| 3DMark 2001 Second Edition |
Category : Software
Manufacturer :
Posted by: Ben on 2002-02-13 00:00:00
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A 3DMark 2001 Update is Released
For many performance users, 3DMark is not just a benchmark - its a way of life, and some will go to ANY length to improve their scores, even to such an extent where performance in actual games is adversely affected. They will thus be overjoyed to hear that Madonion.com. have updated 3dMark 2001 to be Direct X 8.1 compatible, and have given us a new test to play with - the Advanced Pixel Shader test - with their release of 3DMark2001 SE. The purpose of this short article is to test to see whether the results from this new version are directly comparable to the previous editions scores stored in the ORB (online results browser), and to take a look at the new scene.
New Features
- Support for Microsoft DirectX® 8.1
- Fully compatible with Windows XP®
- New test utilizing pixel shader 1.4
- Updated ‘system info’ which can now display additional system configuration info, including installed hard drives and AGP settings
- Support for the latest AMD® and Intel® processors
Minor Corrections
- The usage of compressed textures has been optimized.
- The dynamic shadows in the game tests now work correctly on all supported hardware.
- There is a new texture format 'DXTC1 only', enabling compressed texture usage on cards supporting DXTC1 only.
- All reported compatibility issues have been addressed.
Important notes
- Benchmark results from the original release of 3DMark2001 and 3DMark2001 SE ARE COMPARABLE. When comparing results, please note that every performance-testing tool has a small margin of error. If testing conditions do not vary, 3DMark2001 SE is accurate within a 3% error margin.
- 3DMark2001 SE has shown a minor average performance increase, but it remains below the 3% error margin.
- 3DMark2001 SE is available as a full version download only.
- The registration codes for 3DMark2001 also work for 3DMark2001 SE.
So MadOnion say on the one hand that it's full comparable, and then say that SE shows a minor performance increase! Let’s have a look at the truth shall we?
My System Info
- AMD Athlon 1700XP Processor
- Geforce 3 Ti-500
- Soyo DRAGON Plus! motherboard
- 256MB Corsair RAM
As you can see there is indeed a minor increase in score with the new edition. My score jumped from to. As madonion say, this is within the 3% margin of error so nothing to worry about unless you want to be incredibly pedantic.
The New Test
The new test is a technology demonstration which does NOT alter the score of the 3DMark score - this relies only on the average frame rates from game 1, 2, 3 and if supported, 4. It has some of the most stunningly beautiful graphics ever to grace a PC monitor. These shots were grabbed from my GF3 Ti-500 card using the benchmarks built-in screenshot facility (Press F12 at any time). The settings I used were 1024x768 with 4X AA enabled - be sure to turn off Internet Explorer 6's "automatic resizing" of pictures if your desktop resolution is 1024x768 or lower.
Conclusion
Madonion have improved on an already great benchmark by adding more eye-candy and fixing a few bugs. For owners of GeForce 2 cards and below it certainly is NOT worth the download unless you are having problems, but I recommend all pixel and vertex shader equipped users to download it ASAP just to see the new test.
You can download the new version of 3Dmark2001 SE here.
Comment on this review in our forums, here
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