Well Future Mark the premiere benchmarking for gaming systems has released yet another of their benchmark applications. The trends in these benchmarking tools has been pretty solid getting progressively more appealing as the hardware is able to handle more information and graphics. The process of installing and running the application is getting more tedious as the versions get pumped out. The latest in the franchise is a Vista DirectX 10 benchmark utility. I was excited to try this one out and could not wait to see what advancements they had made in the visuals using DirectX 10.

Download and Install
The download was extremely quick using the free download path and ran upwards of 500kbs. It took a few minutes to download the 450MB file. When running the application it installed with no problems to the x86 directory on my 64bit Vista install. When I tried to run the application it loaded the window and then displayed a page not found error. When running benchmarks I disable all firewall and anti virus to maximize free cpu and ram. After a couple more attempts to run it the page finally displayed. Much to my dismay it was a page with ordering options and no prices. The free trial is now only a one time use, the multi use if $6.95 and the rest I didn’t bother looking at. So I register the onetime use for free, open the email and copy the registration code into the text field. INVALID REGISTRATION CODE. WTF this is the code they just sent. I try it again with the same copy paste and it works. So far not a very stable application and quite annoying to get running.

System Specs
Intel Quadcore QX6700 Extreme 2.66ghz
8GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 Ram
Geforce 8800GTX 768MB DDR3
Gigabyte DQ6 Mainboard.
WD 74GB 10K rpm Raptor OS Drive
Windows Vista x64 Business

The Tests
After what seems an eternity the tests load up. I sit back to watch DirectX 10 at it’s finest. The first test was a pretty lame scene in a watery room with some characters running around. The models and textures are reminiscent of Lara Croft a few generations back from the current game. Poor weighting on the models and low quality textures. The water is non reflective and terrible. The bloom and anti aliasing was horrible and looked like it was way over done to hide the poor workmanship on the scene. An average frame rate of 12fps was had, On my system I was not impressed at all, I mean seriously I play Crysis on this system at a higher frame rate.

The second test was a space scene that had the same over bloomed effect. The scene felt like it was a look how many asteroids with poor textures we can fit in one scene. A cheap camera fly through in the scene and a couple of ships flying by. The planet in the background was neat however it seemed as though there was a poor texture seam on the mapping. Frame rates on this test were bouncing from 8FPS to 22FPS. Still not very impressed with the benchmark so far.

Test 3 is some airplanes doing a pylon race. OMG the graphics are horrible there seems no point in even having this test in there. It is testing the CPU capabilities using a crappy background and some lowpoly planes buzzing around dough nuts. Totally unimpressed. The final test was a similar scene to test PhysX using CPU and software rendering. Pointless looking test and brought the system to a crawl.

Results
Well now that I won’t get those precious minutes of my life back and being permanently scared emotionally by the garbage graphics I just sat through. I anxiously await my score. Click here to view your score online, Oh yeah I forgot that FutureMark stopped showing your score unless you go on the site and compare against other testers. I click the link and nothing happens, the application hangs and then displays an error pop-up. I click the link a second time and finally the page opens after what seems like an eternity. The results where disheartening to say the least. My machine was a middle of the road setup, and to add salt to the wound the software did not even recognize my CPU as the EXTREME edition.

Conclusion
Two thumbs down on this waste of bandwidth. Actually I think this garbage has ruined FutureMark for me all together. I will never again use this benchmarking utility again. This is a prime example of what happens to so many great tools and applications. The more popular it gets the worse it gets as versions are released. Maybe it is bureaucracy or greed getting in the way. Whatever it is shame on you for letting a great benchmark tool degrade into such crap.

My Results

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I love video games, the escape and the entertainment factor of playing games. Half-Life 2, Homeworld, Blaster Ball, Call of Duty, there are an infinite number of game titles that populate the shelves of retailers of the world. A large number of these games actually teach our kids some great motor skills and a lot of them are very educational games that can aid in our children’s development.

There comes a time though when the moral question of “just because we can should we?” comes up. Society in general has failed to provide the right answer to this question on many occasions. Lets take one game that disturbs me to no end, which has pushed the limits of this morality question.

The Grand Theft Auto - Series.

OMG this entire series should be banned from all retailers and all copies systematically destroyed. Rockstar Games and Take-two Interactive the major publishers of this filth should be put under close scrutiny when publishing any new games in the future. The parents that allow their children to play these games should be forced into parenting classes. Come on people what are you thinking allowing your kids to be educated by this morally corrupt garbage. This game allows and even rewards it’s players for terrorist like behavior, assaulting innocent people and law enforcement officers. You get rewarded with money for luring prostitutes into your car and beating them in the back seat.

Come on people this is utter filth and pointless, why would any company want to be affiliated with a complete lack of morality praising the behaviors that we as a society are trying to stop. We try and teach our children morals and appropriate behavior but then allow them to play video games that they are exposed to are teaching them to complete opposite. Its like training to be a criminal, Microsoft came under fire for the accuracy in the flight simulator series after the 9-11 attacks. You have got to be kidding me about this crap, our kids are playing GTA and training to be total criminals and rewarded for abhorrent behavior but a game that actually educated and prepares out children for future careers in aviation comes under fire. Grab a freaking brain people how does a game like GTA stay in production and is able to release so many sequels. This a time when censorship is well needed and yet it fails to protect our youth from this utterly barbaric crap.

I know what some will say, what makes Half-Life, Battlefield, Call of Duty, Rainbow Six, and many other Violent titles with a mature rating different from GTA. Well incase you can’t figure this out for yourself, I’ll spell it out for you. These other games involve surviving through attacks from alien races that DON’T exist, defending from bad guys (terrorists) in rainbow six, reliving previous wars in the Call of duty series and guess what you are penalized for taking an innocent life. If that isn’t enough difference for you these games have limits of what you can do in them. GTA has no limits of how morally corrupt the player can become.

It is our responsibility as adults and parents to teach and mold our children into the people that they deserve to be. Guidance and education, discipline and consequence where have these values gone when we are raising our children. Video games and television are major influences in our children’s lives and that is not going to go away. We need to make sure that what we allow them play and allow them to watch programming that teaches them correct values and helps them to make the right decisions in life. I’m not condoning complete censorship of everything as I am a firm believer of freedom of speech. However there should be some moral standards held when publishing products targeted at our children.

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I have just started watching a British made television series “Primeval“. The show has aired its second season now and for a show that originally looked as if it was going to be another Sir Arthur Conan Doyles “Lost World” I was pleasantly surprised. The character interaction and acting is pretty good, the premise for the show is this; rifts/portals in the 4rth dimension that are letting creatures in from prehistoric and future eras. An interesting team of archaeologists, reptile specialists and a secret organization are dedicated to keeping the events from the media so as not to cause wide spread panic. The sultry Lucy Brown is the liaison between the team and the secret organization. Kinda like Special Unit 2 and X-Files. The special effects for the creatures is extremely well done for a Television production. The only complaint I have is that this show only has 6 or 7 episodes per season.

In conclusion this show has everything to make it a success, good acting, attractive cast, an awesome story, great CG creatures and top notch character interaction and development. This is a must see for anyone interested in getting away from the reality show garbage that is polluting out televisions.

CAST:
Douglas Henshall…Professor Nick Cutter
Andrew Lee Potts…Connor Temple
James Murray …Stephen Hart
Hannah Spearritt…Abby Maitland
Lucy Brown …Claudia Brown
Juliet Aubrey …Helen Cutter
Ben Miller …Sir James Lester
Karl Theobald …Oliver Leek
Naomi Bentley …Caroline
Mark Wakeling …Capt. Tom Ryan

I am appealing to everyone reading my blog to tune into this show on whatever channel it airs in your city so that it stays on the air and we can continue to enjoy some quality television for a change.

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Well OK not the best ever but Michael Bay is totally the coolest director ever and a guys guy. This guy knows where it’s at in the movie industry. And yes I know a lot of you are complaining because he does a lot of quick cuts and fast action, it keeps the mind active and interest in the movie. He’s not doing it to hide bad special effects cause seriously Transformers had no bad effects. It’s his style and I for one love it. Keep up the good work I can’t wait for Transformers the Sequel.

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