First DirectX 11 Benchmark Demo Released
Unigine Corp's latest demo is supposedly the first DirectX 11 benchmark.
Unigine Corp. is claiming that its Heaven demo--based on the company's proprietary Unigine engine--is the first DirectX 11-specific benchmark. This isn't the company's first benchmark entry: the Sanctuary and Tropics demos are already used in the field to test GPU capabilities. The latest demo is currently free of charge, and can be downloaded here from the official website.
According to today's press release, Heaven has native support for OpenGL, DirectX 9, 10, and 11. The demo also provides support for ATI's Eyefinity, offers a comprehensive use of tessellation technology, and even pulls its testers into a virtual world with interactive fly/walk-through modes. On a content level, the demo contains the "enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies."
"The distinguishing feature of the benchmark is a hardware tessellation that is a scalable technology aimed for automatic subdivision of polygons into smaller and finer pieces, so that developers can gain a more detailed look of their games almost free of charge in terms of performance," the company said. "Thanks to this procedure, the elaboration of the rendered image finally approaches the boundary of vertical visual perception: the virtual reality transcends conjured by your hand."
The software requirements for the Windows version include .NET framework 2.0, OpenAL, and the latest stable video drivers. As for the hardware requirements, the tessellation feature requires a GPU with DirectX 11 support. The demo also requires 256 MB of memory, ATI Radeon HD 2xxx and higher, or Nvidia GeForce 7xxx and higher. For optimal performance, Unigine recommends the Nvidia 8800 and the AMD 4800 series.
Guess my Riva TNT2 card will blow up if I attempt to run this benchmark. -k
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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mcbowler Hurray! I now have something for my $800 worth of ATI silicon to do. Anyone know how I can enable tessellation in all my games that I didn't purchase in the future?Reply -
nukemaster LOL tessellation has to be programmed into the game. So unless it supports it, your gonna be out of luck. It will take some time to optimize as well. performance is cut in half with it on for the time being.Reply -
Shadow703793 ReplyGuess my Riva TNT2 card will blow up if I attempt to run this benchmark. -k
:lol: EPIC. You still have one of those? Any one else? -
Shadow703793EPIC. You still have one of those? Any one else?Even worse perhaps!Reply
An Intel GMA 945Se! (not the total worst, but still not good enough to run the demo or perhaps in lower than 320x240pix or so resolutions)... -
Hitokage Shadow703793EPIC. You still have one of those? Any one else?Reply
I used to have an old 1MB Stealth3D card. Those were the days... -
JonathanDeane I have one question.... I decided to run it in DX11 mode for kicks, I figured the worst it would do is to have a fit and need to be reinstalled or restarted... It ran just fine. I am using a 4870 wich I hear has some DX11 features but not all of them? Shouldn't it have failed to run?Reply
I benched my card and got an average of 58FPS its a nice graphics demo :)
Anyway still very cool :) -
Mysteic No it will not fail to work, just not work. I guess when it comest to the DX11 only test sections of the demo, it just runs them in DX10 mode since it is the best your card can do.Reply