Futuremark today released the latest update to the 3DMark graphics benchmark suite. Version 2.4.3819, released to the public today, introduces the new "Time Spy Extreme" benchmark for machines running Windows 10 and DirectX 12 compatible graphics cards. With a rendering resolution of 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels), the new benchmark applies enough stress to put today's 4K UHD gaming PCs through their paces. You don't require a 4K monitor to run the test, however, your graphics card must feature at least 4 GB of video memory.

Time Spy Extreme also comes with a new CPU benchmark that is up to 3 times more taxing than the older CPU tests. It can take advantage of practically any number of CPU cores you can throw at it, and benefits from the the AVX2 instruction-set. "Time Spy Extreme," isn't available on the free version of 3DMark. You will require at least 3DMark Advanced, with a license purchased after July 14, 2016, to get it as a free upgrade. The update also improves the API overhead tests.DOWNLOAD: Futuremark 3DMark v2.4.3819

The change-log follows.

NVIDIA today released the GeForce 387.92 Game Ready Graphics Drivers, which presents a more comprehensive package than most Game Ready drivers. This time, the changes aren't mostly limited to new, upcoming games support, though that's still part of the package. On that front, you can count on these drivers being optimized for the upcoming Middle-earth: Shadow of War and The Evil Within 2, as well as Forza Motorsport 7, on which NVIDIA expects anywhere between 15% and 25% performance improvement (which should help improve NVIDIA's situation). On the VR space, this driver package brings the optimal experience for 4A Games' Artika.1 (if you recognize the studios' name, it's probably because they're the ones behind the Metro game series.

Also interesting, however, are the feature updates that come with this driver package. Fast Sync is now supported for SLI configurations, though Maxwell architecture users should steer clear of 4K resolution, which isn't supported for this feature. There's also NVIDIA GameStream support for HDR under Windows 10. On the renderer side, we see added support for OpenGL 4.6, as well as for DirectX Intermediate Language (DXIL). This includes full support for DirectX 12 Shader Model 6.0 ( for features such as Wavemath), and the DirectX Shader Compiler, though it's only supported on NVIDIA Kepler and later GPUs. There are also some improvements to full-screen Vulkan applications, though this particular change may cause more errors while leaving and entering full-screen mode (Alt-Tab). Grab the drivers from the link below right here on TPU, and find the change-log after the break.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 387.92 Game Ready Drivers

Futuremark is giving final touches to its top-tier GPU benchmark, 3DMark "TimeSpy Extreme." This benchmark tests your graphics hardware's performance at the 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) resolution, with the latest DirectX 12 API. You will need a graphics card with at least 4 GB of video memory to run the test. The benchmark will put not just the fastest graphics cards through their paces, but is also designed to take advantage of today's multi-core processors.

3DMark "TimeSpy" Extreme can take advantage of processors with 8 or more CPU cores, and will benefit from the processors supporting the AVX2 instruction-set. Futuremark claims that the CPU tests of "TimeSpy" Extreme will be 3 times more demanding. The company also mentions that it developed the new benchmark while taking inputs from AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel. The benchmark is expected to launch on the 11th of October as an update.

An AMD representative recently answered PC World's query regarding the absence of "CrossFire" branding on their latest Radeon Software release, which introduced multi-GPU support for AMD's Vega line of graphics cards. According to the AMD representative, it goes down to a technicality, in that "CrossFire isn't mentioned because it technically refers to DX11 applications. In DirectX 12, we reference multi-GPU as applications must support mGPU, whereas AMD has to create the profiles for DX11. We've accordingly moved away from using the CrossFire tag for multi-GPU gaming."

Make every gaming session an immersive and thrilling experience with PNY GTX 1070 XLR8 Gaming Overclocked Edition. PNY Technologies (PNY) considered one of the worldwide leaders in consumer electronics market and flash memory products, has launched the GeForce GTX 1070 8GB XLR8 graphics card that transforms your PC into a super-charged gaming computer.

Designed specifically to support next-generation PC games, the GeForce provides real-time 4K graphics powered by the new NVIDIA Pascal architecture. The GeForce GTX 1070 is built with 8 GB GDDR5 memory clocked at 8 Gbps with data transfer rate of 256 GB/s and 256-bit wide memory bus which provides ultra-graphics settings for an outstanding performance and gaming experience. Enjoy smooth gameplay while playing the most challenging, graphics-intensive games without any interruption or glitches.

PNY Technologies (PNY) considered one of the worldwide leaders in consumer electronics market and flash memory products, is proud to present the new PNY GeForce GTX 1060 6GB XLR8 Gaming OC Edition graphics card. Aimed at hardcore gamers and enthusiasts, PNY raises the bar with this new graphics card by overclocking it right at the factory, ensuring that it delivers every drop of graphics juice.

Powered by the raw silicon muscle power of NVIDIA's latest Pascal architecture and ultra-fast FinFET technology coupled with PNY's XLR8 Dual Fan Cooler means silent but accelerated gaming at the highest graphics settings with blistering fast frame rates. The 6GB GDDR5 memory clocked at 8 Gbps with a data transfer rate of 192 GB/s and with a 192-bit wide memory data bus guarantees that there will never be any bottleneck while transferring large game textures and huge maps.

NVIDIA's GeForce 384 series drivers seem to have quite a few secrets, beginning with DirectX 12 API support on 5-plus year old GeForce "Fermi" GPUs, and now 4K Ultra HD support for Netflix UWP app without the need of new-generation CPUs (namely Intel "Kaby Lake," AMD "Summit Ridge," and AMD "Bristol Ridge."). The new-generation CPUs feature a host of hardware-level DRM features which the Netflix app needs to playback 4K Ultra HD content. The new GeForce 384 series drivers let you circumvent that requirement.

Reddit user aethervisor discovered that the Windows Store (UWP platform) app of Netflix could play back content at full 4K Ultra HD resolution on their machine with an older CPU and GeForce GTX 1080 graphics. New-generation CPUs had become a requirement for this to happen, besides the latest Windows 10 version, an HDCP 2.2-compliant 4K display (and no active secondary displays that don't satisfy HDCP 2.2), a powerful enough GPU, and either the UWP app or the Netflix website on Microsoft's Edge web-browser. NVIDIA struck down a big requirement that opens up Netflix 4K to a much wider user-base.

With its latest GeForce 384 series graphics drivers, NVIDIA quietly added DirectX 12 API support for GPUs based on its "Fermi" architecture, as discovered by keen-eyed users on the Guru3D Forums. These include the GeForce 400-series and 500-series graphics cards. The support appears to be sufficient to run today's Direct3D feature-level 12_0 games or applications, and completes WDDM 2.2 compliance for GeForce "Fermi" graphics cards on Windows 10 Creators Update (version 1703), which could be NVIDIA's motivation for extending DirectX 12 support to these 5+ year old chips. Whether they meet your games' minimum system requirements is an entirely different matter.

PC World posted a preview of an AMD Radeon Pro Vega Frontier Edition graphics card, and reported some interesting observations about the card ahead of its review NDA. The tech publication compared the air-cooled Pro Vega Frontier Edition against NVIDIA's fastest consumer graphics card, the TITAN Xp. It did reveal performance numbers of the two cards in two compute-heavy tests, SPECViewPerf 12.1 and Cinebench R15 (OpenGL test), where the Vega FE significantly outperforms the TITAN Xp. This shouldn't come as a shocker because AMD GPUs tend to have a strong footing with GPU compute performance, particularly with open standards.

It's PC World's comments on the Vega card's gaming performance that might pique your interest. In its report, the publication comments that the Radeon Pro Vega Frontier Edition offers gaming performance that is faster than NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080, but slightly slower than its GTX 1080 Ti graphics card. To back its statement, PC World claims to have run the Vega Frontier Edition and TITAN Xp in "Doom" with Vulkan API, "Prey" with DirectX 11, and "Sniper Elite 4" with DirectX 12. You must also take into account that the Radeon Pro Vega Frontier Edition could command a four-figure price, in the league of the TITAN Xp; and that gamers should look forward to the Radeon RX Vega series, bound for a late-July/early-August launch, at price-points more appropriate to their competitive positioning. The RX Vega is also expected to have 8 GB of memory compared to 16 GB on the Frontier Edition. Watch PC World's video presentation in the source link below.

CryEngine, the rendering prodigy responsible for some of the most visually impressive titles ever to grace our personal computing and gaming shores, is getting a Vulkan renderer. The news were broken down by the team at Crytek through a blog post, where they reaffirmed their commitment to proper GitHub support and updates for their game engine. The company puts it this way:

"Vulkan renderer
Following on from the renderer refactoring and DirectX 12 implementation, the team has been hard at work implementing a Vulkan renderer. The code can be seen in Code/RenderDll/XRenderD3D9/Vulkan/… although the feature is not functional, yet. We want to make these changes available to you for review whilst we are currently stabilizing the engine for our 5.4 release. So you can track our progress on GitHub until 5.4 is finally here by the end of July."

SAPPHIRE Technology is launching its new GPRO E-Series graphics cards series for professional and industrial usage. A comprehensive lineup of models, ranging from the best-performing to most compact and power-efficient units, will suit the varying needs of businesses. Increased computational through put and further power optimizations allow for more immersive visuals and sophisticated applications - from digital gaming and casinos to industrial automation, medical, aerospace, and defence.

Available starting in Q3 2017, the SAPPHIRE GPRO E-Series includes 4 models with different power levels and outputs. The E-Series lineup starts with the SAPPHIRE GPRO E9260, the fastest of the debuting cards, with 2.5 TFLOPS of computing power in single precision operations. SAPPHIRE has included 8 GB of GDDR5 memory and 4 DisplayPort 1.3 outputs. Thanks to the latest generation of Polaris GPU architecture, with updated display engine, the card can drive up to 2 screens in 5K resolution and 60 Hz refresh rate or up to 4 screens in 4K and 60 Hz. The applied thermal solution is active, with a single efficient, dual ball bearing fan. The GPRO E9260 model is dedicated to the most graphically-demanding and compute-heavy scenarios such us high-end digital gaming, advanced Real-time medical imaging as well as military.

As you might recall, Microsoft bought HAVOK from Intel back in 2015, promising to "add Havok's IP to its existing tools and platforms, including DirectX 12, Visual Studio, and Azure." Well, it would seem we are seeing the fruits of that particular seeding, with Microsoft having trademarked "Direct Physics".

With Microsoft having previously talked about integrating HAVOK with its DX12 API, that is probably the most probable scenario for this trademark. A tighter, in-DX12 integration could possibly allow for the physics workflow to have increased performance under the API, which is something we can all get behind of. However, this also begs the question as to what exactly happens to HAVOK licensing in the process. I myself wouldn't expect Microsoft to put its HAVOK tools and libraries behind a DX12 implementation wall - the number of companies who license those libraries aren't few in number. So my guess is that Microsoft is simply rebranding the HAVOK middleware for integration under its DX12 API, which could mean opening up its libraries to any game that makes use of DX12.

NVIDIA Flow, was previously announced by the company in 2016's GDC as the new GameWorks implementation for combustible fluid, fire and smoke simulation (superseding NVIDIA's Turbulence and FlameWorks.) It makes use of an adaptive sparse voxel grid for maximum flexibility with the least memory impact, being optimized for use of Volume Tiled Resources when available. With this technology being implemented on the Unreal Engine 4 soon, the company is now looking to increase developer awareness of the tool by showcasing its capabilities.

In the video below, the company is showing off its DirectX 12 implementation of the technology, which showcases gas combustion that results into real-time simulation of fire and smoke in the air.

Futuremark today released an update to 3DMark benchmark suite. Version 2.3.3682 resolves a critical bug in the API overhead test, which causes the test to fail on some machines, towards the end of the DirectX 12 API test. The API overhead benchmark tests the amount of API draw-calls your machine can handle, over popular 3D graphics APIs, including DirectX 11 (single-threaded and multi-threaded), DirectX 12, and Vulkan. The rest of the feature-set is consistent with the older version 2.3.3663, in which the company introduced a brand new Vulkan API overhead test, replacing the Mantle API test. Grab the update from the link below.DOWNLOAD: Futuremark 3DMark + Time Spy v2.3.3682

Futuremark has just released a major update to its 3DMark benchmarking suite, adding Vulkan support while simultaneously axing its cousin, Mantle. This means that the API Overhead test now uses a Vulkan path instead of its previous Mantle one, which is sure to lead several enthusiasts into a frenzy of benchmarking under the Khronos's API (which has just recently been announced will offer support for multi-GPU in Windows 10, 8.x, 7, and Linux operating systems.)

Check some of the new features, improvements and fixes on the new version right after the break. You can download this piece of software right here on TPU - just follow the link below.Download: Futuremark 3DMark + TimeSpy v2.3.3663

Remember that NVIDIA driver update that I mentioned yesterday? NVIDIA has just released into the wild. Version 378.78 of its GeForce driver suite provides the optimal gaming experience for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands and includes DirectX 12 optimizations which provide additional performance increases for a variety of titles. This release also adds official support for the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, and updates the SLI profiles for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Titanfall 2, and Tom Clancy's The Division. ANSEL support for Ghost Recon Wildlands is also baked into this update, which joins the likes of Dishonored 2, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Watch Dogs 2, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and The Witness, with Mass Effect: Andromeda support coming in at the game's launch.

Update: According to NVIDIA, average performance gains across all titles stands at around 16%. NVIDIA boasts of a 33% (no, that isn't a typo) on Tomb Raider; 16% on Hitman; Gears of War 4 sees a boost of 10%; Ashes of the Singularity makes do with 9%; and Tom Clancy's The Division will get a 4% increase.

As always, you can get your driver fix right here on TPU. Just follow the download link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 378.78 Drivers

NVIDIA is reportedly working on a major driver update that improves performance across the board on games that take advantage of DirectX 12. The company is working with major game studios to improve DirectX 12 performance by up to 16 percent on recent AAA titles, such as "Gears of War 4," "Hitman" (2016), "Rise of the Tomb Raider" and "Tom Clancy's The Division." Even "Ashes of the Singularity" is getting a performance improvement.

At its GeForce GTX 1080 Ti launch event, NVIDIA revealed that its "Pascal" and "Maxwell" GPU architectures are capable of tile-based rendering, a feature that significantly improves video memory bandwidth utilization. With the GTX 1080 Ti going on sale later this month, one can expect NVIDIA to release new drivers.

We are at the 2017 Game Developers Conference, and were invited to one of the many enlightening tech sessions, titled "Is DirectX 12 Worth it," by Jurjen Katsman, CEO of Nixxes, a company credited with several successful PC ports of console games (Rise of the Tomb Raider, Deus Ex Mankind Divided). Over the past 18 months, DirectX 12 has become the selling point to PC gamers, of everything from Windows 10 (free upgrade) to new graphics cards, and even games, with the lack of DirectX 12 support even denting the PR of certain new AAA game launches, until the developers hashed out support for the new API through patches. Game developers are asking the dev community at large to manage their expectations from DirectX 12, with the underlying point being that it isn't a silver-bullet to all the tech limitations developers have to cope with, and that to reap all its performance rewards, a proportionate amount of effort has to be put in by developers.

The presentation begins with the speaker talking about the disillusionment consumers have about DirectX 12, and how they're yet to see the kind of console-rivaling performance gains DirectX 12 was purported to bring. Besides lack of huge performance gains, consumers eagerly await the multi-GPU utopia that was promised to them, in which not only can you mix and match GPUs of your choice across models and brands, but also have them stack up their video memory - a theoretical possibility with by DirectX 12, but which developers argue is easier said than done, in the real world. One of the key areas where DirectX 12 is designed to improve performance is by distributing rendering overhead evenly among many CPU cores, in a multi-core CPU. For high-performance desktop users with reasonably fast CPUs, the gains are negligible. This also goes for people gaming on higher resolutions, such as 1440p and 4K Ultra HD, where the frame-rates are low, and the performance tends to be more GPU-limited.

Futuremark is working on new game-tests for its 3DMark benchmark suite. One of these is a game test that takes advantage of DirectX 12, but isn't as taxing on the hardware as "Time Spy." Its target hardware is notebook graphics and entry-mainstream graphics cards. It will be to "Time Spy" what "Sky Diver" is to "Fire Strike."

The next, more interesting move by Futuremark is a benchmark that takes advantage of the Vulkan 3D graphics API. The company will release this Vulkan-based benchmark for both Windows and Android platforms. Lastly we've learned that development of the company's VR benchmarks are coming along nicely, and the company hopes to release new VR benchmarks for PC and mobile platforms soon. Futuremark is expected to reveal these new game-tests and benchmarks at its 2017 International CES booth, early January.

Over the weekend, gamers began testing the new DirectX 12 renderer of Tom Clancy's "The Division," released through a game patch. Testing by GameGPU (Russian media site) shows that AMD Radeon RX 480 is about 16 percent faster than NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, with the game running in the new DirectX 12 mode. "The Division" was tested with its new DirectX 12 renderer, on an ASUS Radeon RX 480 STRIX graphics card driven by Crimson ReLive 16.12.1 drivers, and compared with an ASUS GeForce GTX 1060 6GB STRIX, driven by GeForce 376.19 drivers. Independent testing by German tech-site ComputerBase.de supports these findings.

AMD allegedly disabled asynchronous-compute technology support on older generations of Graphics CoreNext (GCN) architecture, since Radeon Software 16.9.2. With the newer drivers, "Ashes of the Singularity" no longer supports asynchronous-compute, a feature that improves performance in the game, on GPUs based on the first-generation GCN architecture, such as the Radeon R9 280X.

"Ashes of the Singularity" benchmarks run by Beyond3D forum members on GCN 1.0 hardware, comparing older drivers to version 16.9.2 shows that the game supports async-compute on the older drivers, and returns improved performance. AMD, on its part, is pointing users to a patch change-list from the developers of "Ashes..." which reads that the game supports DirectX 12 async-compute only on GCN 1.1 (eg: Radeon R9 290) and above.

The folks over at 3dcenter.org have compiled comprehensive historical GPU AIB market share data for our digestion. While we recently reported on Q3'16 and its comparison to the quarter before and the same period last year, this information spans a near 14 year quarter-on-quarter time frame. The compilers have quite helpfully included points of reference along the timeline which highlight the two major GPU manufacturers milestone desktop product line debuts.

It is worth noting that their exact numbers differ slightly to the ones Jon Peddie Research provided as 3dcenter have also cited the work of Mercury Research, which appears more conservative. The figures provided in their own graph split the difference between the two sources to give us a more impartial look at the market.

AMD is readying a new graphics card promotion for Holiday 2016. The company is planning to give away game keys to "Sid Meier's Civilization VI" with both the 4 GB and 8 GB variants of its Radeon RX 480 graphics cards. Available through participating retailers, and in select markets, the promotion will be applicable to both the reference and custom-design graphics cards. Sapphire, for example, is giving away keys to the game with both its NITRO+ and reference-design RX 480 cards. Purchase receipts for the cards will come with special promotion codes that can be redeemed on the AMD Rewards website to enable the game directly to your Steam account. The 6th edition of the smash-hit turn-based strategy game, "Civilization VI" takes advantage of DirectX 12 through its latest patch, the Radeon RX 480 meets or exceeds its recommended system requirements.

Firaxis Games released the biggest update to Sid Meier's "Civilization VI." The update is particularly big for the PC version, as it adds a DirectX 12 renderer, letting the game take advantage of performance-enhancing features introduced with the API, such as multi-threaded rendering, which could improve frame-rates in CPU-limited low-resolution setups. The in-game benchmark tool is also updated. The update also adds new content, user-interface updates, and gameplay changes.

Hot on the heels of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1050 Ti launch, AMD fired off an elaborate press-deck explaining why consumers should choose its $169 Radeon RX 470 graphics card over the $139 GeForce GTX 1050 Ti it announced last Tuesday (18/10), which is due for market launch a week later (25/10). The presentation begins explaining that the RX 470 is better equipped to offer above 60 fps on all of today's games at 1080p (Full HD) resolution, with anti-aliasing enabled.

Later down the presentation, AMD alleges that NVIDIA "Pascal" architecture lacks asynchronous compute feature. There are already games that take advantage of it. AMD also claims that its "Polaris" based GPUs RX 480, RX 470, and RX 460, will be faster than competing GTX 1060, GTX 1050 Ti, and GTX 750 Ti at "Battlefield 1" with its DirectX 12 renderer. The presentation ends with a refresher of the company's current product-stack, and how it measures up to NVIDIA's offerings across the competitive landscape. Turns out there is indeed a big price/performance gap between the RX 460 and RX 470, just waiting to be filled.