FM_Jarnis

Follow up to this: The code guys couldn't immediately say what could be causing this but it will be investigated. However, due to one outstanding critical issue with SystemInfo *and* the impending launch of 3DMark 11, they simply don't have time this week and possibly also next week. The issue has been recorded to our internal bug database but I can't promise a quick fix.

Investigating the hanging issue. I'll let you know when I hear from the PCMark code guys. This is definitely news to us. I recommend that always when you run into any issue that you think is an actual benchmark bug to *tell us about it*. Either through Futuremark forums or through our support channel, http://www.getsatisfaction.com/futuremark - or use the feedback tab on the new ORB. Naturally when overclocking etc. always first ensure that it isn't just your system or just one specific (buggy?) driver. But once that's pretty much ruled out, yes, do tell us. Especially in cases that involve current benchmarks (PCMark Vantage, 3DMark Vantage) as we have preliminary plans to do a maintenance patch for them early new year after the new benchmarks are out.

Correct. You can run the benchmark as many times as you like, however when you view a result for the 2nd time, you have to choose if you want to keep the new result or the old one you have saved. However, note that unlimited storage is a "Pro ORB Feature" - you get it for all benchmarks if you own at least one Advanced Edition benchmark - 06, Vantage or 11 (or one of the PCMarks). Ads will also go away as soon as you have one paid benchmark on your ORB account. So Basic Edition + paid Vantage or 06 will also result in unlimited storage. Also note that any results you submit with free version will be still saved and can be found using search, even if you delete it from your single storage spot on your account. The only limitation is that you can have only one score on your personal account. The whole system for Basic Edition has a slightly new logic - you can think it like this; - You can submit as many scores using Basic Edition as you like. Those all go to the database and can be found using search (and are public). - Only one of those, the one you choose, is on your account. You can delete it or replace it with a new result. Saving results offline and viewing result offline in benchmark UI are Advanced Edition features. Basic Edition can only show & submit the score to the online service - same as 3DMark 06.

Just a heads-up; 3DMark 11 will launch on Tuesday, November 30th. More details and a new trailer on the official site, http://www.3dmark.com The new ORB will be rolled out before that, so it won't be long now... if you want to take pretty pictures of the old ORB, better do that now

I believe Pasi will email you - it is a theoretical possibility, tho there are some potential technical obstacles.

ORB Support of Legacy Benchmarks - Round 2 Last week we made an announcement about the upcoming full rewrite of the ORB, complete with some changes and a planned discontinuation of legacy benchmark ORB support. We asked for your feedback and boy did we get it. In fact we were taken completely by surprise by the number of people who wanted us to continue supporting older benchmarks. We are really pleased that so many people still find the older benchmarks useful and entertaining. So, we took another look and discussed the subject at length, considering what could be done, with all options on the table. After considering the situation, we decided to take the time and do the extra work to continue supporting older benchmarks. It can't be done in time for the launch of the new service, but adding support for 3DMark03 and 3DMark05 to it will be our top priority. There will be a short transition during which 03/05 support will be unavailable. As to 3DMark 2001 SE, we debated on it a lot but ultimately it boils down to several obstacles that, in combination, prevent us from adding it to the new system. First, even today 3DMark 2001 results in ORB are no longer validated in any way as the hardware component detection routines that shipped with it are not compatible with today's hardware, so the benefits of ORB validation are already very limited - the SystemInfo component used is completely different and cannot be updated like with 03/05/06/Vantage. The result format also has nothing in common with the later benchmarks, unlike 03/05 that are much more straightforward to support. Then there are the usage figures - 3DMark 2001 SE usage is only 1,5% of monthly benchmark results in ORB (In comparison, 3DMark03 is 2,6% and 3DMark05 is 4,8% of total monthly usage. 3DMark06 and Vantage together are over 90% of all 3DMark results). I know some of you are going to be disappointed, but when you combine the technical issues blocking reasonably easy implementation with the usage figures, we still have to stick with the hard choice of retiring 3DMark 2001 SE support with the launch of the new service. Thank you to everyone who took the time to post or get in touch with us. We really do care what our community thinks and as always, further feedback is more than welcome.

Heh, why would FM cut the current DX9 benchmark when DX9 is still widely used by games? I can assure you that 3DMark06 remains relevant as long as DX9 remains relevant. Start worrying only when all games are DX10+ and XP is as popular as 98 is today... (= not anytime soon) Besides, we already discussed the feedback on Friday and the passionate response has been noted and heard; we are considering our options. The new ORB will come, but beyond that everything in our plans is on the table for re-evaluation - expect more on this early next week.

As always; any cases of cheating related to FM benchmarks (or reporting any other oddities with ORB) - you can contact us by email: info [at] futuremark.com While I cannot promise that we can help in investigating every case, we will consider all requests. Naturally cases that involve overclocking contests, hall of fame world records etc. will receive extra consideration. Include as much information and background detail as possible.

Yes, you can post but if you are a new poster, your first posts go through manual moderation to weed out spambots... patience.

Not entirely true, but I'll leave it at that to avoid giving cheaters any pointers.

I'm just the messenger here - I suggest you read the full announcement on FM forums and post your feedback there. It will be read, by the people who make the decisions. What I posted is the current plan and the announcement of said plan was made well in advance so our community can give their feedback on this.

We've made an announcement today about some changes that are coming to Futuremark ORB before the launch of the upcoming 3DMark 11. As a short summary, the key points are; - Old ORB will be gone - There will be a whole new system for submitting and browsing results, rewritten from scratch - Support for legacy benchmarks will be retired Full text can be found here: http://futuremark.yougamers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=136472 Please post any feedback, comments or questions on the Futuremark forum thread or, if you prefer, email it to info [at] futuremark.com

In case you haven't noticed, 3DMark06 is getting old and is heavily CPU limited with today's hardware, so any card roughly faster than 9800GTX or HD4800 series will get almost no improvement out of a faster GPU. 3DMark Vantage and the upcoming 3DMark 11 are much better tools for benching DX10/DX11 level hardware - with them, your GPU actually matters a lot.