3DMark03

Benchmarking never gets old. Neither does 3DMark. This GPU/CPU testing tool has always been the gamers' favorite benchmark alongside FurMark. The 2003 edition focuses on the DirectX 9 capabilities of your video card by running a suite of tests and providing a score upon completion. 3DMark03 assesses the GPU-CPU combined performance through rigorous yet splendid graphics.

The installation process of 3DMark03 takes only a couple of minutes tops and upon starting the application, users are greeted with a simple and precise interface. The categories of the main window are titled 'Tests', 'Settings', 'System' and 'Results'. By default, the program runs all of the graphic tests, leaving the sound-related ones out of the testing area.

The Settings area is the place to select the 'Resolution', 'Pixel Processing', 'Texture Filtering', 'Max Anisotropy', 'Vertex Shaders', 'Fixed Framerate' or the number of times the test should run. Once again, the default values are the best way to run the benchmark. This way, you can be sure that you get the score based on the same settings the others used and compare results online.

3DMark03 also provides a System information section that briefly displays the CPU, graphics card and OS. By accessing the Details button, you are given an XML report of the components within your computer. The tests commence after the 'Run 3DMark' button is clicked and they take a few minutes of your time. There are four 'Game Tests', two 'CPU Tests' and five 'Feature Tests'.

The Game Tests part of the benchmark takes you from airplane battle ('Wings of Fury') and gunfights ('Battle of Proxycon') to adventure ('Troll's Lair') and beautiful scenery ('Mother Nature'). The next two tests put the CPU to work by rendering the game scenes only using the graphic capabilities of the processor. Next step makes use of the features of your video card by testing the Single/Multi-Texturing Fill Rate, Vertex Shader, Pixel Shader 2.0 and a special test called Ragtroll that uses the pixel shader as well as the vertex shaders within a confined physics animated environment.

Once the tests end, the 3DMark03 score is shown on the screen. Bear in mind that this suite was specifically build for testing of video cards within the GeForce4 series and ATI Radeon 9xxx series. The average score back then was around 5000 3DMarks. If you own better graphic cards, you might go ahead and test them on newer editions of 3DMark. This particular program squeezes out the juice from your hardware while accurately providing a mark for its performance.