Thread: 3d Mark 2003!

The file is pretty large in itself to boot. I think that nVidia has some deal with Futuremark that could really invalidate 3DMark03 and future versions from being a solid staple. At this point in time, I'm not sure I'll be using it (3DM03) in future reviews. That and companies are tweaking their drivers to score higher on a benchmark than actual games---which is hosing the end user.

Half of it's probably still true. Both nVidia and ATi were caught with their pants down tweaking drivers for 3DMark 2001 or Quake 3. The nVidia team up with Futuremark is pretty recent.

Right now ATi has the upper hand with their latest Radeon's having DX9 hardware support. In that sense, yes, it is the best. The GeForce FX isn't available, nor has the best drivers for the chip currently. By the time they hit, it may be king for awhile. Of course, ATi has their R350 and RV350 chips in the works as well, and they should hit within the next 6 months.

Without a benchmark program, yes. You do still have to run some sort of test to compare with, such as a game like Quake 3 or it's variants (RtCW, Jedi Knight II) or Unreal Tournament 2003 and the like. Or an app like a rendering program or CAD, CAM, etc.

I'd like to get something fairly recent, but that's probably not gonna happen until the site comes up again. When it does, I should have some more free time to do reviews.

I just tested and I got 918 3dmarks
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=215264

anyone knows why only the first sound test worked,after that it crashed giving me some error but I still had the 3dmarks

Not sure.

That benchmark is made to slap your system silly, and even systems equipped with a DX9 card, like the Radeon 95/9700 cards still get a beating. So far, I haven't seen anything that scores over 6k at the default res.