Got the program and ran it with a TBredB running at 13X166 on an A7N8X, Radeon 9700 Pro running stock, got a score of 4586 with default settings. Had no problems whatsoever running the program, which was the purpose of the first run, not to get into a Hall of Fame with it.
What I visually saw was less than appealing. Three of the four tests bring the Radeon 9700 Pro to its knees at least some of the time. I was seeing framerates of less than 5 fps a few times more than a few times.
It’s probably going to take at least one, maybe two generations of video cards for these tests to run all the way through at 24fps.
If your video card can’t run DirectX 9, it looks like the programs skips the tests that use it and gives you 0 points for it. This helps to give people with GF4s ascores of less than 1500. Run a GF2, and you’ll get a couple hundred points.
These results seem to be leaving most people with that kind of equipment kind of upset, as you can see in this forum thread.
What Really Is 3DMark These Days?
Is 3DMark really a benchmark anymore, as it is normally used? Or is it a virtual track for virtual hotrodding? Has the benchmark itself become a game?
I think that’s how the overwhelming majority of people who actually use it perceive it. I don’t think they really give a rat’s ass whether or not it truly reflects video performance; it’s just the playing field for competition.
Obviously, it can be used as a benchmark, and I don’t think it wise to render a snap judgment on whether it’s good for that or not.
But if you view it as a racetrack, one can say right away that it just threw the vast majority of its participants off the track, and isn’t too hot a track for those who are left.
Beware a benchmark whose major effect on most people is, “Your system sucks, ergo, you suck. Buy, buy, buy. More, more, more.”
If your system was perfectly good until you ran the benchmark, don’t toss the system. Toss the benchmark.
Or don’t even download and run it to begin with.
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