3DMark 2006
Filed Under (Waste Basket) by Mysk on 19-01-2006
Furturemark has released their newest 3DMark06, but it may be hard to tell at first. They seem to be taking a cue from the popularity of game patches that add HDR lighting to existing content. This year’s 3DMark is little more than last year’s, re-released with some upgraded visuals.
The most noticable change is, in fact, the addition of HDR lighting. This jumps out at you during the opening scene with the assault on the space station. Boxes glow brightly when exposed to light sources and the flash of gun fire lights up the scene rather well. The “tank” soldier with his gatlin gun does a particularly good job of showing off the effects of HDR.
The scenes with the Juels Vern esque air ship that’s attacked by the water serpent is enhanced with both HDR and PixelShader 3. The serpent is now significantly more colorful than it was in last year’s scene, and PixelShader 3 does an impressive job of creating super realistic shadows and water. There is also fog that seems to blow across the water that I don’t recall from last year’s 3DMark, and the skin of the characters on the air ship remind me a great deal of Half-Life 2’s characters.
The forest scene also returns with two dancing, colorful light sources. One is pink and the other is green. The entire scene is more or less identical to the previous year’s. It’s similar enough that it doesn’t warrent much in the way of comment, other than to say that it too makes a return.
There are a couple of different scenes in this year’s 3DMark, but they’re pretty ho-hum in my opinion. The CPU test shows a red valley with some sort of base on a hill blowing up in the distance, and a new 3D graphics test that shows an abandoned Antartica-like setting (which is used as 3DMark06’s screen shot with the yellow vehicle).
For all of those who like to run 3DMark to look at the cool visuals, you’ll probably be disappointed. Probably. The addition of better lighting, water and shadow effects may be enough to please some, but personally I found it to be a let down. Considering that the download is nearly 600 MBs I was expecting something new.
They could have saved everyone a lot of bandwidth and time spent downloading by offering a patch for 3DMark05. Or have they and I’ve managed to miss it?
My score for 3DMark06 was a “whopping” 2,228. Yeehaw.
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~Mysk
Technorati Tags: 3DMark06, 3DMark05, Futuremark, MadOnion, Benchmarks