Performance comparision

I was just wondering about a simple way of matching game requirements with computer performance: a single score to be calculated for any given computer, so that you can say: to be able to play game X, you need a computer with a score of Y, and to play it at full detail, a score of Z.

Do you have any suggestions to generate such a score? I think it would imply the comparision with a reference computer. Or maybe do you know about some web that runs similar tests.

Aquamark is also a fairly good benchmark(even if it is a bit outdated).

I like watching it better than 3Dmark too.

Thanks for your answers! I'm aware of the Futuremark benchmarks, thanks for the Aquamark suggestion. the point is, you never find references to 3DMark scores when a game is reviewed (if you know about sites doing it, please tell me), just in hardware reviews. So to have an estimation of the performance of your computer in any given game, you have to rely on the opinion of people in forums (your computer sucks, forget it) or download a demo. I think it would be useful to have some way to match the requirements of a game with the specs of a computer, using 1-3 numbers.

Eventually down the road (who knows when) you will see new games come out with a recommended WEI score. This is something that is just starting with Vista. Here's a link for info:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/w [...] 61033.mspx

Well, Tom's puts out a monthly 'Best Graphics Card For Your Money' article, and at the end of it it compares things of that nature. It shows comparable parts n their performance group. It's kind of interesting and definitely worth checking out if you want to compare mobile graphics chipsets.

Yup, I stumbled onto it only yesterday. This list is kinda' interesting IMO.