New FurMark Download Available

It's time for a new version of FurMark. With this very cold winter we currently have, only FurMark can bring you the heat you need! Here are the main changes of this new release:

A monitoring graph for GPU temperature is now available in Stability Test mode. This graph allows you to see the GPU temperature evolution for the last 16 minutes (1000 seconds to be exact). The graph displays the minimum, maximum and current temperatures.

The use of an OpenGL 3.0 rendering context. Currently, only NVIDIA provides an OpenGL 3.0 driver and all videocards from GeForce 8 to the latest GeForce GTX 2xx support this new version of OpenGL. I didn't add new OpenGL 3.0 functionnalities in FurMark rendering code. The OpenGL 3.0 rendering path uses the same functions than OpenGL 2.1 rendering path. So why an OpenGL 3.0 rendering context? Just to see if it works in the real world, if it improves performance, if it has not compatibility problem. In a word, it's more a test than a killer-feature! Of course, if the graphics system does not support OpenGL 3.0, the OpenGL 2.1 path is used. If you have an OpenGL 3.0 capable graphics card, you can test the difference between both rendering context using the /no_gl3_ctx parameter in command line. This parameter forces the use of an OpenGL 2.1 context.

Post-Processing Pass. I added a checkbox that allows the user to enable or disable the post-processing pass (default: disabled). The post-processing pass adds an additional processing to the final image and allows to increase GPU workload in the pixels processing. Furthermore, the post-processing effect is now fully programmable. You can then code you own post-processing effect. The post-processing effect is available in the post-processing-fx.xml file in FurMark's folder. I will publish shortly a complete programming tutorial about this new feature but now, if you have some knowledge of GLSL (the OpenGL shading language), you can tweak this effect file. Do not hesitate to send me feedbacks if you code a cool effect. I will post it as well as your credits!

FurMark 1.6.0 ChangeLog:

New: added a GPU temperature monitoring graph in stability test mode.
New: added a checkbox to enable post-processing effect in stability test mode. Post-processing effect shader is loaded from the file post-processing-fx.xml. So if you know GLSL programming, you can customize this effect shader. See on Geeks3D.com for a complete tutorial.
New: added OpenGL 3.0 support. If OpenGL 3.0 is detected, the rendering is done via an OpenGL 3.0 context.
New: added new interface translations. See FurMark Interface Translations @ oZone3D.Net Forums
for more details.
New: added start and end GPU temperatures logging in benchmark mode.
Change: little interface reorganization to better handle translations with long text blocks.

Download FurMark 1.6.0 directly from Benchmark Reviews. Visit the Geeks3D story for more details.