Tech Link (Industry): 3DMark 11 Sneak Preview

Lost Circuits has a nice sneak peak of the upcoming "de facto" 3D benchmark software "3D Mark 11". Michael Schuette goes over the features quickly. Since it's a preview, don't expect a lengthy article, but it's enough to wet your appetite (be forewarned, for some odd reason, that article is under an ATI/AMD article group, brrr).

Misc: Here's k|ngp|n, on his commercial!

For those who sent me email asking if I have the video of the overclock breaking 100k in 3DMark01, well I honestly don't know where to get it or if there's even one. However, I do have his commercial, that actually shows Intel's processor! Here's the video, YouTube way! Enjoy!

Press Release: Ice Storm Fighters Game Technology Demo

This is a demo they have shown over at IDF to showcase the power of QuadCore. It's quite taxing on the CPU, well, that is, if you don't have quad core. Check it out....

01/05/2007
Multi-core processors have become mainstream in the PC industry, and many classes of software applications like multimedia encoding and 3D rendering already benefit from the added processing power.

The game industry is also evolving toward threaded games and game engines. The latest-generation game consoles (Microsoft* XBOX* 360, Sony* PlayStation* 3) also feature multi-core processors. Current games like Quake*4, Call of Duty* 2 and Splinter Cell* Double Agent already have threaded game engines. And upcoming games such as Unreal Tournament* 2007 (Based on the Unreal* 3 engine) are expected to feature threaded engines.

To demonstrate how threaded games and game engines will benefit from multi-core processors, Intel worked with Futuremark* to create the game engine technology demo - Ice Storm Fighters.

Today, we're making the game available for free here at ICF. To learn more about this demo and where you can download it, click Next.

The Skinny
Ice Storm Fighters is based on a multi-threaded game engine developed by Futuremark*, makers of the 3DMark* and PCMark* series of benchmarks. The Ice Storm Fighters game engine technology demo features

Artificial Intelligence (AI) : Uses the Co-operative Optimizing Planner (COP) algorithms to determine movement paths for the game units. Each unit takes into account the objective, the location, positions of other units, physical obstacles etc. before determining the path.
Physics using PhysX* API physics engine and custom physics code, which enables
Characters with individually modeled body parts for more life-like features
Advanced physics modeling of missile contrails, smoke and other particle effects
Calculates thrust, gravity, acceleration of the hovercraft
Improved decal modeling of explosions and footprints in the snow

The objective in Ice Storm Fighters is pretty simple: blow up the bad guys. In this demo, that takes the form of destroying enemy "mechs." It also involves the presence of both friendly and unfriendly hovercraft as supporting characters.

Let 'er Rip
Ice Storm Fighters is based on a multi-threaded game engine, and its performance scales with the number of processor cores as well as other PC platform components. Using a technique called "n-number threading," the Ice Storm Fighters game engine will generate as many threads as there are CPU cores present on the system.

Ice Storm Fighters is intended to be a forward-looking game engine technology demo for Intel platforms. Here are the system requirements:

CPU: Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX6700 or Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 processorQuad-Core CPU for “Demo-high” mode features & capabilities, dual-core Intel CPU for “Demo-low” mode features & capabilities

Graphics Card: Support DirectX* 9.0 Shader Model 3 required. nVidia* geForce* 6 series (minimum), 7 series (recommended), ATI* Radeon* 1650 or higher

Memory: 1GB or higher

You can launch either the demo to just watch the mayhem unfold, or you can play the game and jump right into the fray. If you're running the demo, after you launch Ice Storm Fighters, you can:


Choose "Demo-High" if the system has a quad core CPU
Choose "Demo-Low" if the system has a dual core CPU
If you're ready to get your game on, once you kick off the Ice Storm Fighters game, you can choose:

Choose "Game-High" if the system has a quad core CPU
Choose "Game-Low" if the system has a dual core CPU
Notice at the outset of the demo that the snow surface looks fresh. It won't stay this way for long.

You can interactively control the number of threads in flight. The 1, 2, 3, and 4 keys will enable/disable CPU cores if you're running a quad-core system. You'll notice that the frame rate slows down noticeably when you run Demo-High on only two cores.

The workload can also be controlled by increasing or decreasing the number of hovercraft. Additional hovercraft means leads to increased AI (determining their direction of movement) and physics (torque, acceleration) processing. Increasing the number of hovercraft increases the computational load and decreases FPS and vice-versa. The "F3" key increases the number of hovercraft units, and the "F4" key decreases the number of hovercraft units

Here's a summary of the available key commands:


Key Map
Observe the fired missiles. the motion of the missiles includes detailed physics calculations and includes factors such as gravity, speed, direction, angle etc.. The condensation trails (i.e. emitted smoke) are also modeled with in-depth physics calculations.

Ice Storm Fighters also maintains an extended list of decals, which include the marks left by missiles and lasers as well as the footprints created by the movement of the mechs. In a typical game, as new marks occur the decal buffers are overwritten. Ice Storm Fighters maintains an extended decal list.

Demo-Low has fewer hovercraft, which decreases the AI and Physics workloads. In addition, it has simpler smoke and particle effects for the missiles, and maintains fewer decals. These changes lower the computational workload to enable Ice Storm Fighters to run smoothly on a dual core system.

Come and Get It
Ready to give Ice Storm Fighters a try? Click the image below to download it to your system. After you've played with it a bit, head over to our Forums and let us know what you think. It's a good idea to print this article as a reference to have handy when you're playing the game. If you're having any trouble running Ice Storm Fighters, post in our forums, and we'll figure out the problem.

To download, click on the image below, then save the Ice Storm Fighters ZIP file to your hard-drive.

* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others

Source:Ice Storm Fighters Game Technology Demo

Overclock: Back in Black !! K|ngp|n Brings Down The ORB...AGAIN !!

Famous overclocker, K|ngp|n, has just claimed all of FutureMark*'s 3DMark benchmark World Record. He used a new motherboard based on eVGA*'s with the newest NVIDIA* chipset 680i running two brand spanking new video cards based on 8800GTX. He is just unstoppable. Expand for more...

Time to smash the orbs up again.
These runs all done with 8-9hrs benching time using all the hardware at once.
GPU's only pushed maybe 60-70% . So much left untapped...imagine what the scores will be 1 month from now lol:

NVIDIA EVGA 680i SLI motherboard (bios reads wrong in cpu-z)
Kentsfield b3/Conroe b1 @1.75v actual vcore/-100c loaded temps.
2 x 8800gtx SLI -40c to -45c approx 850-870/1150 Tek-9 ln2
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 8888 2gb
1 SILVERSTONE ZEUS 850W PSU 12v stayed at 12.3v load through all benches with max clocks.

3DMARK 2006 SLI with KF NO LOD AT ALL

Source:Back in Black !! K|ngp|n Brings Down The ORB...AGAIN !!

Brag: Kinc and crotale sets a new 3DMark 2001 world record with 89,120 points

Well, it's not surprising anymore with the power of Chipzilla processor. The world reknown overclockers Kinc and crotale managed to break the 3DMark2001 world record with such blazing score. It seems that the race to 90k is on!

Even if the weekend is still young our OC gurus Robert 'crotale' Kihlberg and Marcus 'Kinc' Hultin have already managed to score a new world record. With 3DMark 2001 they've managed to reach 89,120 points. It might be worth mentioning that the system still needs some tweaking for optimal performance and that the CPU is still our tired ol' X6800. However, now they've managed to get above 5GHz at least, while they also used a X1950/X1900 combo, waiting for another X1950 card without too bad coldbugs. Unfortunately, it's still impossible to raise the memory frequency of the X1950 very much, but that shouldn't stop them from reaching 90,000 later on.

Specifications:
CPU/cooling: X6800 @ 5050MHz, Mousepot + LN2
Motherboard: Asus P5W-DH
Memory: Corsair 6400C3
Master card: X1950 @ 830/1143, Mousepot + LN2
Slave card: X1900XTX @ 873/873, Cascade
Power supply: Cooltek 600W

Source:Kinc and crotale sets a new 3DMark 2001 world record with 89,120 points

Source:

Tech Link (Overclock): Kinc reaches 16,000 points with 3DMark06

Another big win for the FanBoyz. It's great to see people having a great time using the World's Best Gaming Processor for pure total ownage. Each day that passed, check the review and it's easy to spot what owns the enthusiasts' hearts and sould. Go go Conroe! Expand for more...

The hunt for more and better overclocking results is constantly on here at NH and Kinc has now taken another big step with ATI's latest graphics card. Kinc has finally made it past 16,000 points with 3Dmark06. A result that no other ATI system has been even close to. The new ATI record is at 16 016 points and was set during anything but ideal circumstances. First of all, ATI's Radeon X1950 Crossfire card is paired with an older Radeon X1900 XTX which clearly limits the performance. At the same time the cooling of the system has not been optimized for the conditions.

Our tired Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor is still cooled by a compressor cascade. Similar cooling was used on the X1900 XTX card while the cooling on the Radeon X1950 Crossfire has now been upgraded to liquid nitrogen. But the temperatures are far from extreme, the card has been cooled to mere -25°C. The reason is simply that Kinc hasn't voltmodded the card yet. Changing the voltage through software has turned out to cause great difficulties with the X1950 series. Thanks to the massive mousepot which was used with the X1950 Crossfire you can keep the temperature in good control when using liquid nitrogen, which of course tends for some nice results the coming days.

Yesterday another X1950 graphics card arrived in our test lab, a PowerColor X1950 XTX which together with the current Crossfire card and two beafy mousepots will make wonders. Kinc has no intention of stopping before ATI is the king of the 3Dmark06 hill and this despite the fact that ATI's graphics cards are not as fast with this tests than NVIDIA's equivalents. If everything goes as planned Kinc will be cooling the entire system with liquid nitrogen in a few days and then we will most likely have som mighty impressive results to show off. But 16 016 points is hardly something to be ashamed of when the next best ATI system is located at 13 804 points.

Specifications
CPU: X6800 @ 4685MHz
CPU cooling: Compressor cascade at -95°C
Master card: ATI X1950 CF @ 840/1143MHz (Mousepot LN2 at -25°C)
Slave card: ASUS X1900 XTX @ 882/873MHz (compressor cascade at -80°C
Memory: Corsair 6400C3 3-3-2-5 426MHz
Motherboard: ASUS P5W DH
PSU: Cooltek 600W

Source:Kinc reaches 16,000 points with 3DMark06

Rant: FutureMark not allowing Conroe results to be published?!?

Earlier today, I got a buzz from a friend that a new WR for SuperPi has been breached. And I told him on the phone, yawning, "Yeah, I know, 11s is history". But he said, "Nope, 10s barrier has been breached". And then I was like, "Ok, I'll go hunt it down". And so, after visiting a few sites, I finally came down to TeamJapan's score. But what's SuperPi run got to do with FutureMark benchmarks?

Well, if you look and read at each thread in that link at XS, you'll came by one of FUGGER's posting. And I quote:

Well done, the race for 5Ghz is on for sure. It will be done with a little more voltage it seems.

These will destroy all 3D records.

BTW, Futuremark removed all Conroe/Merom benches from the ORB except 2K1.

I still haven't gotten any official announcement, or even a rumor, as to the reason why the Conroe and Merom results are being "removed" from the ORB. The 3DMark01SE score seems to be left untouched, but 3DMark03/05/06 are being taken down.

It has been "doubly" confirmed on FCG's posting, and I quote:

22K has come and gone. Specs for score in signature.

Special thanks to Futuremark for selling out and removing my ability to publish ANY scores on their ORB.

FCG hinted that he can't publish anything in the ORB anymore, but he did break the WR. Of course, without the ORB, people can only rely on FCG's reputation that he is telling the truth. While I don't doubt his score, I know how he feels since there are still many out there that has been crapping on all his potings. Personally, I'll just ignore those sorry losers.

But back to the regular programming, again, on FutureMark's reasoning for this removal of score. If in any case you've seen any official announcement, or even just a rumor, don't hesitate to send me ShoutOut or post it in the forum or just send me an email (or call me). I'd love to get all the facts straight, and of course, to restore my fleeting trust at the ORB.

And if you would like to join in the discuss, XS has a thread up already.

Tech Link (Industry): Merom kills 3DMark 2001 - Far beyond 60,000 points!

When Dothan craze started to fill a few nich sections of the enthusiast's personal lab, it's already clear that this architecture is really going to own lots of world record if it is given full chipset functionality in terms of PEG and RAM support. With such low frequency and front side bus, and running mostly on a single PCIe card due to lack of options (i.e. Asus P4GD1 runs on PCIe x16 with s478 and Asus CT-479 adaper), it was tough to catch up with a full blown desktop systems running on SLI and Crossfire.

But since the incarnation of i975x board with hacked NVIDIA drivers for SLI and official support for Crossfire, with Chipzilla promoting mobile-on-desktop concept, the slew of new benchmarks coming from these baby monsters are very devastating in terms of raw performance, multimedia applications, multi-threading and downright smooth computing experience.

Wow, if you still can believe it, check out NordicHardware's take on this babies:

We're having some trouble finding words to describe Merom at the moment. During the last few days we've reported about new records being set, but we were still missing a few benchmarks. We suspected that Kyosen, which has done it again, had some more results coming, this time of a completely new caliber. That it would be this kind of blowout we had no idea, not even our wildest imagination could've come up with something like this. Using Dry ice Intel Merom T7400 was pushed a bit over 3400MHz and with two water cooled X1900 cards Kyosen managed to achieve a completely devastating result with 3DMark2001, 62398 points!

Source:NH

Tech Link (Industry): 3DMark06 Under the Magnifying Glass

THG decided to give the latest and greatest FutureMark* product, the 3DMark06. I am not sure what has taken them this long to make a review of the benchmark utility (or maybe they did already, I just missed it).

In any case, if you feel like spending some time and scrutinizing the benchmark utility, they have a pretty much comprehensive report.

Futuremark's previous benchmarking suites have paved a way for enthusiasts to evaluate gaming performance, but along with this prestige comes the requisite skepticism over its methods and implementations. Arguments have arisen over techniques and the scoring calculations used. While one group will praise Futuremark for developing a neutral analysis tool as well as being forward-looking in its execution, another will accuse it of developing a benchmark that does not represent certain hardware implementations, or that utilizes techniques that game makers don't use. The newest version of "The Gamer's Benchmark" once again finds itself in the middle of this debate, so we decided to talk to both Futuremark and the hardware makers to get a better insight into the situation.

Source:THG

Tech Link (Overclock): New 3DMark01 World Record with Dothan Power

One my news post that was lost due to some Blog problems. Anyway, it's a bit old right now (you know, how benchmarks records kept getting broken almost everyday, it's becoming a norm) so if it isn't the latest, just shoot me a PM or a ShoutOut.

The World Record was achieved with the help of an Intel® Pentium® M 780 combined with Asus* CT-479 adapter, slotted with an Asus* P4GD1 Motherboard. Yeah, that same motherboard I reviewed over at TipidPC (sorry, I can't find the link anymore). This processor + motherboard + pcie video card combo has become the toughest combo with benchmarks to date. The only reason Dothan isn't topping the charts of other 3DMark benchies suck as 3DMark03 and 3DMark05 is because of the lack of SLI-capable motherboard to support this mini-wonder.

In any case, people have been flocking to Yonah now that AOpen* will soon be releasing a Yonah-based motherboard that will support Crossfire. And even as this next-generation mobile power is landing on the palms of the enthusiasts, they are also drooling over the upcoming Merom processors.

Hmm, how I wish I can post my Yonah and Controe results...I guess one drawback of getting all the nice stuff in advance is being silenced to speak of it until NDA has been lifted off.

So here's a screenie of Hipro's screenshot, the overclock that broke the record he also owns yay.



Source:XS