Tom's Hardware > All Reviews > Components > Graphics Cards > Aquamark3: Accurate Benchmarking for Old and New (DirectX9) Apps?

Aquamark3: Accurate Benchmarking for Old and New (DirectX9) Apps?

1:02 PM - September 18, 2003 by Lars Weinand

1. DirectX9-Graphics - A Happy Outcome
2. DirectX9-Graphics - A Happy Outcome, Continued
3. Worth The Wait: Realworld-DirectX9-Benchmark AquaMark 3
4. AquaMark3 Licence Model
5. Benchmark-Features
6. Special Features Of Aquamark3
7. AquaMark3 SVIST (Shader Visualization Technique)
8. AquaMark3 AUTT (Automated Testing Technique)
9. "Bug" Or "Cheat"? - NVIDIA Drivers Don't Render The Correct Image
10. Quality Comparisons
11. No Shadows With V45.23

12. Anisotropic Filtering Quality, Continued
13. NVIDIA's Statement On The Low Filtering Quality With V51.75
14. Checking The Findings With The Game Aquanox-2-Revelation
15. Quality Conclusion
16. Test Setup
17. Benchmarks
18. Standard Performance (No FSAA, No Aniso)
19. 4x-FSAA-Performance
20. 8x-Aniso-Performance
21. 4x-FSAA- & 8x-Aniso-Performance
22. Conclusion
23. Conclusion, Continued

There is much confusion and misunderstandings expressed in Web forums when it comes to pixel shaders and DirectX. Before describing AquaMark 3 and what its benchmarking applications can do for you, we will offer an overview to explain how different programming interfaces relate to today's graphics cards and PC games and how they affect benchmarks.

The last couple of years have been disappointing for PC gamers eagerly awaiting new graphics features. Every time a new graphics chip was released, the companies advertised its features like they represented the Holy Grail. But those features were hardly recognizable in released games.

Apart from a few titles or tech demos, there were usually no gaming applications that reflected graphics cards marketeers dog and pony shows. It took years before new games used features offered by the latest graphic chipsets.

For Bump Mapping, it turned out that the first generation chips were too slow to even run those features. It was great to have high-end game graphics, but developers had a hard time selling many copies if the game ran too slow or was only usable on only the latest high-end cards.

A new era began when DirectX8 was released. It was the first step to get rid of the fixed function effects in graphic chips. Game developers were now able to use new optical effects without running into compatibility trouble. Within limits, effects became programmable. If a game artist today wants to use a certain effect, for example, he can create code based on a shader program. But it also took very long until games used the new shader effects in more than little doses.