Friday, November 10th 2023
UL Solutions Previews Upcoming 3DMark Steel Nomad Benchmark
Thank you to the 3DMark community - the gamers, overclockers, hardware reviewers, tech-heads and those in the industry using our benchmarks, who have joined us in discovering what the cutting edge of PC hardware can do over this last quarter of a century. Looking back, it's amazing how far graphics have come, and we're very excited to see what the next 25 years bring.
After looking back, it's time to share a sneak peek of what's coming next. Here are some preview screenshots for 3DMark Steel Nomad, our successor to 3DMark Time Spy. It's been more than seven years since we launched Time Spy, and after more than 42 million submitted results, we think it's time for a new heavy non-ray tracing benchmark. Steel Nomad will be our most demanding non-ray tracing benchmark and will not only support Windows using DirectX 12, but also macOS and iOS using Metal, Android using Vulkan, and Linux using Vulkan for Enterprise and reviewers. To celebrate 3DMark's 25th year, the scene will feature some callbacks to many of our previous benchmarks. We hope you have fun finding them all!
After looking back, it's time to share a sneak peek of what's coming next. Here are some preview screenshots for 3DMark Steel Nomad, our successor to 3DMark Time Spy. It's been more than seven years since we launched Time Spy, and after more than 42 million submitted results, we think it's time for a new heavy non-ray tracing benchmark. Steel Nomad will be our most demanding non-ray tracing benchmark and will not only support Windows using DirectX 12, but also macOS and iOS using Metal, Android using Vulkan, and Linux using Vulkan for Enterprise and reviewers. To celebrate 3DMark's 25th year, the scene will feature some callbacks to many of our previous benchmarks. We hope you have fun finding them all!
11 Comments on UL Solutions Previews Upcoming 3DMark Steel Nomad Benchmark
Back in the day, 3DMark always set the new standard for graphics, but now they just kinda exist. Now regular games look far better than what they are releasing. Fire Strike was the last truly impressive benchmark imo. I wonder if its a budget issue?
What I would really like to see is them chaging the art style and produce a photorealistic benchmark that truly looks like CGI, using all tech available (Raytracing, Mesh Shaders, Sampler Feedback etc), in the vein of Alan Wake 2 but looking even better, truly photorealistic I mean.
And yet to continue to see better visuals, bridging the gap. I'd say it'll be enough by 2050.
Making one that works from Fermi's DX12 patch job up to Ada would be amazing to have.
Throwing in Mesh Shaders, Sampler Feedback, and other stuff that can increase performance or image quality as options would be even better (assuming card support it).
Then there's the accurate raster ways like planar, which is fine for 1 reflective surface but scales terribly with multiple. Take Spider-Man: it has decent RT reflections on cars & windows, even on a PS5. If you'd use planar for this it'd make turning on RT reflections look like turning on AFx16 instead of AFx8. I truly wonder what the performance would be, but it's probably be 3 fps at 1080p on a 4090 levels of bad.
RT is the future for a reason as we hit the limitations of what's possible with raster in an efficient way. Raster is all about approximation and fake it until you make it but if the faking takes more effort than the real thing then that no longer makes sense.