FM_Jarnis

Just a note on this; Looks like Lucidlogix has released an update for their Virtu MVP software - 2.1.113 (May 21) includes support for Futuremark SystemInfo to detect Lucid MVP settings so any results benchmarked with that will show up without ambiguity on 3dmark.com ("if you used HyperFormance, the result is flagged. If not, it's fine")

I'm quite sure it is already being handled by the CPU. IGPU is used just because it gives a "free" framebuffer that can be locked to 60fps (for the Virtual Vsync)

Well, I internally re-ran the submit file (3DMark.com submit processor now looks for Lucid drivers and their version etc. but doesn't do it for older submits unless you re-submit them) and this is what it says this about that submit; In other words, Lucid MVP software is detected to be present when benchmark was running - as SystemInfo wasn't 4.8, we can't tell how the settings were. However, a comparable score would have required the user to manually go and disable HyperFormance, so...

3dmark.com updates are complete and Lucid Virtu MVP detection should work on all FM benchmarks. Let us know if this is not true or if something is wrong with it. Updated result troubleshooting page has details about the potential Anomaly messages that may show up on new submits; http://www.3dmark.com/support/troubleshooting-my-results/

SystemInfo 4.8 is out, available here; http://www.3dmark.com/support/systeminfo-updates/ In addition to the Lucid MVP detection, it also includes updates that should fix any outstanding Windows 8 compatibility issues. (This update applies to all recent FM benchmarks - 3DMark 03, 05, 06, Vantage, 11 and PCMark 05, Vantage and 7) Note that the 3DMark.com website side of the detection is not yet fully tested/working for all situations but it should be all sorted over the next couple of days. Note also that you'll need a new version of Virtu MVP software from Lucidlogix to get results that are flagged "okay" - current available Virtu version will be throwing a notification that the Virtu software is installed on the system is too old. This SystemInfo version will also become mandatory for Futuremark Hall of Fame in a couple of weeks (exact date to be determined, as soon as people have had enough time to upgrade)

[double post]

3DMark 03 key should give you ORB functionality. 03, 05, 06, Vantage and 11 are currently supported. Toss me a PM with details if you are having issues. 03 was gone temporarily when old ORB was replaced by 3dmark.com but it was re-implemented based on community feedback. Only 3DMark 2001 (SE) was retired for good - and even that was mostly because we had no other choice, the codebase for that was just simply too old. Granted, we are currently contemplating on potential retirement of 03 at some point but if we do so, sales of new keys will obviously cease before that and we'll give plenty of warning. It is almost ten years old and all that...

FYI: FM has completed the first version of our detection for 3dmark.com and it should go live early next week. Initially it will barf on every Lucid MVP result as they are done with an older version that doesn't have the API for knowing the configuration ("LucidMVP present but too old -> your result is invalid for comparisons and HoF as we can't know if HyperFormance was used or not") and when Lucid updates the MVP software they are offering, it will begin to detect properly as to under what settings the result was obtained with (and if HyperFormance is off, the result is then valid for comparison - similar to how 3dmark.com handles ATI/AMD Tessellation settings at the moment)

You can have a (single) result in 3dmark.com at no cost with basic edition. You also can have any number of results from any benchmarks in 3dmark.com as long as you have one valid license for any benchmark on your account. In other words, if you have, say, advanced 3DMark 11, you can submit as many results as you want with basic edition of Vantage or 06 - just a single paid license turns your 3dmark.com account into fully featured one. Considering for example how many Vantage and 11 keys have been bundled with video cards, this shouldn't be a huge issue... I'm sure anyone serious about latest hardware probably has one or two of those keys just lying around The only use case that really "fails" on the submit front is usage of pirated/keygenned 3dmark advanced/pro keys to get pretty screenshots of the score - you can't submit those to 3dmark.com since the run was not done with a valid key. Of course in theory this should be a non issue - you already have to show the result in a screenshot for hwbot, so you need a non-basic version for that on all benchmarks - basic edition shows the score only on the website. If you have that screenshot showing the result in 3DMark UI but "cannot submit to 3dmark.com because licenses are not free", then you are basically stating that you are using a pirated/keygenned 3dmark. It is up to the community to decide how "okay" that is - we know the realities of pirate use (heck, we have plenty of stats showing how many people attempt to submit with pirated copies every day) and have no illusions about everyone suddenly rushing to buy the application(s). We just won't provide the online service for illegitimate keys.

Confirming this, but 3DMark.com will barf if you try to submit them. So all you really can do is to have a 3dr file that can be opened in a benchmark but you still can't submit it. We have fairly recently hardened SystemInfo against result file tampering but like before, all the validation is server side. There is no way to do client side validation that isn't hackable, so we really aren't even trying to handle that. In other words, a result file that opens and shows you a number is NOT proof that the run was valid. Result file that opens and submits to 3dmark.com without the site throwing a fit about the file, however, is considered proof of a valid run. Any cases where you think this is not so, we are very very interested of hearing about (including example files etc.). Feel free to send any to info [at] futuremark.com with details about the problem. And yes, people have found loopholes in the past and we're committed into plugging them as they come up. Granted, we have no illusion about bulletproof security - it really isn't possible without something like "bundle Punkbuster with benchmarks" and that would really be overkill. But we have worked towards blocking any casual result file editing and the system should be able to detect tampering like that - but only on 3dmark.com submit because it is all server side.

iGPU overclocking won't affect it. iGPU is only used for frame buffer. It doesn't work the way you think it does.

Naah, 3DMark will still be 3DMark. Only the game dev section was sold. If anything, this means everyone is more focused in making the benchmarks (mostly the management side who previously juggled both divisions)

Update on Lucid MVP related to FM benchmarks; Our detection has been developed and it is currently in internal QA. Assuming no major showstoppers, we should have a new SystemInfo available over the next couple of weeks (so we're well in schedule to have it before the end of April). However, it also requires that Lucid releases new version of their driver/software to the public so we do not know how soon 3DMark.com will able to tell these results apart. In addition to Lucid MVP detection, it will also include updated CPUID module that fixes Win 8 compatibility problems (so it is the first step in validating FM benchmarks for Win8 - QA work on that will start soon).

Just a heads up; NVIDIA requested and FM approved the GTX 680 specific 301.10 drivers for 3DMark 06/Vantage/11 as of today.

We've made some changes to our driver approval process and we aim to get drivers now approved within 7 days of driver availability (assuming there are no issues that require, for example, contacting graphics card vendors for clarification over some anomaly - fairly rare these days).

Can you give a link to it and we'll investigate why it wouldn't show up. Edit: I'm blind, the link is above. Investigating... Reason: Only results with the latest version of the benchmark are qualified for HoF. Your run is with 3DMark 11 v1.0.1 while 1.0.3 is the latest. In fact, 3DMark.com will soon begin rejecting new submits of 3DM11 1.0.1 scores completely (we've accepted them for now to give a lengthy grace period to upgrade)

Note that you can (today) download the Virtu MVP software (asrock version is floating around on the net) and run it on any Z68 motherboard and (ab)use it for big numbers. So it may already be too late. Basically any board that has iGPU support for Sandy Bridge is suspect and the software doesn't seem to be motherboard chipset model or even motherboard vendor locked. We're working with Lucid to get detection to SystemInfo for FM benchmarks but it takes at least several more weeks to develop, test and deploy the update.

What we'd really need is all framerate counters to know when Virtu MVP discards something and not count the discarded bits.

Just as a heads up, the latest 12.2 Catalysts are now officially approved for Futuremark benchmarks so HD 7xxx series scores can now get to FM Hall of Fame as well. If you have already submitted a HD 7xxx series score with these drivers (dated 7th March) before the approval and it should have a high enough score for Hall of Fame but it doesn't show there yet, you can "refresh" it by clicking "hide" and then "unhide" so it gets re-processed for FM HoF. (In related news, new NVIDIA drivers that came out yesterday should also be approved by early next week) Edit: NVIDIA 269.10 drivers are also now approved.

The press release is out, for example here; http://www.marketwatch.com/story/lucidlogixr-and-futuremarkr-add-virtutm-mvp-support-to-3dmarkr-2012-03-13 (We'll get it on fm.com once guys at Finland wake up...) Our official statement on this to our users: Important note about LucidLogix Virtu MVP and 3DMark LucidLogix Virtu MVP is an exciting new technology that promises to boost your PC's responsiveness, reduce latency and eliminate visual tearing, all within a low power environment. It is designed for the Intel Sandy Bridge Z68/H67/H61, upcoming Intel 7-series motherboards as well as many AMD processor-based notebooks, all-in-one PCs and desktop motherboards, and will be shipping pre-installed on a wide range of new motherboards starting in April 2012. 3DMark works by measuring the process of rendering frames of 3D graphics using defined workloads. Lucid's Virtu MVP is designed to improve responsiveness through the intelligent reduction of rendering tasks. While 3Mark scores may increase with Virtu MVP enabled, scores from systems with and without Virtu MVP are not directly comparable because of its effect on the rendering process. We are working with Lucid to update 3dmark.com to clearly indicate whether Virtu MVP was running or not for each submitted score and to help you understand the performance benefits of Virtu MVP technologies as measured by 3DMark and our other PC performance benchmarks. The update is expected to be ready in April. Until then, we recommend that you manually add MVP information to the name and/or description of your 3DMark scores to help other users better understand your setup.

Please try to understand; the number of frames being actually sent to be displayed does not change (as far as I can see) - granted, my testing has so far been fairly limited - but this is my understanding of the underlying tech. FPS counter number increases because it is counting even those (partial) frames that were skipped/not rendered. While I have not personally tested the tech in gaming, as I understand it the main benefit is that the time (in milliseconds) between your control input (mouse/key input) and when game can react to that on screen gets shorter - a benefit for gaming - and you get no tearing without the drawbacks of classic vsync. That's it. In benchmarking there is no control input, so the only practical effect seems to be that anything based on counting the number of frames drawn gets thrown off by the tech (causing it to count frames that in reality were not rendered)

Initially verification link only. Benchmark executable changing patches are far more complex to do and QA. Even this requires SystemInfo update and current target is "early Q2" which probably translates to "sometime in April". Yes, there will be several weeks when people can submit MVP-enabled results and they can't be separated from legit ones. We are considering what to do about that (one option; flag *all* results with compatible chipsets as suspect until the update is ready). Benchmark GUI update is definitely being talked about. The main problem with it is this; Anything the benchmark does in isolation can be exploited so the only sure way to do various validation bits is to do online connection. Yet it would be somewhat bad if 3DMark advanced/pro editions wouldn't give a result without network connection. One potential alternate we've been discussing about would be current GUI that is extended with a box that, without network connection, states that the result was made in offline mode and should be considered unverified and preliminary. If network connection exists, parts of the result file are sent to 3dmark.com in the background and validations are received (nothing is saved anywhere at this point) and the box would then display the result status.

On the Lucid MVP front, there will be a press release from Lucid and Futuremark this week. Short version: MVP and non-MVP scores should not be compared to each other. After testing this in-house I also think that anyone with a pair of working eyes can easily watch two runs of a benchmark - any benchmark - and see that nothing really has changed. The only real difference is that you get the same visuals without tearing (courtesy of virtual vsync) and the fps counter shoots up for no apparent reason.

But does it give more FPS, or just an illusion of more FPS? Benchmarks in general count FPS to indicate how many frames the benchmark rendered. This indicates throughput and works as long as every frame is actually rendered. What if something in the middle decides that some of those frames are "unneeded" (for whatever reason) and tells the GPU not to draw those frames and to jump to the next frame. FPS counter won't know the difference, so a frame requested but not rendered is still a frame for the FPS counter. And boy did that frame get "rendered" fast (by skipping the rendering bit). I mean, you could (in theory) hack the driver a bit so it just returns "okay, I rendered it" to every DirectX call without actually doing it. You would get GAZILLION FPS on every benchmark. And a black screen. But hey, you would get more fps, so it must be okay, right? FPS number is meaningless unless there is a common baseline on how it is measured.

FM is still investigating but what we've been able to piece together so far, "if it sounds like too good to be true..." should be applied. You may get big numbers from a benchmarking application with this, but you have to ask "why is this number bigger, has the performance actually improved or is something influencing the way the score is determined?" Of course HWBOT can decide to apply whatever standard they desire (it seems for example that not running proper tessellation workloads in 3DMark 11 with AMD GPUs is "okay" by HWBOT while we think it is not) so I guess we'll see... This will take some time to properly address but expect an official stance from FM on this as related to 3DMark and PCMark soon-ish.