your e-pen0r is

[stephen2002]

3DMark, not a very useful benchmark but very pretty

[silent_project]

but it's so much fun...

[Kipman725]

3dmark is a very usefull benchmark for graphics cards. It aims to not stress the rest of the computer and only test what features and what performance can be extracted from your current card. It's a very usefull tool but most people are using it incorectly.

[dom_]

how do you mean using it incorrectly?

[Tim S]

Originally Posted by Kipman725

3dmark is a very usefull benchmark for graphics cards. It aims to not stress the rest of the computer and only test what features and what performance can be extracted from your current card. It's a very usefull tool but most people are using it incorectly.

It's a good tool, but I wouldn't say it is a good benchmark. How does it tell you how many frames per second you will get in Quake 4, how does it tell you whether you can play FEAR at 1600x1200?

[Kipman725]

It tells you what features your graphics card has and how well it does them. The geforce 5 series gets ripped to shreds in 3dmark 05 because it dosen't support directX 9.0 features very well.

It's also very usefull if you have two computers and can't be bothered to take them apart to see which one has the most powerfull graphics card.

It also gives a definate mesurment which is comparable with other peoples computers because its usualy run at deafult settings. One fps at quake 4 may be at different visual qality settings to another so there not directly comparable.

[Meanmotion]

Originally Posted by stephen2002

3DMark, not a very useful benchmark but very pretty

It's a good tool, but I wouldn't say it is a good benchmark. How does it tell you how many frames per second you will get in Quake 4, how does it tell you whether you can play FEAR at 1600x1200?

It may not be a useful comparison to real world gaming but it's the definition of benchmark (A standard by which something can be measured or judged.) Just because the computing community has shunned it, it doesn't mean it doesn't do exactly what it's supposed to very well.