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Saratoga, California USA – October 27, 2005 – Futuremark® Corporation today announced 3DMarkMobile06, a demanding graphics performance benchmarking application for companies developing 3D mobile-device hardware. 3DMarkMobile06 is the only product designed specifically to benchmark next generation OpenGL ES 1.0 and 1.1 mobile hardware.
Futuremark, with over seven years experience developing 2D, 3D and system benchmarking applications, understands the need for unbiased performance measurement of mobile graphics hardware. With the release of 3DMarkMobile06, mobile hardware developers, manufacturers and reviewers will have the first benchmark intended to provide accurate, consistent performance measurements of embedded graphics solutions. Prior to the availability of a workload based benchmark the industry has had to rely on unsubstantiated marketing claims and highly theoretical performance specifications, rather than actual real-world performance results. Credible performance testing will enable handset manufacturers to select the best performing IP and design implementations for their upcoming 3D enabled mobile devices.
"3DMarkMobile06 features future workloads and game programming technologies that consumers will run in next-generation mobile 3D hardware," said Tero Sarkkinen, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Futuremark. "It is important for all companies in the value chain to evaluate how such hardware is able to support new content and services. High-detail game content, for example, generates workloads that make significant demands upon mobile 3D hardware. Companies that use our tools in their product development cycle will be able to deliver better performing hardware in the hands of the ultimate testers, the consumer."
Developers, For Now
The version launched today, 3DMarkMobile06 Developers' Edition, is designed for use on development 3D hardware. It assists product development, design evaluation, and mobile hardware media reviews of next-generation devices. In addition to extremely gruelling 3D game tests, the new benchmark provides an array of feature tests including: image quality; and pixel, vertex, post and CPU processing. With these tests, hardware and prototype device performance can be tested, evaluated and compared in a fair and consistent manner.
3DMarkMobile06 Developers' Edition contains minimal interface and can use a simple command-line interface or basic text configuration file to run each test individually or batched. The performance results are displayed in frames-, polygons- or texels-per-second.
With source-code licensing, technology developers can port the 3DMarkMobile06 to their platform. Futuremark published binaries allow developers to test hardware on common platforms. And, mobile hardware reviewers will be able to test next-generation products as those development boards and devices become available.
OpenGL ES, 3D for mobile hardware
Created by the Khronos Group and its consortium of industry members, OpenGL® ES API enables the authoring and playback of dynamic media on a wide variety of platforms and devices. OpenGL ES is a royalty-free, cross-platform API for embedded 3D graphics hardware on handheld devices. Derived from subsets of desktop OpenGL, it provides a powerful and flexible low-level interface between software and graphics acceleration with profiles for floating-point and fixed-point systems. OpenGL ES 1.0 and 1.1 are for fixed function hardware, offering acceleration, image quality and high performance on handhelds. Futuremark, a contributing partner in the Khronos Group, has previously developed benchmarks targeted to measure the performance of devices with software implementation of OpenGL ES.
