Quake 3, Why is this still a benchmark?

Mancabus

Can anyone explain to me why a game that is 3 to 4 years old is still being used as a benchmarking tool? There have to be better OPENGL examples out there.

Do we really need to know how invisibly faster an outdated game will run on the newest hardware?

I'm not knocking Quake 3, but come on.

astroworp

i've heard the argument before, but if i remember correctly, q3 is a good way to test a cpu, especially if you turn the resolution all the way down, which then turns it into an almost exclusively cpu-based benchmark

a2jfreak

I can't list all the reasons, but I'll list three of the reasons I believe it is still around.

1. Astroworp said it. Lower the resolution so that the video card isn't much of a (if any) consideration and you have a pretty decent CPU test.

2. It shows just how much faster today's technology is than what was available 4, 5 and 6 years ago.

3. I think people like to see wicked high numbers.

I'm sure you won't have to put up with the Q3 benchmarks too much longer. Maybe another year or two, if that. Once doom3 and a couple of the other highly-anticipated games arrive on the scene, I think people will start to care less about how fast current cards can run old games, but how high a quality an image the current cards will produce on the new games.

CyrixInstead

a2jfreak said
I think people will start to care less about how fast current cards can run old games, but how high a quality an image the current cards will produce on the new games.

You're exactly right, and at the moment nVidia seems to be going about things the wrong way.

Because ATI has the better cards/performance currently, they are releasing drivers that pump up the speed & fps to match/surpass ATI levels, but it's at the cost of quality.

They seem to think that everyone is dumb enough just to go and buy the card with the highest fps. This was true in the past, but I reckon these days people are a little more informaed and would prefer to play a game with stunning quality and not-quite blistering speed, rather than blistering speed but blocky or crappy quality.

~Cyrix

WuGgaRoO

man...i dunno who said it b4, but ill say it again....they r definatly doing this 3drfx style...whats next..and exclusive driver just for nvidia cards?

SimGuy

Instead of OpenGL, NVidia will make their own adaptation: OpenNV.

If I was NVidia, I wouldn't be worried at all about the FX lineup of cards. Yes, their graphics cards do make up a large segment of their quarterly profits, but in all seriousness, they ship many more GeForce 4 MX GPU's to system OEM's. That's where the money is, not in selling retail-boxed video cards to the general public.

The FX could flop completely (as it really has), and they won't care. As long as OEM sales are strong, the FX is just added margins. Even if all 408 members of Short-Media were to purchase an FX5900 Ultra card, NVidia wouldn't care. It's all about the OEM sales. NV40 may change that, but until I see it, I won't believe any of the hype. I've been hyped one too many times (ie. NV30) and have been sorrifully disappointed.

As for why Quake 3 is still utilized as a benchmark? There are many games created off of the Quake 3 engine that are still popular today. Not all of us computer users are as "forward looking" as others. Many simply want their CURRENT games to perform better, and seeing that a GeForce 2 to GeForce 4 upgrade will improve the performance of today's games considerably will quantify a users' desire to purchase a hardware upgrade. Over the next 12-16 months, Quake III will be phased out of benchmarking simply because the next generation games will have been released on a newer engine design (ie Doom 3, possibly Quake 4).