3DMark 2007 goes DX10

THE UPCOMING iteration of 3DMark will only be available for Windows Vista and DirectX 10.

In a bog post to the Futuremark website, Nick Renqvist says that "the next generation 3DMark will be Windows Vista only, and will require DX10 compliant hardware."

So why no fallback to DX9? Nick cunningly anticipates this point. "You may ask: Why not fallback to DX9 then?" Yes Nick, we just did. "Well, we already have a Vista enabled DX9 benchmark (3DMark06) and the last three 3DMarks have all been DX9".

So there you have it. Unless you're in the cool boys club with a nice GeForce 8x00 or Radeon 2x00, you won't be able to run a pointless number-generating programme with no actual real-world worth. So you might want to cry a little.

Interestingly, Nick says that the latest 3DMark will contain volumetric effects, based on DX10, that will bring "cinematic rendering" quality to the series. We've been waiting for cinematic rendering on our PC ever since Nvidia announced that it would be available to us all thanks to the awesome power of the GeForce FX5800. It still isn't. µ