3dmark posts

3DMark 11 is a little more than a week away from release but the team at its development studio Futuremark have released a trailer that shows off some of the visuals that will be seen when the PC benchmark software is made available on November 30.

The benchmarking software is just the latest in a long series of 3DMark releases. This version is made specifically for testing PCs with DirectX 11-based video cards. While a free version with ads will be released, a $19.99 version will be sold that will enable more features and disable ads. A $199 version will also be made available that will have still more features such an image quality tool and demo looping.

Download the 3DMark 11 Teaser Trailer at Big Download

It's been a little while since Futuremark has posted up anything new on the promised release of the 3DMark 11 PC gaming-based benchmarking software but today the company released a new trailer (shown after the jump) and some new screenshots showing off another demo scene from 3DMark 11.

The High Temple scene was designed to show off DirectX 11 visual effects such as tessellation, volumetric lighting and other effects. People who attend BlizzCon will be able to see the High Temple 3DMark 11 demo in live action at the Antec booth this weekend (Antec has an in-game ad placement deal with Futuremark). Originally set for release in the third quarter of 2010, Futuremark is now saying 3DMark 11 will be released sometime later in 2010.

While Futuremark has been busy of late with their PC game development division and their first person shooter Shattered Horizon, the company is still best known for their PC benchmarking software and tools, particularly their 3DMark software. Today Futuremark officially announced its plans to release the latest entry in the series 3DMark 11 which will fully support the new DirectX 11 graphics API.

Using an in-house graphics engine, 3DMark 11 will be able to benchmark even high end gaming PCs using DirectX 11 features like tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. 3DMark 11 is currently schedule for release in the third quarter of 2010. There's no word yet on the pricing for the full version although a version with limited features will be released for free.

It's been about 18 months since benchmarking software company Futuremark announced their plans to launch a game dev team, Futuremark Games Studio. In August 2008, they officially announced their first title, the zero-g space themed first person shooter Shattered Horizon. Today, after months of closed beta testing, the company announced that the game would finally be released as a digital download title on November 4 via Steam or directly from the game's official web site.

The price for the multiplayer only, DirectX10 exclusive title will be $19.99 but from now until the release date people can pre-order the game for 10 percent off that price. In another bonus, folks who pre-order the game will get the chance to test out upcoming level packs for Shattered Horizon before the game's other owners. Those level packs will be free to download when publicly released.

And in another seemingly sly dig at a certain other developer, Futuremark's press release seemed to go out of its way to mention the game's support for dedicated multplayer servers, saying, "Shattered Horizon allows PC gamers to choose who and how they want to play through dedicated servers run by the community. Futuremark Games Studio will host dedicated servers for North America, Europe and Australia and New Zealand at launch with the server code being made available to everyone shortly afterwards. " Ouch.