Have you heard whether Futuremark intends to do anything with OpenGL ES 3.0? In terms of 3DMark showing off and testing the latest and greatest in graphics, it really should be at the forefront of OpenGL ES 3.0 adoption. Any change that Cloud Gate, the DirectX 10 benchmark, will eventually be ported to OpenGL ES 3.0 and mobile? PowerVR Rogue and ARM Midgard, perhaps Adreno 330 too, are all DX10+ compliant so they support geometry shaders even though OpenGL ES 3.0 doesn't mandate them. So if Cloud Gate does use geometry shaders Futuremark can just require the OES3.0 extension be present.
In terms of optimizations for smartphone platforms, do we have a sense of whether mobile GPU drivers are overly optimizing specifically for benchmarks like GLBenchmark and soon 3DMark such that they aren't a good reflection of general game performance? Without the easy ability to swap drivers or GPUs it'd probably be hard to catch.
As far as 3DMark supporting OpenGL ES3.0, that is sadly an official negative from Futuremark. The specs were finalized too late or something a long those lines for them to include it.
Would be nice if GLBenchmark would release 3.0 to the public!
Like Blizzard, 3dmark came to this policy after john carmack's famous "done when its done" line. Romantic, but failing to deliver is a consequence of being bad at business.
Maybe you can make a 3 platform video gaming comparison one day? Things are getting more and more interesting now that Valve has confirmed the Steambox!
Yeah, it's nice to know that a Nexus 10 can render 1920x1080 faster than an iPad 3, but since the iPad 3 has a lower native resolution than the Nexus 10, it might be faster at native. And for games on mobile, that's all that matters.
That being said, it's better than nothing. (Also, since either could render at resolutions other than native, it's not simply an academic consideration.)
Even still, it should be possible to run a custom test at native resolution, not just the demo spec.
Of course, iPad 2 is actually 2048x1536...I assume you meant iPad 2? And I think there will be an option to run custom resolutions, as has been in the past -- the defaults will simply be set resolutions with scaling.
IMO rendering internally at a (possibly) lower resolution and upscaling to the display resolution later is what mobile gaming really needs. Add UI elements at native resolution later on. This would especially help with the insane resolutions of modern fancy gadgets. In no way are their GPUs powerful enough to make proper use of this resolution anyway (except for light use.. but we don't need to talk about this anyway, right?)
Forgot: this would also be really helpful for notebook gaming and IGPs. Someone showed it at some tech show already, but I didn't hear anything since then.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
15 Comments
Back to Article
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - link
Have you heard whether Futuremark intends to do anything with OpenGL ES 3.0? In terms of 3DMark showing off and testing the latest and greatest in graphics, it really should be at the forefront of OpenGL ES 3.0 adoption. Any change that Cloud Gate, the DirectX 10 benchmark, will eventually be ported to OpenGL ES 3.0 and mobile? PowerVR Rogue and ARM Midgard, perhaps Adreno 330 too, are all DX10+ compliant so they support geometry shaders even though OpenGL ES 3.0 doesn't mandate them. So if Cloud Gate does use geometry shaders Futuremark can just require the OES3.0 extension be present.In terms of optimizations for smartphone platforms, do we have a sense of whether mobile GPU drivers are overly optimizing specifically for benchmarks like GLBenchmark and soon 3DMark such that they aren't a good reflection of general game performance? Without the easy ability to swap drivers or GPUs it'd probably be hard to catch.
red_dog007 - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
As far as 3DMark supporting OpenGL ES3.0, that is sadly an official negative from Futuremark. The specs were finalized too late or something a long those lines for them to include it.Would be nice if GLBenchmark would release 3.0 to the public!
karasaj - Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - link
This reminds me of Blizzard's fantastic "Soon ™" timeframe :)Luminair - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
Like Blizzard, 3dmark came to this policy after john carmack's famous "done when its done" line. Romantic, but failing to deliver is a consequence of being bad at business.rs2 - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
No, it's a consequence of putting quality first and not being willing to publish buggy software for the sake of meeting a deadline.silverblue - Monday, January 28, 2013 - link
Certainly better than Mark Rein's infamous "two weeks" as regards the UT2003 demo.zsero - Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - link
Jarred, Geeks3D has gone multi-platform recently. Check out GpuTest and GLSL Hacker (just came out a few days ago):http://www.geeks3d.com/20121113/gputest-0-2-0-cros...
http://www.geeks3d.com/glslhacker/
Maybe you can make a 3 platform video gaming comparison one day? Things are getting more and more interesting now that Valve has confirmed the Steambox!
cityuser - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
each time when futuremark delay it's 3dmark, we suspect that nVidia was involved.maybe futuremark work with nVidia to descale the performance of AMD card again.
powerarmour - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
Well, there is always Catzilla in the mean time!CharonPDX - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
ESPECIALLY on mobile.Yeah, it's nice to know that a Nexus 10 can render 1920x1080 faster than an iPad 3, but since the iPad 3 has a lower native resolution than the Nexus 10, it might be faster at native. And for games on mobile, that's all that matters.
killerroach - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
That being said, it's better than nothing. (Also, since either could render at resolutions other than native, it's not simply an academic consideration.)Even still, it should be possible to run a custom test at native resolution, not just the demo spec.
JarredWalton - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
Of course, iPad 2 is actually 2048x1536...I assume you meant iPad 2? And I think there will be an option to run custom resolutions, as has been in the past -- the defaults will simply be set resolutions with scaling.JarredWalton - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
Erg... that was iPad 3 on the first line, obviously. :-) This new keyboard has arranged the keys such that I screw up numbers on a regular basis.MrSpadge - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
IMO rendering internally at a (possibly) lower resolution and upscaling to the display resolution later is what mobile gaming really needs. Add UI elements at native resolution later on. This would especially help with the insane resolutions of modern fancy gadgets. In no way are their GPUs powerful enough to make proper use of this resolution anyway (except for light use.. but we don't need to talk about this anyway, right?)MrSpadge - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
Forgot: this would also be really helpful for notebook gaming and IGPs. Someone showed it at some tech show already, but I didn't hear anything since then.