3DMark 11 is the latest version of the world’s most popular benchmark for measuring the graphics performance of gaming PCs.
Designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests.
The Basic Edition is free to use and allows an unlimited number of benchmark runs without registration or expiry.
Upgrading your Basic Edition to the Advanced Edition unlocks all presets, benchmark looping, custom settings, unlimited online results storage, offline results management and much more.
Usage:
On the BASIC tab you can select which preset to run and choose whether to run just the tests, just the demo or the complete experience. Running the complete experience will take 10–15 minutes depending on the system.
The ADVANCED tab lets you create custom benchmark settings. Note that benchmarking with custom settings will not produce a 3DMark 11 score. Nevertheless, there are many times when using custom settings can be useful for measuring your system’s performance.
The SELECTION panel lets you choose which parts of the benchmark you want to run.
The SETTINGS panel lets you choose settings for various factors that influence the quality and weight of the benchmark loads. For all settings with a slider, moving the slider to the left lowers the quality and lessens the load while moving the slider to the right increases the quality and processing required.

Settings Explained

Resolution
Changes the rendering resolution. When using a resolution with an aspect ratio other than 16:9, the benchmark runs in a 16:9 letterbox.
MSAA Sample Count
Changes the sample count used in multi-sample anti-aliasing. A sample count of 1 means that no anti-aliasing is performed.
Texture Filtering Mode
Changes the filtering mode used when sampling textures. Anisotropic filtering provides better quality but requires more processing.
Max Anisotropy
When anisotropic texture filtering mode is selected, this control sets the maximum filtering anisotropy. Larger values give better quality but requires more processing.
Tessellation Detail
Adjusts the tessellation factors in all tessellated content. Higher values increase the amount of geometry detail generated with tessellation and the amount of rasterization work performed.
Max Tessellation Factor
Sets the limit where all tessellation factors are clamped. Higher values increase the level of detail especially in objects near the camera.
Shadow Map Size
Adjusts the size of shadow maps. Higher values increase the quality of shadows but require more processing for shadow map generation and shadow map sampling.
Shadow Cascade Count
Sets the number of shadow cascades used in directional lights. Higher values increase the quality of shadows from directional lights but require more processing for shadow map generation and shadow map sampling.
Surface Shadow Sample Count
Sets the number of shadow map samples used when rendering surface shadows. Higher values increase the quality of surface shadows but require more processing.
Volumetric Illumination Quality
Adjusts the ray marching step count used when computing volumetric illumination. Higher values increase the quality but require more processing.
Ambient Occlusion Quality
Adjusts the number of depth samples taken per pixel when computing screen space ambient occlusion. Higher values increase the quality but require more processing.
Depth of Field Quality
Adjusts the resolution of the bokeh texture splatted on out of focus areas of the rendered image. It also adjusts the circle of confusion radius threshold for splatting bokehs based on half or quarter resolution source image. Higher values increase the quality but require more processing.
Color Saturation
Adjusts the color saturation of rendered images. It does not affect the rendering workload.
Loop
Runs selected content in loop. It does not affect the rendering workload.
Demo Audio
Enables sound and music in the demo. It does not affect the rendering workload.
Window Mode
Runs selected content in window mode.
Vertical Sync
Enables synchronization of the frame buffer with the monitor’s vertical refresh rate. This eliminates screen tearing but can also decrease the frame rate.
Triple Buffering
Enables triple buffering of rendered frames. This can improve the frame rate when vertical sync is enabled.
Wireframe
Renders the selected content using lit wireframe models.

After the benchmark run has finished you will see the RESULTS tab and your 3DMark 11 score. By default all scores are submitted to the 3DMark online service and a new webpage where you can see a detailed report for the benchmark run will be opened automatically. Advanced Edition users can change the default setting and choose instead to save results to a hard drive or other local storage device.

Requirements:
· DirectX 11
· A DirectX 11 compatible video card
· 1.8GHz dual-core Intel or AMD CPU
· 1 GB of system memory
· 1.5 GB free space

Limitations:
· In the Basic Edition, the Preset and Advanced Settings cannot be changed

What's New in This Release:
All Editions:
· Fixed an issue with SystemInfo that prevented the Physics and Combined tests from running.
· Fixed an issue that could cause a crash if the DirectX 11 API or .NET was not available.
· Fixed an issue that could cause a crash if the number of system GPUs was unknown.
· Letterboxing and scaling now works with wide displays.
· The benchmark UI is now minimized during the benchmark run.
· Improved result security when submitting to 3dmark.com.
· Added automatic update notification.
· Updated SystemInfo component to version 3.54.1.1.
Advanced and Profession Edition only:
· Added option for manual GPU Count selection to the Advanced tab.
· Added Scaling Mode selection to the Advanced tab, choose from centred or stretched.
· Results tab now shows the individual scores for each of the six tests.
Professional Edition only:
· Demo audio now works when running from the command line.
· Image Quality tool now handles unexpected parameters correctly.
· Image Quality tool now wo...