3DMark 2011 - Low-key release?

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Stimpy88

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Hi everyone, I don't know if I have been living under a rock for the last few days, but it does seem like the latest 3DMark has been very quietly released? Ignored even! ;)

I guess AMD has managed to stop the press - so to speak :D

And what's with it not running on anything that isn't DirectX 11??? :rolleyes:
 
Stimpy88 said:
Hi everyone, I don't know if I have been living under a rock for the last few days, but it does seem like the latest 3DMark has been very quietly released? Ignored even! ;)

I guess AMD has managed to stop the press - so to speak :D

And what's with it not running on anything that isn't DirectX 11??? :rolleyes:
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:rolleyes:
 
well, majority of people went with cheaper gpu's, which is amd/ati.

so im not suprised how quiet it has been.
 
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I don't care because I have more important things going on in my life aside from a silly benchmark.

Also, Heaven beat them to the mark by a whole year: when you search for "directX 11 benchmark" on Google, Heaven is first, and 3dmark isn't even on the first page. Let's not forget also that 3dmark Vantage put a sour taste in everyone's mouth with the single-run free basic benchmark. It will take a bit of time for that poor customer experience to be forgotten.
 
In my experience most users don't post results because they score less than others with similar hardware and think they'll look foolish. When they upgrade in the near future you'll notice the same bench haters will start posting scores.

If you miss the point of benching & think running benchmarks is merely for e-peen then this is most often the case.

HEAVEN, whilst a nice looking benchmark......takes too long to complete and has no way to ensure genuine scores. I can almost beat SLi'd 480's with my single 460 with a few tweaks here and there and there's absolutely no way for anyone to prove what settings I've used since you can make the bench display anything you wish. 3D MARK 11 on the other hand can't be fooled and offers an online database to compare with so is far more realistic.
 
defaultluser said:
Also, Heaven beat them to the mark by a whole year: when you search for "directX 11 benchmark" on Google, Heaven is first, and 3dmark isn't even on the first page
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3DMark11 is a much better overall GPU benchmark then the Heaven one...Heaven is mainly a tesselation benchmark...I think 3DMark 11 is the best version of 3DMark since 3DMark 2001
 
polonyc2 said:
3DMark11 is a much better overall GPU benchmark then the Heaven one...Heaven is mainly a tesselation benchmark...I think 3DMark 11 is the best version of 3DMark since 3DMark 2001
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Well, that's fine, but it doesn't change anything I stated in my post.

The only people who care about it being a "better" benchmark are developers and those in-tune 3D rendering (very small). Then you have the group of people who don't care what they run, so long as they can max the score (larger group, but still relatively tiny), and then you have a group of people who have no fucking clue what a benchmark is (incredibly large). Does this make it clearer why nobody cares?
 
I like it. It's hard to put into words, but I am more impressed having actually run it myself than I was when I was watching the pre-rendered videos of it. Something about seeing it live on screen in a real-time render makes me wonder in awe, much like I wondered in awe the first time I saw Rage and Epic Citadel on the iPhone. It's a little overprocessed (depth of field blur comes to mind) in some areas, which briefly breaks the suspension of disbelief, but other than that, especially during the underwater scene, I really felt like I was watching some high production CGI movie. Then I remembered it was being rendered on my poor little Radeon 5770 GPU.
 
And if history teaches us anything, its that it will take 2 years before we even BEGIN to see actual games that look that way.

i was playing Black ops last night with settings on high in the jungle and i realized...it reminded me of a demo from ATI only it was in an actual game running in real time.

The demo? Was from the 9700Pro....what was that...2002?

So now we have a game where you are running through the woods and the vegitation ACTUALLY looks that good...whelp, it only took 8 years from when the "hardware" supposedly could do it. :rolleyes:
 
speaking of 3dmark2011, what's the difference between basic and paid version anyway? I never used vantage because i refuse to pay for it and i'm wondering if 3dmark2011 will have something that is limiting again (can't change settings or something). Anyone know?
 
hesho said:
speaking of 3dmark2011, what's the difference between basic and paid version anyway? I never used vantage because i refuse to pay for it and i'm wondering if 3dmark2011 will have something that is limiting again (can't change settings or something). Anyone know?
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The free version of 3dmark 11 is very much like the free version of 3dmark 06 - fixed resolution, fixed settings, unlimited benchmark runs, one stored result online. The free version will bug you to upgrade every time you run it.

I ran 3dmark 11 basic last night, and I have this to say:

The demos are gorgeous. Unlike in 06, the AA/AF settings are cranked to the max during the demo runs, so they look great.

The benchmarks seem to be very well-rounded. Tessellation and physics are used where they make sense, and not just for the sake of using them.

My only complaint is, they won't let you compare your result online unless you are using approved drivers. I'm not trying to add this to their database, I just want to see a comparison so I can get some kind of relative performance level. I have nothing to compare my performance to, so the number it spit out for me is useless.

I'm not going to change my very stable drivers just because they're a beta release from September...not for a stupid benchmark. Those drivers fixed BFBC2 stuttering for me on my GTX 460, and Fallout: New Vegas plays fine, so why should I have to change?
 
Never understand how many people are still on XP and/or don't yet have DX11 hardware.

Plus it's cool to hate 3dmark.


Seriously though, I think 3dmark has just had its time. Back when 3D cards were all new, hardware came out faster than games were made to use them, so it was the relatively quick to make tech demos and benchmark's that'd show off your hardware the best. Who hasn't fired up a benchmark to demo a new 3D card to a friend? These days, however, games can push hardware as well as benchmarks and their interactivity makes for a much better demo of your new fancy hardware.

Also, benchmarks used to be a great way to check improvements in newer drivers, but that angle has become jaded now for obvious shenanigans, and modern games usually need specific code written for them to realise performance boosts anyway making performance boosts in benchmarks practically meaningless.
 
It was almost never a valid bench out side of a quick run to make sure your numbers were within the range of others with similar hardware. Just to see if your new build was running right and all.
Like just about every static bench out there, Nv and Ati spent time to optimize the hell out of it, instead of optimizing real games like they should. Cards have in the past been better in 3dmark while only on par or even worse than competing cards in real games. Because of that, 3D Mark can not even be counted on to give more than even the most general comparison of relative performance between systems.

Real games being played and real apps being used are the real bench mark these days. Benchmarks like Heaven, 3D Mark, and the like are good for shits n giggles and that is about it.
 
Bu bu bu but wait. It doesn't work on Windows XP?!?!? You mean people will actually have to upgrade from a 10 year old OS to run a state-of-the-art graphics benchmark? No way!
 
Does anyone have any ideas as to why it still has not been reviewed by any of the main-stream sites yet, including this one?

I think most people are right when they say that 3DMark is dead or dieing. It's now a niche product, with just Vista/Win7 and DX 1 cards only, and especially with the pay to use model they have these days.
 
Stimpy88 said:
Does anyone have any ideas as to why it still has not been reviewed by any of the main-stream sites yet, including this one?

I think most people are right when they say that 3DMark is dead or dieing. It's now a niche product, with just Vista/Win7 and DX 1 cards only, and especially with the pay to use model they have these days.
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It's because it's buggy as all fuck. Some people who use 3Dmark 11 suddenly lose the ability to run all other futuremark benchamrks, like 01, 03, 05 up all the way to vantage.
 
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