OpenGL. With 3DMark now operating exclusively on SM2.0 or higher hardware, there is sufficient support within the ARB functions to have a reasonably close OpenGL copy of 3DMark. Whilst this is admittedly an awful lot of work for the team, what thoughts do you have on using this API, given that there have been notable games of late that use it?

For PC’s we are not using OpenGL, and currently we don’t see any need for it. For our handheld benchmarks we are using OpenGL ES.

OpenGL is still very depended on IHV’s extensions, and if we would produce an OpenGL benchmark like 3DMark, it would be more or less a benchmark to simply show which IHV has the best extensions.

Still, I don’t want to say a definite "no" to the question, but at the moment we don’t have any plans to add OpenGL to 3DMark on PC’s, or develop a separate OpenGL PC benchmark.

Up until 3DMark05, all previous releases were timed roughly with the launches of new DirectX versions or having sufficient hardware available on the market to support them. Are you sticking with the 05-style release or are you aiming at something more specific?

It has been a while since the current DX version was released, and still we have been able to find new things to benchmark. The next 3DMark will be released in order to make sure that we will have a benchmark with a long lifespan, and expose some more of the remaining features of DX9. The release is "When It’s Done", but still in a realistic time-frame. We have also been working with the next next 3DMark for a while already, but that’s a whole different story.

In light of the recent announcement where you licensed AGEIA's PhysX SDK, are you making use of it in 3DMark benchmarks or as a CPU alternative for a future version of PCMark?

Yes, we licensed the AGEIA PhysX SDK and will use the physics library in the next 3DMark, but whether we will use HW accelerated physics or not, is something I am not able to comment on.

For the next 3DMark we have also been working extremely hard to bring out a completely new CPU test. It’s still in development, but personally I like it since it really stresses the CPU a LOT. You’ll see what I mean when it’s out.

What comes to PCMark, is also still up in the air. We just released PCMark05 (and more recently patched it to build 1.1.0), and next up is PCMark for Windows Vista. We have started scoping and specification planning internally and will soon gather feedback from our BDP members.

Finally, are you making it a DirectX 10 benchmark, perhaps with a 9.0c fallback for XP systems or still exclusively DirectX 9?

The next 3DMark is a DirectX9c benchmark for Windows XP. The next next 3DMark is something completely different...

That concludes the 2nd part of our interview with Futuremark Corporation and we would like to thank Niklas Renqvist and the rest of the staff for spending time out of their busy schedules to take part. However, on the next page we'll have a brief visual recap of the technologies employed within 3DMark over the years, inclusive of the a first shot of the next 3DMark...