Nordichardware interviews Nicklas Renqvist (Futuremark Employee)

ToshiroOC · Feb 10, 2003, 12:25 AM

When we first saw that Futuremark had announced 3DMark03 on their site we of course were very interested. The screenshots up there sure look nice but we wanted to get a bit more in depth with this new benchmark so we contacted Nicklas Renqvist at Futuremark to see if he would like to answers some of our questions.

[NH]: What are the minimum requirements to run 3DMark®03 and what would you "recommend"?
[FM]: As 3DMark®03 is a benchmark and not a game, it has no real minimum "requirements". The minimum recommendations when it comes to the CPU and graphics card are: Intel or AMD compatible processor that achieves a PCMark™2002 CPU score over 2500 marks, and a DirectX 9 compatible graphics adapter that has 32MB of memory and is fully DirectX 7 compliant.

[NH]: Will AGP 8x have any influence on the scores? Or will you have specific tests (such as AGP texturing) for this?
[FM]: As graphic cards these days come with up to 128MB (or some even with 256MB) of ultra fast memory, the AGP bus speed is becoming less important. 3DMark®03 was designed so that the AGP speeds affect the end result as little as possible. I can't say for sure if the AGP8x will have any huge effect when running 3DMark®03 (versus AGP4x or AGP2x), but I'd presume that there's only a marginal difference.

[NH]: Are you still only supporting the Direct3D API? Why is this? Do you have any intent to support Open GL?
[FM]: Yes, we still develop the benchmark in DirectX. We know that users have been asking for OpenGL tests, but the fact is that OpenGL is still lagging behind DirectX when it comes to shaders (and more). Sure there are extensions that would enable us to use the shaders, but by using extensions the benchmark would be more like a "extension benchmark". We would also have to get all the extensions for all cards, from all manufacturers etc. which would make the development even more difficult. It wouldn't work. We believe that it wouldn't be a completely fair benchmark either.
OpenGL 2.0 is looking very interesting, but when it will be released and drivers supporting it, is still a big question mark.

[NH]: Will you have support for AMD Hammer and other 64 bit processors. (ie will there be any 64 bit executable available, if not, why not?) Do you have support for hyper threading or multiple CPUs and what CPU-extensions such as SSE2, 3 do you support?
[FM]: 3DMark®03 doesn't natively support 64bit CPU's, HT, SMP or any CPU extensions. The reason for no 64bit support is that there aren't yet any end-user 64bit CPU's, not to mention 64bit supporting operating systems and 64bit compilers. However, DirectX 9.0 does have some SSE, SSE2 optimisations and some multithreading. Check out the DX specs for more details on the CPU optimisations. You can run 3DMark03 with x86 compatible 64bit CPU's, but they run in "32bit mode".

--By Anton Nilsson, source: Nordic Hardware

Article can be read here.

Feb 10, 2003, 12:25 AM	#1
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	Nordichardware interviews Nicklas Renqvist (Futuremark Employee) When we first saw that Futuremark had announced 3DMark03 on their site we of course were very interested. The screenshots up there sure look nice but we wanted to get a bit more in depth with this new benchmark so we contacted Nicklas Renqvist at Futuremark to see if he would like to answers some of our questions. [NH]: What are the minimum requirements to run 3DMark®03 and what would you "recommend"? [FM]: As 3DMark®03 is a benchmark and not a game, it has no real minimum "requirements". The minimum recommendations when it comes to the CPU and graphics card are: Intel or AMD compatible processor that achieves a PCMark™2002 CPU score over 2500 marks, and a DirectX 9 compatible graphics adapter that has 32MB of memory and is fully DirectX 7 compliant. [NH]: Will AGP 8x have any influence on the scores? Or will you have specific tests (such as AGP texturing) for this? [FM]: As graphic cards these days come with up to 128MB (or some even with 256MB) of ultra fast memory, the AGP bus speed is becoming less important. 3DMark®03 was designed so that the AGP speeds affect the end result as little as possible. I can't say for sure if the AGP8x will have any huge effect when running 3DMark®03 (versus AGP4x or AGP2x), but I'd presume that there's only a marginal difference. [NH]: Are you still only supporting the Direct3D API? Why is this? Do you have any intent to support Open GL? [FM]: Yes, we still develop the benchmark in DirectX. We know that users have been asking for OpenGL tests, but the fact is that OpenGL is still lagging behind DirectX when it comes to shaders (and more). Sure there are extensions that would enable us to use the shaders, but by using extensions the benchmark would be more like a "extension benchmark". We would also have to get all the extensions for all cards, from all manufacturers etc. which would make the development even more difficult. It wouldn't work. We believe that it wouldn't be a completely fair benchmark either. OpenGL 2.0 is looking very interesting, but when it will be released and drivers supporting it, is still a big question mark. [NH]: Will you have support for AMD Hammer and other 64 bit processors. (ie will there be any 64 bit executable available, if not, why not?) Do you have support for hyper threading or multiple CPUs and what CPU-extensions such as SSE2, 3 do you support? [FM]: 3DMark®03 doesn't natively support 64bit CPU's, HT, SMP or any CPU extensions. The reason for no 64bit support is that there aren't yet any end-user 64bit CPU's, not to mention 64bit supporting operating systems and 64bit compilers. However, DirectX 9.0 does have some SSE, SSE2 optimisations and some multithreading. Check out the DX specs for more details on the CPU optimisations. You can run 3DMark03 with x86 compatible 64bit CPU's, but they run in "32bit mode". --By Anton Nilsson, source: Nordic Hardware Article can be read here.