3DMark Vantage Has Gone Gold
 

It's finally done, and the countdown clock is ticking! Futuremark has just announced that 3DMark Vantage is ready, and the countdown indicates that it will launch on Monday, 28th of April 2008. Downloads should be available at 16:00 EET (13:00 GMT, 09:00 EST, 06:00 PST). Futuremark has also released a large set of new screenshots.

http://www.yougamers.com/news/18513_...has_gone_gold/

why this push for widescreen gaming? :(

Because everywhere except on planet jmke, people enjoy widescreen gaming. :D

lol |D

if I were to build a game/benchmark I would not exclude people because their choice differs from others, but rather give the option for both groups.

Choices have to be made, and the standard aspect screens are a quickly dying breed, so if one has to choose, this is the logical choice.

you are one misinformed user. Only 25% of gamers out there use widescreen... 75% use 4:3.


http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

Dying breed? I think not. 3DMark Vantage only supporting 16:9 for high end runs is not thinking forward, it's thinking with blinds and ignoring the majority of people.

but hey... ignorace is bliss right? If you think 16:9 is the standard, than I guess it must be right? ya? .... nope

afaik Steam is on planet earth.

Sorry Jmke, not misinformed at all : it's not what people are using today that matters, it's what they'll be using in the future. Just how many normal aspect monitors are still listed by the average pc-shop ? Or included in a new PC-package ?

more than you think :)
if there's something that will definetely put a kink in your product is removing backward compatibility, should know this.

does your mobo have PS/2 connectors?

ontopic: more info on the point calculation in Vantage
http://en.expreview.com/2008/04/17/3...logy-revealed/

Really don't think so, only office-suited (non-gaming!) pc's still come with normal-aspect tft's, mostly 17". 19"+ monitors are almost all wide-aspect.

Only keyboard, no mouse. But PS2 keyboard support will soon be gone too (Dell, anyone ?), and I honestly don't really like that, but that's the way things are ;)

luckily this will all be a none issue since the Free version is 1280x1024 and the Advanced 1280x1024 also:p

25% is a lot, don't forget how many people had normal aspect ratio few years back. Nowadays, if you want a gaming setup 16:9 you should go, the entire industry is pushing it: 720 and 1080 HD resolutions ;)


Normal aspect ratio is supported though, I don't see the point of this discussion?

Vantage also only supports Vista (17% of all users), so how many people on Vista have widescreens, that would be a good question?

counter-owned =P

your 20" won't be able to complete the "High" preset benchmark.

Requiring Vista OS is a lot worse then that afaik, those who got XP will stay XP, those who get new Vista machine probable have widescreen anyway. Yes it should be included non the less, but I don't see the big deal you guys are making since not too many will be 'affected'. Microsoft is much more to blame then FM, don't you think?

There is no "big deal" here I think, it's JOhn who was disappointed in the lack of 4:3, and us showing he shouldn't be :p

What does tha fact that I don't complain about Vista only tell you about how much I care about Vantage?

I would suspect Widescreen was done because at those preset settings, a powerful DX10 GPU would be required. Users running the latest Vista + DX10 high-end GPUs are rather likely to have newer widescreen displays. Furthermore both widescreen settings require 512mb or larger cards.

Me and my 320mb 8800GTS are hosed, even though I use a native 24" 1920x1200 display. :(