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Benchmark specialist Futuremark has updated its 3DMark software with a new test designed from the ground up to support DirectX 12 - and its results are causing some controversy. AMD users in particular are somewhat surprised by the higher results gleaned from Nvidia hardware, suggesting that the tests scores are somewhat at odds with a clutch of DX12 games showing Radeon hardware in the ascendency under the new API. Other AMD fans believe that Nvidia hardware's 'preempt' style of async compute isn't asynchronous at all and believe the test is fixed, despite the developer's well-earned reputation. It led to Futuremark releasing a statement going into depth on just how its new test, dubbed Time Spy, actually works, while emphasising that its development was coordinated with partners including Nvidia, Intel, Microsoft and - yes - AMD."For benchmarks to be relevant and useful tools, they must be fair, impartial and unbiased," says Futuremark. "This is why 3DMark Time Spy, and all other Futuremark benchmarks, are developed with industry-leading hardware and software partners through our Benchmark Development Program using a process that's been government-vetted for fairness and neutrality. The process ensures that our benchmarks are accurate, relevant and impartial."
The focus on the async compute controversy has been somewhat unfortunate, because the scale of ambition seen in Time Spy is exceptional. Games have barely begun to scratch the surface of what new APIs like DX12 and Vulkan are capable of. Essentially, we've seen existing OpenGL and DX11 games ported over - there have been performance gains, but little to hint at the new options open to developers. Time Spy sees Futuremark attempt to create a benchmark based on the idea of a game engine built specifically to take advantage of the key benefits offered by DirectX 12. The image below shows how scene complexity in terms of vertices, triangle count, tessellation patches and compute shader invocations rises from Fire Strike to Time Spy. In many cases, we're looking at an order of magnitude increase.
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