3DMark05 Coming Soon?!?

[Illuminati]

Futuremark has started a nifty little countdown device for the release of 3DMark05. Just go to their mainpage http://www.futuremark.com and allow the popup window that they try to display. This will show you the timer device they made...

Does anyone know what units or method Futuremark is using in this timer? If so, let us know! Also, based on the little timer window, let us know your prediction of when it will be released.

[Apoptosis]

yea looking good...

I'm sure some people will freak out about the system requirements though... In order to run 3DMark05, the minimum requirement for your graphics card is (along with support for PS2.0 or better) 128MB of video memory. Minimum system memory is 512MB.

Thats going to cut out pretty much every card that isn't recent.

The Official Specs:

3DMark05 Minimum System Recommendations/Requirements:

* DirectX 9 compatible graphics adapter with support for Pixel Shader 2.0 or later, and graphics memory of 128 MB or above.
* x86 compatible processor with SSE support, 2GHz or above
* 512 MB system memory or more.
* 1.5 GB of free hard disk space.
* Windows 2000 or XP operating system with the latest Service Packs and updates installed.
* DirectX 9.0c runtime installed with the latest updates.
* Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 installed, for some 3DMark functionality.
* Microsoft Excel 2000, 2003 or XP, for some 3DMark05 Pro functionality.
* Microsoft DirectX 9 Summer Update 2004 System Development Kit is required to run the image quality test using the reference rasterizer (3DMark05 Pro).

[Apoptosis]

Screen Shots:





Looks pretty slick!

[eric m.]

i think that's cool they they have a benchamarking tool coming out for modern systems. people with older stuff now have a reason to upgrade! or they can use the older futuremark benchmarking tests which work fine. it's mostly the enthusiasts buying the software anyway.

as for the timer, it looks like the 4th digit from the right is counting in seconds, and the 3rd from the right in tenths, 2nd in hundreds, etc. so with a little calculating, the program should launch in 53 days. so that means november 19th or 22nd. i think. i could be WAY off, but that is my guess. anyone else have a guess?

[Illuminati]

eric... I just checked the timer again... Last night there was a "D" at the beginning... now there is not.

before I was thinking it was complicated... but now I like your theory of seconds... although I still do not know what the "D" would have been for.. maybe an extra digit for days?

Anyways... as of this post... the timer just past 68000000... and if you think it is seconds... it would be 68000 seconds until the release... you do the math.

[eric m.]

well, 68000 seconds is 1133 minutes, or 19 hours. so maybe you're right about the D. i was way off in my above calculation because i missed a step when dividing. so yeah, it might be coming out tomorrow. is wednesday a common day to release software? i know music is usually on a tuesday and theatre movies are wednesday or friday but i'm not sure about software.

i guess we'll see in 19 hours.

[eric m.]

well it's midnight on the west coast and it looks like 6 hours left. we'll see. i might buy this program, it looks pretty sweet.

[Illuminati]

You nailed it eric!... as of 8am Central, 3dMark05 is officially released!... grab it if you want it!