Nathan Davis09 December 2006, 12:35 PM
I chatted with the lead developer behind the popular 3DMark and PCMark benchmarking utilities to find out about their latest Vista-compatible speed testing suites.
Futuremark, creator of the most commonly used PC benchmarking software, has announced Vista compatibility for both 3DMark05 and PCMark06.
I chatted with Benchmark Development Architect, Nicklas Renqvist.
First off, was development of benchmark software for Vista more difficult than previous versions of Windows?
Renqvist declined to comment, saying, "our native Vista benchmarks are still work-in-progress."
However, Renqvist did say the 64-bit edition of Vista differed quite a bit to the 32-bit version.
In order to run Futuremark benchmarks in x64, you have to manually check a box on the shortcut to run the program in administrative mode. (It's also a requirement in x86 , but Futuremark's installer is able to take care of it.)
 3DMark06: Squishing red shirts on a Vista near you. |
Does Futuremark see Vista's inbuilt benchmarking utility, which provides a score for each tested component, and an overall score, as a threat?
Not even slightly it would seem. "We don't see the built-in benchmark as a threat at all," Renqvist said.
We were also curious to know if Futuremark had had a hand in developing Vista's inbuilt benchmark utility or if Microsoft had at least requested its expertise.
Renqvist declined to comment, saying such details were "all confidential."
Given that hardware testers are often hesitant to move to new benchmarks due to the inability to compare results with previous results, I also asked if Futuremark was considering adding Vista support to 3DMark05, which is still in widespread use.
No such luck as it turns out. "3DMark06 is our Vista enabled 3D-benchmark and uses more advanced technology than 3DMark05 does," said Renqvist.
 No 3DMark05 for Vista: 'Time to kick arse and chew bubble gum. And I'm all outta arse.' |
True Vista-native Futuremark benchmarks will be available in 2007, but Futuremark wouldn't put a definite date on it.
However, the company did say that the benchmarks are all new, based around Direct3D in DirectX 10.
Windows XP will lose out in the new benchmarks, as Futuremark doesn't feel the need to either update or create new benchmarks for the five year-old OS.
"Our next generation benchmarks will be Vista only," Renqvist said, adding "Vista is the new big thing for all PC users/gamers, and we want to concentrate all our resources and efforts on that."
Linux/OS X benchmarks?
Just for kicks, we asked if Linux will ever be a consideration and why it isn't already (admit it, glxgears is a bit of a downer). As suspected, at least for 3DMark, it has to do with its API of choice, DirectX.
"DirectX is what we have been using all the way from the beginning, and we are confident that utilizing one API thoroughly on the PC is better than supporting two API's perhaps less thoroughly."
Of course, it would probably also have to do with the gaming populace and PC gaming's almost complete existence on the Windows platform.
"In order to support any other operating systems than Windows on the PC's, we would need to re-write our engines to support OpenGL and that is simply not feasible."
"Currently we have no plans to port our PC engine and tools to OpenGL," he says.
Linux graphics benchmarks do exist, however, just not for the PC. "On the mobile side we do support Linux, but not in our publicly available benchmarks," likely speaking of SimulationMark and possibly 3DMark Mobile 2006.
"We are of course monitoring the need for PC benchmarks like PCMark or 3DMark in the world of Linux (or OSX), but if we will ever end up creating PC benchmarks for other operating systems than Windows is something we haven't decided upon."
The need is there but it would seem it's not great enough. Basically, if you're not running Windows, 'no Futuremark for you.'