3DMark Vantage

The test is entirely based on a new 3D engine that is only compatible with DirectX 10 and therefore requires Windows Vista (SP1); 3DMark Vantage can only run on Vista compatible graphics cards (GeForce 8 and 9, Radeon HD 2000 and 3000).

Since the release of PCMark Vantage, Futuremark has decided to remove the year of release from its product names. In the 2008 lineup, the word "Vantage" appeared, which can be translated as "advantage", "superiority". And all currently available Vantage products are designed to run only on Vista, no other versions of Windows are supported. The motives for this approach are explained as follows: 3DMark06 with the latest updates is able to meet all the needs of Windows XP users and the release of a new version for this operating system does not make sense. And the company did not consider it expedient to compromise, creating a benchmark with support for both XP and Vista, because. a number of features specific to Vista are simply missing in XP (including DirectX 10),

Installing the program is not too fast, but, nevertheless, it does not raise questions and does not cause any problems. Of course, subject to the minimum system requirements. And they are:

• Processor with SSE2 support
• The minimum amount of RAM required to run Windows Vista
• 1 GB hard drive (distribution size - 450 MB)
• Graphics card that fully supports DirectX 10
• Operating system Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 installed
• Monitor capable of 1280x1024 resolution

Here are some recommended requirements:

• Dual-core processor with performance equivalent to Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, AMD Athlon X2 6000+ or ​​higher.
• 2GB RAM
• Monitor capable of 1920x1200 resolution

Tests and interface.

To be fair, my first run of 3DMark Vantage went through with two error messages. I do not want to dwell on this annoying fact, because. As a result, the program successfully started the second time, but a small "sediment remained". Apparently, the rush to release made itself felt, which means that the developers will have something to do when preparing update 1.1.0.
Having launched, 3DMark Vantage demonstrates its updated interface in all its glory - bright, beautiful, original, noticeably different from previous versions of 3DMark. Working with him does not cause any difficulties, everything is quite clear and logical.
But the system information module has not undergone significant changes, providing fairly detailed, but still standard information about the computer under test through a browser. Detailed information about the processor, video card and its capabilities, DirectX, motherboard, sound card, monitor, etc. is displayed.

3DMark Vantage includes two brand new graphics tests, two new processor tests, and six tests of various video system capabilities. As usual, the result of all tests is the final score, 3DMark Score. It is affected by two additional scores - CPU Score and GPU Score, reflecting the performance, respectively, of the processor and video card. The final score also depends on presets, a new 3DMark Vantage feature that determines, among other things, the relative weight of the CPU Score and GPU Score. Presets are four different graphics settings."default" tests: Entry, Performance, High and Extreme. They affect the visual quality and the load created by the tests (increasingly - from Entry to Extreme). The results obtained with different presets are not comparable to each other, and to avoid confusion, the final grade is preceded by a letter corresponding to the preset used. Accordingly, E, P, H and X. As before, the user can customize the tests using the Custom option.

Mentioned above, the main graphics tests are called Jane Nash (Graphics Test 1) and New Calico (Graphics Test 2). The Jane Nash test contains a large game scene that takes place indoors. It includes many fixed and dynamic objects, dynamic lighting, cloth simulation, anisotropic materials, cascading shadow maps with PCF filtering, and more.

New Calico takes place in outer space, including objects such as a large planet and an asteroid belt. There are a lot of moving objects in the test, various shadow options, ray tracing effects, etc.

The first test of the processor (AI, artificial intelligence) shows a lot of maneuvering aircraft. The main load consists of planning the flight route for each aircraft, artificial intelligence calculates it so that the aircraft fly around obstacles and do not collide with each other. The test is able to effectively use the capabilities of multi-core processors.

The second CPU test (Physics) deals with physics calculations that are specific to next generation games. In this test, the AGEIA PhysX accelerator is very useful.

The six video system capability tests are: Texture Fill, Color Fill, Parallax Occlusion Mapping (Complex Pixel Shader), GPU Cloth, GPU Particles, Perlin Noise (Math-heavy Pixel Shader).

Versions.

The pricing policy for 3DMark Vantage is similar to that of PCMark Vantage and different from previous versions. Only a trial version is available for free, which will allow you to test the computer only once and submit the results to the Futuremark online database. For further work, you will have to purchase a license for the Basic, Advanced or Professional versions. These are their differences.

3DMark Vantage Basic

• Cost .95 (only available via internet download)
• Unlimited launches with 1 set of settings.
• Internet connection required to view results
• Licensed for personal and non-commercial use only

3DMark Vantage Advanced

• Cost .95 (only available via internet download)
• Unlimited number of runs, full control over test settings.
• Internet connection required to view results
• Licensed for personal and non-commercial use only

3DMark Vantage Professional

• Price 5.00 (available on CD)
• All features of the Advanced version
• Technical support
• View results without internet connection
• Automation with Command Line Options
• Commercial use license