Futuremark Corporation sent us a copy of their latest benchmarking suite: 3DMark11 (Advanced). This time focused on DirectX 11, it features performance tests for tessellation, physics, lighting, and much more.
The first thing we did was check for compatibility with DDD, iZ3D, and Nvidia GeForce 3D Vision drivers, and it just doesn’t exist yet. DDD’s TriDef Ignition drivers couldn’t run the program at all, iZ3D 1.12 drivers ran but failed to inject (go into 3D mode), and while Nvidia’s GeForce 3D Vision drivers had limited success in 3D, their inability to show post processing and lighting effects properly (in this case) was just too much. We tried turning down settings in the advanced features, but it made no difference.
The silver lining is that none of the 3D driver developers have profiles available for this software yet, so this is just a temporary setback. We would like to add 3DMark11 to our benchmarking list in stereoscopic 3D, though we will have to be extra careful. In some instances, S-3D driver developers force graphics features off so the titles run well in 3D. For 3DMark11 to be a fair tool, assurances would have to be made that the S-3D driver developers refrain from doing this secretly. Or, if features had to be turned off, we need to know about it so the other solutions can be tested under identical circumstances.
That said, if you have a DX11 compliant graphics card, give 3DMark11 a go! Their online database is very helpful for comparing your hardware and drivers to other mixes to see where the performance opportunities are.