​

“Snow Leopard builds on our most successful operating system ever and we’re happy to get it to users earlier than expected,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “For just $29, Leopard users get a smooth upgrade to the world’s most advanced operating system and the only system with built in Exchange support.”

To create Snow Leopard, Apple engineers refined 90 percent of the more than 1,000 projects that make up Mac OS X. Users will notice refinements including a more responsive Finder(TM); Mail that loads messages up to twice as fast;* Time Machine® with an up to 80 percent faster initial backup;* a Dock with Expose® integration; QuickTime® X with a redesigned player that allows users to easily view, record, trim and share video; and a 64-bit version of Safari® 4 that is up to 50 percent** faster and resistant to crashes caused by plug-ins. Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous version and frees up to 7GB of drive space once installed.

For the first time, system applications including Finder, Mail, iCal®, iChat® and Safari are 64-bit and Snow Leopard’s support for 64-bit processors makes use of large amounts of RAM, increases performance and improves security while remaining compatible with 32-bit applications. Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) provides a revolutionary new way for software developers to write applications that take advantage of multicore processors. OpenCL, a C-based open standard, allows developers to tap the incredible power of the graphics processing unit for tasks that go beyond graphics.

Snow Leopard is the only desktop operating system with built in support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, and it allows you to use Mac OS X Mail, Address Book and iCal to send and receive email, create and respond to meeting invitations, and search and manage contacts with global address lists. Exchange information works seamlessly within Snow Leopard so users can also take advantage of OS X only features such as fast Spotlight® searches and Quick Look previews.

Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard, the next major release of the world’s easiest to use server operating system, will also go on sale Friday, August 28. Snow Leopard Server includes innovative new features such as Podcast Producer 2 and Mobile Access Server and is priced more affordably than ever at $499 with unlimited client licenses. More information and full system requirements for Snow Leopard Server can be found at www.apple.com/server/macosx/.

Pricing & Availability
Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard on August 28 at Apple’s retail stores and through Apple Authorized Resellers, and online pre-orders can be made through Apple’s online store (www.apple.com) starting today. The Snow Leopard single user license will be available for a suggested retail price of $29 (US) and the Snow Leopard Family Pack, a single household, five-user license, will be available for a suggested price of $49 (US). For Tiger® users with an Intel-based Mac®, the Mac Box Set includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife® ‘09 and iWork® ‘09 and will be available for a suggested price of $169 (US) and a Family Pack is available for a suggested price of $229 (US).

The Mac OS X Snow Leopard Up-to-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller between June 8, 2009 and the end of the program on December 26, 2009, for a product plus shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Users must request their Up-to-Date upgrade within 90 days of purchase or by December 26, 2009, whichever comes first. For more information please visit www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate. Snow Leopard requires a minimum of 1GB of RAM and is designed to run on any Mac computer with an Intel processor. Full system requirements can be found at www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html.

*Testing conducted by Apple in August 2009 comparing prerelease Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard with shipping Mac OS X v10.5.8 Leopard on a shipping 2.0 GHz MacBook® system and a shipping 2.66 GHz iMac® system, both configured with 2GB of RAM. Performance will vary based on system configuration, network, file sizes, data sets and other factors.

**Testing conducted by Apple in August 2009 comparing 64-bit Safari 4 to 32-bit Safari 4 on prerelease Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard on a shipping 2.0 GHz MacBook system and a shipping 2.66 GHz iMac system, both configured with 2GB of RAM. JavaScript benchmarks based on the SunSpider Performance test. Performance will vary based on system configuration, network connection, and other factors.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

© 2009 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, Mac OS, Snow Leopard, Leopard, Finder, Time Machine, Expose, QuickTime, Safari, iCal, iChat, Spotlight, Tiger, iLife, iWork, MacBook and iMac are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

CUPERTINO, Calif., July 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today announced a significant update to Final Cut Studio® with more than 100 new features and new versions of Final Cut Pro®, Motion, Soundtrack® Pro, Color and Compressor. Final Cut Studio features Final Cut Pro 7 which expands Apple’s ProRes codec family to support virtually any workflow and includes Easy Export for one step output to a variety of formats and iChat® Theater support for real-time collaboration. Motion 4 includes enhanced tools such as 3D shadows, reflections and depth of field for stunning motion graphics and visual effects, and Soundtrack Pro 3 features new multitrack audio tools to streamline audio post production. Color 1.5 includes better Final Cut Pro integration and support for full color resolution, and Compressor 3.5 adds new features that make it easy to set up and customize your export options. At $999, the new Final Cut Studio is $300 less than the previous release and is also available as an upgrade for just $299.

“With 1.4 million users and 50 percent of the market,* Final Cut Pro is the number one professional video editing application,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The new Final Cut Studio includes more than 100 new features and dramatically expands Apple’s ProRes family of codecs so editors can work in the studio with the highest quality video or on location at low bandwidths.”

Final Cut Pro 7, the latest version of Apple’s Emmy Award-winning editing software, includes new versions of Apple’s ProRes codecs to support virtually any workflow with the addition of ProRes Proxy, for offline and mobile editing at low bandwidth; ProRes LT, for general purpose editing; and ProRes 4444 for editing and visual effects at the highest quality possible. Easy Export allows users to continue working on projects while encoding is done in the background and the sequence is exported to YouTube, MobileMe(TM), iPhone(TM), iPod®, Apple TV®, DVD or Blu-ray. iChat Theater support allows real time collaboration by sharing Final Cut® timelines or individual source clips with iChat users anywhere in the world, even if they don’t have a copy of Final Cut Pro. Other new features include new speed tools to change clip speed with ease, alpha transitions to create dramatic effects using moving mattes, and native AVC-Intra support for the latest high quality Panasonic cameras.

Motion 4 extends award-winning, easy to use animation tools so video editors can quickly create everything from basic titles to animated credit rolls to stunning motion graphics. Enhancing 3D compositions is faster than ever with new customizable features that add point and spot lights to cast realistic shadows or turn any shape, video plane or paint stroke into a reflective surface. Motion 4 gives editors the flexibility to adjust the depth of field within a 3D canvas by selectively highlighting a single object or using multiple objects to create a racking focus effect.

Soundtrack Pro 3 adds powerful new audio editing tools including Voice Level Match which extracts volume information from the vocal content of one clip and applies it to another without altering any other audio content so editors can easily correct mismatched voice levels. An enhanced File Editor includes new tools to make sophisticated edits and fine tune volume adjustments by targeting specific frequencies such as the rustle of a paper or the bump of a desk without affecting dialogue. The new Advanced Time Stretch feature stretches and compresses audio with incredible precision using three Apple-designed algorithms or other algorithms available as third party plug-ins.

Color 1.5, Apple’s easy to use professional grading application, now works with a greater range of sequences and effects from Final Cut Pro and an integrated workflow allows editors to complete projects entirely within Final Cut Studio. New 4K support works natively with files from cameras such as the RED ONE and outputs directly to ProRes for HD or DPX for film. Expanded support for new high quality formats includes AVC-Intra, XDCAM 422 and ProRes 4444, for grading with the maximum amount of color information.

Compressor 3.5 makes encoding and delivering in multiple formats easier than ever with the ability to automatically detect QuickTime® settings and create an Easy Export template or a mini “droplet” on the desktop that automates specific Compressor actions. New, customizable sharing options make it easy to publish to YouTube and MobileMe, or export for iPhone, iPod, Apple TV and mobile phones. For the highest quality HD material, menu templates and encoding presets make it fast and easy to create Blu-ray discs. Final Cut Studio also includes DVD Studio Pro®, a powerful DVD authoring environment with drag and drop tools, on screen editing and real time previews.

Soundtrack Pro and Compressor are also available as part of the new Logic Studio®, allowing Final Cut and Logic® users to collaborate and share files.

Apple today also introduced Final Cut Server 1.5, the asset management and automation tool for Final Cut Studio. Final Cut Server 1.5 includes powerful new features like lightweight, offline editing with ProRes Proxy, production hierarchies to organize media, and support for still sequences to easily view and manage image sequences for graphics and effects workflows. Final Cut Server now includes unlimited client licenses and is available for $999 or as a $299 upgrade for existing users.

Pricing & Availability

Final Cut Studio is now available through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $999 (US) and existing Final Cut Studio and Final Cut Pro users can upgrade for a suggested retail price of $299 (US). Full system requirements and more information on Final Cut Studio can be found at www.apple.com/finalcutstudio. Final Cut Server 1.5 is now available through the Apple Store (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers and includes unlimited client licenses for a suggested retail price of $999 (US) and existing Final Cut Server users can upgrade for suggested retail price of $299 (US). Full system requirements and more information on Final Cut Server can be found at www.apple.com/finalcutserver.

*Based on data from broadcast and professional video market research firm SCRI International, Inc. showing Apple is the market leader for post-production with 50 percent of broadcast and post non-linear editor purchases in 2008.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

© 2009 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack, iChat, MobileMe, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, Final Cut, QuickTime, DVD Studio Pro, Logic Studio, Logic and Apple Store are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

“The new Logic Studio is ideal for professional musicians, live performers and GarageBand enthusiasts who want to take their music to the next level,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Guitar players are going to love Amp Designer and Pedalboard and the new Flex Time tools allow you to quickly improve your recordings and create tighter performances.”

The new Amp Designer and Pedalboard plug-ins give guitar players incredible new recording and sound design capabilities. Amp Designer recreates 25 legendary vintage and modern amp heads in beautiful detail with matching controls and 25 paired speaker cabinets that emulate the sound and feel of a guitar running through a real tube amplifier. Guitar players can create their own custom rig by mixing and matching amps, cabinets, reverbs and EQs, and can choose from three different microphone types that can be positioned in 3D space to capture the ideal guitar tone. Pedalboard adds an assortment of 30 guitar stompbox pedals that can be arranged in any order to produce a wide variety of lush, creative effects including overdrive, distortion, fuzz, delay, chorus, flange, phaser, tremolo, treble boost, wah and more.

Flex Time is a new collection of tools that allow musicians to quickly manipulate the timing and tempo of recorded audio, including vocals and instruments, to create tighter performances. Using the Flex Tool, individual beats in a waveform can be moved effortlessly with a mouse click, without the need for tedious slicing and editing. Audio Quantize can instantly fix or adjust the timing of an entire performance by aligning notes and beats to a musical grid with a single menu selection. Varispeed provides the ability to slow down and then speed up an entire multi-track production to help record challenging parts. Flex Time also enables recorded tracks to be moved between different Logic projects and matched together, even if they were performed at different tempos. All Flex Time edits are performed non destructively and in real time, even when using the highest quality settings.

MainStage 2 lets musicians use all the instruments and effects from Logic Studio to turn their Mac® into the ultimate live performance rig. The new Playback plug-in provides musicians with a backing band, allowing them to perform with pre-recorded audio, like drums, sound effects and other accompaniments that can be triggered to play while they are performing live. The new Loopback plug-in allows musicians to record, layer and jam along with their own performance so a single musician can lay down a rhythm and then play a lead over it.

Soundtrack Pro 3 adds powerful new audio editing tools including Voice Level Match which extracts volume information from the vocal content of one clip and applies it to another without altering any other audio content, so editors can easily correct mismatched voice levels. An enhanced File Editor includes new tools to make sophisticated edits and fine tune volume adjustments by targeting specific frequencies such as the rustle of a paper or the bump of a desk without affecting dialogue. The new Advanced Time Stretch feature stretches and compresses audio with incredible precision using three Apple-designed algorithms or other algorithms available as third party plug-ins. Soundtrack Pro and Compressor are also available as part of the new Final Cut Studio®, allowing Final Cut® and Logic users to collaborate and share files.

Pricing & Availability

Logic Studio is now available through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $499 (US) and existing users of Logic Studio and Logic Pro can upgrade for a suggested retail price of $199 (US). Full system requirements and more information on Logic Studio can be found at www.apple.com/logicstudio. Logic Express, a streamlined and even more affordable version of Logic for GarageBand® users who want more power and control, will ship in August for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) and will be available through the Apple Store (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

When Ageia was running the PhysX game the biggest complain (other than needing another card in an increasingly crowded system) was the lack of game support. The second complaint right on the heels of the first was that even in games that supported PhysX there was nothing big to motivate anyone to want to spend the extra money.
Now that nVidia has taken over these questions are still there but the Green team is working very hard to answer them. With that in mind we show you Cryostasis,  the first game ever to include PhysX accelerated fluid.  Using SPH (smoothed particle hydrodynamics) Cryostasis will be able to simulate fluid in a way never seen before.

Although we do not have the full game we do have a rendering demo (time demo) to show off what the game should be capable of.

Product: Cryostasis Tech Demo
Author: Sean Kalinich
Reviewed on: December 14th 2008
Product cost: N/A
Spelling and Grammatical editor: Planetx64 Staff

{mospagebreak title=The Test Systems} The systems:
Intel QX9770
Asus P5E64 WS Evolution
2 GB Kingston DDR3 1625MHz RAM
Western Digital 150GB RaptorX HDD

XFX Black Edition GTX 260 (216 Cores)
eVGA 9800GTX+ (used as GPU and for PhysX with the GTX 260)
Sapphire HD 4850 X2 2GB
Sapphire HD 4870 512MB
Asus PhysX  P1 card (for additional testing)

Intel Core i7 965 @4011Mhz (191×21)
Asus P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition
3GB Kingston DDR3 2000MHz RAM
2x Zotac AMP! Edition GTX 280s (in SLI)
147GB 15k RPM Seagate SAS HDD

All systems running Microsoft Windows Vista x64 Ultimate
180.48 drivers were used for nVidia
8.12 drivers used for all ATi cards

Using the Agiea card was something of a pain as I had to install the drivers from Asus, then install the nVidia PhysX kit from the 180.48 drivers then update the driver for the card to the compatible one for the 8 series PhysX package. From there I had to set the PhysX hardware support to Agiea  in the nVidia PhysX control panel.
What a mess.

{mospagebreak title=First Impressions}
First Impressions:
Cryostasis is going to be a first person Horror/Survival game. The plot centers around an Ice Wrecked nuclear powered ice breaker called the North Wind. You take the part of Alexander Nesterov a Russian Meteorologist who has come to investigate.
Once you arrive you find that something terrible has befallen the crew, the intense cold has changed them into horrifying undead monsters.

Through out the game the cold theme continues and with melting ice, frozen items (that thaw when you heat up the room or item) and the usual mist that comes from extreme cold.

In the demo this is shown off in several areas with impressive effect. One thing that did get me though, the way the water looks is very odd. In the opening scenes of the demo there is a figure that is being pelted by water the droplets are so large as to be comical. The water also has the appearance of mercury (it is a little too pale blue and shiny). The water on the floor also looks more like oil than water as it clumps together and remains that way instead of forming a thin film or puddle.

One last comment on the way the water works in one scene in the demo.In this part you push metal barrels into a pool at the bottom of a room. These barrels almost seem to bounce off of the surface of the water like it is a trampoline and not a pool. (I think they need to turn down the static resistance on the fluid).

Now if this all sounds like I am slamming the game I am not, it is a great leap forward and I am sure much of this will be ironed out before launch.
If nothing else the rest of the PhysX simulations in this game should be enough to make it well worth the extra coding effort.

See more Planetx64 in demo Screenshots here
See nVidia provided Screenshots here

{mospagebreak title=Performance}

Performance:
As you can see performance on the nVidian cards is exceptional while ATi lags behind even with a PhysX card thrown in for good measure (in fact the Agiea card did nothing as it did not seem to be recognized by the game at all). Now one thing that I did notice is that the addition of a 2^nd nVidia GPU did not improve overall performance by much. I setup what was a believable upgrade (8800GTX to GTX 260 and 8800GTX to 9800GTX+) and left the 8800GTX in the system to do PhysX calculations. Using this we only saw a less than 7FPS increase. With the starting point at 33.9 this 6.3 FPS increase comes to 18% jump. This is far less than the 60% touted by some sites and nVidia. 

But then again when you are testing a PhysX demo for a future “The Way It’s Meant to be Played game what do you expect?  No matter the Card or CPU if you were not using nVidia’s PhysX you can expect a 10FPS cap even 2 GTX 280s in SLI only managed 15.2 FPS.

{mospagebreak title=Final Thoughts}

Final Thoughts:
Cryostasis looks like it will be a nice game, unfortunately at this time I cannot see anything that would compel someone to switch from ATi to nVidia. The PhysX are nice and I am sure the fluid simulations will improve before the release of the full game. But unfortunately they are not enough of a lure. As the game nears and we can see more of what is behind this title things might change. But I can say that if the tech demo mimics the final game performance there might also be some sales issues as no one using an ATi card will be picking this game up. 

Discuss this article here

Introduction:
If you call yourself an enthusiast then you are familiar with FutureMark and their synthetic testing suites 3DMark and PCMark. Well, FutureMark has been back in the lab, working on updating their rapidly aging PCMark05 benchmark. Now after 2 years we are finally going to see a new version. Let’s take a look at the new test and see how it ticks.

Product: PCMark Vantage      
Author: Sean Kalinich    
Reviewed on:  25th 2007
Product cost: $6.95 – $495 (See Below)
Manufacturer: FutureMark
Spelling and Grammatical editor: Planetx64.com Staff

{mospagebreak title=What’s New?}
What’s new?
The more things change, the more things change.
PCMark has traditionally been a productivity test with a few image manipulation and graphics tests thrown in. But now PCMark is more of a complete system test. FutureMark has added in some of the same gaming tests from 3DMark as well as some new tests that throw some interesting AI calculations at the CPU and some streaming data tests at the HDD. Below are some of the major changes I will not go into over lavish detail nor cover all of them just the outstanding ones that go to make this a completely new product.

For starters the look of the suite has been cleaned up, now it is much simpler to see what you have going on in terms of the tests you want to perform. You are able to select the hard drive you want to use for your HDD testing.

The in-test screens have been improved and actually provide small explanations about why any given test is important in testing overall system performance.
But even more than the cosmetic changes are impressive changes into the way the suite tests your system.
FutureMark has revamped the actual tests and the suites to provide a more realistic testing scenario.
They have used real-world situations and created synthetic representations of these for PCMark Vantage. While it can be argued that PCMark05 did the same thing, it was nowhere near the scale that Vantage does.

The testing suites have been named according to what they test making it easier to select the appropriate test for the platform you are using. Each suite contains certain synthetic tests to measure a given set of hardware’s ability to handle certain tasks, while the PCMark testing suite contains a little of all of the suites for an overall view of your system performance.

Another new item is not a technical item but is one that always tends to cause controversy; that is pricing. Due to the extra coding and re-writing for Vista FutureMark has changed the pricing scale on PCMark Vantage. Although there is still a free version it is only a one time use product. To get the basic application you will have to come up with $6.95 not a terribly high amount but one that I am sure will have some people ranting and raving.
The complete details of the new pricing structure are below:

PCMark Vantage Editions, Pricing and Availability
PCMark Vantage is available in Basic, Advanced and Professional editions. All editions are available at http://futuremark.com/products/pcmark_vantage/ Differences between the Basic, Advanced and Professional editions are as follows:

PCMark Vantage Basic
$6.95 (download only – limited free trial edition also available)
-PCMark Test Suite
-Network connection required to view results
-Licensed for non-commercial and Personal Use only

PCMark Vantage Advanced
-$19.95 (download only)
-All Test Suites enabled
-Advanced online services
-Licensed for non-commercial and Personal Use only

PCMark Vantage Professional
-$495.00/seat (download version)
-$495.00/seat (CD-ROM)
-All Advanced edition features
-Full benchmark settings
-Technical support
-View results without network connection
-Benchmark automation with command line options
-Export results to Microsoft Excel
-Licensed for Full Commercial Use

{mospagebreak title=The Suites}
The actual tests involved have been changed to reflect more realistic usage.

The Suites are broken up as follows:
PCMark Suite
This is the standard benchmarking suite and contains the following tests:
                Suite Tests –
                                Memories 1 & 2
                                TV and Movies 1 & 2
                                Gaming  1 & 2
                                Music 1 & 2
                                Communications 1 & 2
                                Productivity 1 & 2
                CPU Tests -
                                Data Encryption, Data Decryption, Data Compression, Data Decompression
                                CPU Image Manipulation(compression/decompression/resize/rotate)
                                Audio Transcoding
                                Video Transcoding
                                Text Editing
                                Web Page Rendering
                                Windows Mail
                                Windows Contacts
                                CPU Game Test
                Graphics Test -
                                Video Playback
                                CPU Game test
                HDD Test -
                                6 HDD Tests Total
                                HDD Tests use new 4k block size (With a fresh install of Windows Vista the 4K alignment will be correct upgrades and 3^rd party partitioning tools may cause alignment issues)
                                All HDD Tests use RankDisk using Intel’s IPEAK Storage Performance Toolkit
                                                WinTrace is used to record the HDD traces
                                                AnalyzeTrace is used to analyze what the traces are doing
                                                RankDisk is a FutureMark modified non-destructive version that runs in a temporary file.

Now all of this is just the PCMark suite. As you can see there are tests in the PCMark suite that are parts of other suites. FutureMark made the choice to allow you test your system for specific performance. Each of the additional suites covers a different aspect of PC performance. These suites and their tests are listed below:

Memories Suite:

This suite is a combination of tests designed to test the most common memory usage on a system
if you run this suite on its own you will receive a score based solely on memory performance.
The Memories Suite contains the following tests:

Memories 1
                Two simultaneous threads
                CPU image manipulation
                HDD picture import
Memories 2
                Two simultaneous threads
                GPU image manipulation
                HDD video encoding
Memories 3
                Video Transcoding (simulating transcoding from DV to a portable device)
Memories 4
                Video Transcoding (simulating transcoding from a media server archive to portable device)
{mospagebreak title=The Suites II}
TV and Movies Suite:
This suite, as its name implies, is for testing your system’s ability to play SD and HD movies and TV under Windows Vista.

This suite contains the following tests:
TV and Movies  1 -
                Two simultaneous threads
                Video Transcoding – HD DVD to media server file
                Video playback – HD DVD (additional lower BR HD content from HDD -  downloaded from internet)
TV and Movies 2 -
                Two simultaneous threads
                Video Transcoding – HD DVD to media server file
                Video playback – HD MPEG-2 (19.39 Mbps over the air HDTV playback)
TV and Movies 3 -
                HDD Media Center
TV and Movies 4 -
                Video Transcoding – Media server file to portable device
                Video playback – HD MPEG-2 (48 Mbps Blu-ray playback)

Gaming Suite:
Another of the self-explanatory titles the gaming suite is a series of tests designed to mimic the “normal” gaming environment and give an indication of how well your system should perform during gaming tests. All of the gaming tests are based on DX9, DX10 gaming tests should arrive in the next version of 3DMark.

Gaming 1 -
                GPU Game Test
Gaming 2 -
                HDD: Game HDD (This test is simulated streaming data)
Gaming 3 -
                Two Simultaneous Threads (this is a combination of the tests listed below)
                CPU game test
                Data Compression: Level loading simulation.
Gaming 4 -
                Three Simultaneous Threads (These combine to simulate actual gaming conditions)
                GPU Game test
                CPU Game test
                HDD: game HDD

Music Suite:
This test is all about how Vista can be used for digital music, with tests that cover Transcoding, browsing online music shops, adding music to a library, and of course Transcoding audio into different formats.
The Music suite is to show how well your system can handle being your digital jukebox and is made up of the following tests:

Music 1 -
                Three simultaneous threads
                Web page rendering  (simulating browsing an online music shop)
                Audio Transcoding – WAV format to WMA lossless
                HDD: adding music to Windows Media Player
Music 2 -
                Audio Transcoding – WAV format to WMA lossless
Music 3 -
                Audio Transcoding – MP3 to WMA
Music 4 -
                Two simultaneous threads
                Audio Transcoding WMA to WMA
                HDD: adding music to Windows Media Player

{mospagebreak title=The Suites III}
Communications Suite:
The purpose of this suite of tests is not obvious on the surface. It is designed to test the ability of your Vista system to handle data transfers, encryption, webpage rendering (with multiple pages or “tabs”) as well as “on-the-fly” scanning by antivirus and malware prevention applications. 
It is comprised of the following tests:

Communications 1 –
                Three simultaneous threads
                Data encryption: CNG, AES, CBC
                Data compression
                Webpage rendering : Graphical pages in a 1024×768 window
Communications 2 -
                Three simultaneous threads
                Web page rendering: opening various simulated news pages from IE7 favorites in separate tabs  then closing them one at a time.
                Data encryption: CNG, AES and CBC
                HDD: Windows Defender scan
Communications 3 -
                Windows Mail: Search test
Communications 4 -
                Two simultaneous threads
                Data encryption
                Audio Transcoding: WMA to WMA this is intended to simulate conversing using VoIP such as Skype

Productivity Suite:
This suite is one that I actually do not totally agree with. This is nothing to do with testing productivity on a system (I agree completely with that) it is more the implementation of the suite. For the most part when you purchase a system (or even when you build one) you will install some sort of productivity software. This will be in the form of Microsoft Office, Star Office suite, or any one of a dozen options out there for office productivity. Instead of using these Future Mark went with the built in text editing and mail applications for the testing engine. Although I am sure this was done to reduce programming and licensing costs it still does not give a completely accurate representation of how well your system will run when confronted with the bloat of Office 2007 or with the issues surrounding the Corel Office X3 suite. But enough of my rant here, this suite is designed to show you how well your system can handle office productivity work using the built-in tools that Microsoft’s Vista provides.
(On an interesting note, I found that with Vista x64 and Office 2007 installed and when running the 32 bit version of the test, the productivity suite would fail the text editing portion. This would not happen with the x64 version of PCMark Vantage or on the 32 bit version of Vista.  The issue also went away if Word 2007 was uninstalled from the x64 version of Vista. It would appear that Word 2007 makes some changes to Vista x64 that affect this test.)
The tests are:

Productivity 1 -
                Two simultaneous threads
                Text editing (using the built in Word Pad provided with Vista)
                HDD: Application loading (simulating information transferring from HDD to CPU and memory)
Productivity 2 -
                Two simultaneous threads
                Windows Contact search
                HDD: Windows Defender (Malware scan)
Productivity 3 –
                HDD: Windows Vista Startup (this test is similar to the PCMark05 XP startup test)
Productivity 4 –
                Three simultaneous threads
                Windows contacts search
                Windows Mail: Run Message Rules
                Web page rendering: opening various simulated news pages from IE7 favorites in separate tabs  then closing them one at a time.

HDD Suite:
In the majority of systems people do not think about the speed of their hard drives, sure they want a bigger drive but how many people would get a slower drive to save money and get a few extra GB?
This is even worse when it comes to laptops and the box systems.  In reality our hard drives are a huge part of performance, especially now in the days of real-time virus and malware scanning, full text indexing and media catalogs. FutureMark developed this suite with that in mind.  The results of this test really do give a good impression of how your system can handle the constant data transfers that are going on all the time on a modern system.
The tests included in this suite are:
HDD 1
                HDD: Windows Defender scan
HDD 2
                HDD: Game HDD access (Simulated streaming data)
HDD 3
                HDD: Picture Import
HDD 4
                HDD: Windows Vista Start up
HDD 5
                HDD: Video editing (Video editing is extremely HDD intensive especially the capture and rendering of the video)
HDD 6
                HDD: Media Center (This test appears to be based on the ability of the system to “capture” video on the fly for DVR playback)
HDD 7
                HDD: Adding music to Windows Media Player
HDD 8
                HDD: Application loading

{mospagebreak title=Performance – The Systems}
Ok now that we have talked about all of the suites that you have let’s see how well this can differentiate between systems
Does PCMark Vantage give us a good performance evaluation tool?
I tested four different systems to see what I would find.

System 1
Intel V-8 System
2  Quad-Core Intel Xeon X5365 Processors – 3.0GHz 1333MHz FSB
1 Intel Workstation Board S5000XVN
2x 1GB Samsung 667MHz ECC FBDIMM memory
4x 2GB Kingston 667MHz ECC FBDIMM memory
2 Xeon HSF (Heatsink and Fan)
1x CoolerMaster 850Watt PSU (RS-850-EMBA)
1x Foxconn 8800GTX 768MB
3x Seagate Cheetah 15K.4 ST373454SS 74GB 15k RPM SAS HHDs (RAID 5)
3x 80GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST380815AS SATA II 3.0G HDDs (single drives)
LSI Logic LSI00118 PCI Express SAS MegaRAID 8344ELP 128MB
1 Sony DVD-RW drive
Microsoft Windows Vista x64 Ultimate

System 2
Intel X6850 1333 FSB 3.0GHz Quad core
2x 1GB Kingston Hyper-X PC2-9200 @ 1066MHz
2x 74GB Western Digital Raptor HDDs (Dual Boot)
ATi Radeon X1950XTX CF edition
eVGA 680i SLI mainboard
Mushkin 1KW PSU
Sony 16x DVD ROM
Dual Boot – Microsoft Windows Vista x64 Ultimate and Microsoft Windows Vista x86 Ultimate

System 3
AMD FX-62 (AM2)
4x 512MB Corsair PC-8500 DDR2 @1066MHz
1x 74GB Western Digital Raptor HDD
OCZ 520Watt ModStream PSU
ECS KA3-MVP Extreme mainboard
Leadtek 7900GTX 512MB
Sony 16x DVD-ROM
Microsoft Windows Vista x86 Ultimate

System 4
HP tx1000 entertainment tablet PC.
Turion 64 x2 (2.0GHz)
2GB  PC2-5300 Hyundai RAM
Seagate Momentus  7200.1 200GB SATA150 HDD
nForce 6150 Go (128MB shared memory)
Microsoft Windows Vista x64 Ultimate

{mospagebreak title=Performance – The Tests}
With these four systems I felt I would get a good idea of whether or not PCMark Vantage would be able to give a good representation of a systems performance.

System 1

Looks like the V8, while powerful, is not getting the top score with either the 32 bit or 64 bit versions of Vantage. This is interesting but not alarming considering the RAM speed bottle neck and the fact that this system is not overclocked in anyway. This is one of the systems I had an issue with the x86 version of PCMark Vantage and Word 2007, after I uninstalled Word 2007 I was able to run the x86 version of the test without issue.

I was surprised that PCMark Vantage was able to max out ALL Eight cores during the gaming test.

System 2

On this system I had a dual boot setup so I was able to test the differences between the 32 bit version of Vista and the 64 bit version.

Looks like Vista x64 is faster than the 32bit version, even running the 32 bit version we see that Vista x64 is faster, granted not by much but it is still faster. Where we find the major speed increase is with the 64 bit version this gives us an almost 300 point improvement on the same system.
I know most of you will have noticed that the QX6850 outperformed the V8, Much of this is due to memory speed, 667MHz Vs. 1066MHz makes a huge difference.

System 3
This is a Vista x86 Ultimate installation on an AMD Athlon FX-62.

This system was intended to show how older hardware would fare with the new suite, even with the older CPU and GPU the score is still not bad.

System 4
This system is my work laptop and not meant to be a mega system. It has not real power for gaming and is only good for productivity work and entertainment (movies etc).

This is another system that I had a problem with the x86 version of PCMark Vantage and Word 2007.
On this system I did not uninstall Word 2007 like I did on the V8.

The tx1000 did not do a bad as I thought it would, in fact it did quite well considering that the GPU is not SM3.0 compliant.
By looking at the results I feel that FutureMark has given us a synthetic test that comes very close to showing real world performance and is a very capable benchmarking tool.

Editor’s Note:

It is interesting to see what others have said about this test. Although this review was supposed to be released on the 18th, due to unforeseen issues with an unruly ISP, I was not able to get everything finished up. I have had the chance to read a few other evals and am surprised that people have fallen into more MS and Vista bashing. Personally I know that NO OS regardless of who writes it is perfect, the general public should know this too. What gets me is the ready abuse they lavish on MS every time a new OS hits the streets. The people bad mouthing MS now are the same ones that did it when XP came out and did the same thing to 2000. If you really want to know how well Vista works, grab a trail and run it for yourself, be careful to make sure you have drivers for everything you need to work (this is the responsibility of the hardware vendors NOT Microsoft). Then you will be able to judge for yourself if Vista is right for you or not.
Well enough of my rate at this, back to the review, next up are my thoughts on PCMark Vantage.

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}

Conclusion:

The problem with most synthetic testing suites is that they are only good for numbers. They do not come close to real-world usage. This is due to a synthetic benchmark’s inability to simulate all of the things that might be going on in any given situation. If you are running a gaming test using stock footage it is simply running the same video and sound loop over and over again. There are no AI calculations, no true particle effects are being run and physics calculations (if there are any) are all “canned” so while it can give you a repeatable number it is not a true measure of a system.

FutureMark has thought of that though, what they have done is to create a suite of tests that can run multiple threads (each one running a different calculation) simultaneously. This allows for much more of a real-world test and gives reproducible “numbers” that really do reflect what your system is capable of.
We here at Planetx64 will be using PCMark Vantage for our testing and to help provide you with more and more accurate evaluations.

Acknowledgments:
I would like to thank the team at FutureMark for helping us with this Evaluation and in particular Oliver Baltuch and ILkka Koho.

Discuss this article here
 

The guys at Stardock are constantly working on ways to change, modify,
tweak, and hopefully improve the way you look at your Windows desktop.  Best known for their Windows skinning program,
WindowBlinds, Stardock has a long line of applications that help
to enhance the visual part of your computing experience. The latest
release from Stardock is WindowFX 3.0.  WindowFX 3.0 tries to
improve upon the previous generation by streamlining the program and
adding some new features.

{mospagebreak title=Features} 

Features:
-True, alpha blended shadows under windows
-Ability to morph windows when minimizing and maximizing
-Several different morphing effects available.
-A set of window opening and closing animations
-Ability to have large icons on the desktop while having normal sized icons everywhere else
-Wide range of semi-transparency options such as making windows, the start bar, menus, and more semi-transparent
-Various special effects for Windows desktop icons and their labels
-A set of special effects for menus when opened and closed
-User defined size for windows to maximize to.
-Able to add more transition special effects and shadows created by users

{mospagebreak title=System Requirements}

System Requirements:
-Windows XP or 2003
-256MB RAM
-2 MB Hard drive spaces
-Internet access is required to activate copies purchased online.

System Recommendations:
-DirectX 9 compatible video card with updated drivers

With system requirements as minimal as these, there shouldn’t be too many people that cannot afford the resources to run such a small application.  WindowFX is also fully functional in Windows XP x64 Edition.

{mospagebreak title=Installation/Operation}

Installation/Operation: 

WindowFX is available in two forms: it is included with the Object Desktop, or can be picked up on its own, directly from Stardock. Both versions are fully functional and perform the same tasks.  The software installation was straight forward and easily understood.  After installation was complete, WindowFX went into
a setup wizard and allowed you to choose the options that you want to
apply.

The wizard offers a small window with an example of what each feature does.  The window is a little small and makes it hard to see the difference between some options but is definitely better than no preview at all.  WindowFX only modifies the windows that are open on your screen and icons on the desktop, it does not affect the Windows skin or layout of any other objects.

WindowFX Options:

Shadows ? WindowFX allows you to add shadows to your desktop windows.  There are a number of different styles included with WindowFX and you can create your own and share them with others.  Additional options include the taskbar having a shadow and shadows expanding from under windows on new windows.

Window Animations ? WindowFX allows windows to animate when they first appear and when they finally close.  These range from simple fades and slides to blind like effects and zooming.  Additional options include the length of the animation from very short to long.  In the Advanced menu you can choose the maximum size for windows that will be animated or decide whether animations will only be used on open or close.

Menu Animations ? Just like with Windows, WindowFX allows menus to animate when they then first appear and when they finally close. These range from simple fades and slides to blind like effects and zooming.  Additional options include the length of the animation from very short to long.

Taskbar Previews ? Taskbar previews show you a picture of the window in handy tooltip form when you mouse over the windows taskbar button.  The options allow you to turn this feature on or off as well as deciding on the size of the preview.  Sizes range from very  small to large.

Task Switching  – Enable this feature to be able to switch tasks using a graphical taskswitcher complete with previews of the windows to switch to.  Additional options include choosing the hotkey used to perform the operation.

Window Transitions ? Window transitions happen when you minimize and restore windows from the taskbar. WindowFX includes a number of built in transitions and you can download more. Transitions require a more powerful graphics card. In the Advanced menu you can choose the maximum size for windows that will be animated and to prevent maximized windows from being animated.  You can also decide to run the transitions in quality mode or fall back mode, depending upon your graphics card.

Window Dragging ? WindowFX has a number of special effects for window dragging.  You can chose to have the window turn semi-transparent, or have a window dragging animation.  Depending upon the option chosen, additional options pop up, including the window transparency.   Advanced options include setting the maximum size for windows to be animated, moving a ‘ghost’ copy and leave the original in place, or to ‘pulse’ windows while dragging.

Desktop Icons ? WindowFX allows you to change how your desktop icons look.  You can make them 48x48px, or smaller icons, or put the desktop into tiles mode where the description is to the right of the icons.  The advanced menu will allow you to: make desktop icon backgrounds transparent, make desktop labels 3D, make desktop icons semi-transparent when not selected, add a shadow to the desktop icon text, allow the desktop to scroll, set desktop icon text foreground color, hide icon text, and when wallpapers are changed the change will be animated.

Application Transparency ? WindowFX can make application windows semi-transparent, enabling you to see through the windows.  You can adjust the level of transparency for each individual application.

Window Tiles ? WindowFX tiles are small square tiles which show you the contents of an application in miniature form.  There are a number of ways you can turn a window into a tile, including when minimized, hold shift and minimize, and on right click.  Tile size can be adjusted from very small to large.  The advanced menu allows tiles to be semi-transparent when inactive, always on top, update their contents, interacted with using keyboard and mouse, use middle mouse button to create a file, allow tiles to have shadows.

Maximize to Size ? Sometimes you do not want a window to maximize to full screen.  This feature allows you to decide how large a maximized window will be.  You can even have different sizes when CTRL or Shift are held down.

Transparency Effects ? These options let you make your taskbar and menus semi-transparent. They can also optionally be set to fade back to full visibility, when the mouse cursor is over the window.  Options include making the taskbar and menus semi-transparent along with the visibility of each.

Popup Task Switching ? This feature lets you task switch without pressing any keys on your keyboard.  Pressing the defined mouse button will make a popup menu of currently running applications appear.  Scroll using your mouse wheel and select using the left mouse button.

{mospagebreak title=Price}

Price: 

WindowFX as previously mentioned is available in two forms. The first is part of Object Desktop which is available from Stardock for $49.95US.  Object Desktop is a full suite of applications from Stardock.  WindowFX is also available in a standalone form, directly from Stardock for $19.95.  WindowFX is a neat program but on its own I don?t feel it is worth the almost $20 price tag, atleast not for me personally.  However, included in the Object Desktop package it is definitely worth the download. Any current owners of previous versions of WindowFX can update for free to version 3.0.

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}

Conclusion:

After using WindowFX for a few weeks I am impressed with how well it works and how few resources it seems to use.  According to task manager, wfxload.exe only uses about 2.5-3MB of memory.  There are many transitions to pick from, most are what you will see in any video editing application.  The feature that I liked the most was having windows become transparent when being dragged across the screen. The next best feature… according to me, is the preview window that appears when the mouse cursor hovers over the items in the taskbar.   This allowed me to very easily pick the window that I was looking for, especially when you have several windows open at once. Anyone that really wants to customize their desktop will probably get even more involved then I got during my time with WindowFX.  With so many options to play with, you can get your windows animating and transitioning just the way you like them. The only negative point is the $20 price tag for the standalone version of the software, when for another $30 you can have the full Object Desktop. Even still, WindowFX is a great little app for the person that wants to have the most unique desktop.

Acknowledgements: 

We would like to thank Larry and Kristin at Stardock for sending us WindowFX for evaluation.

Author: Sean Kalinich
Reviewed on: January 18 2006
Product cost: Basic Edition Free (visit Futuremark for other pricing)
Spelling and Grammatical Editor: Ian King and Sean May
Manufacturer: FutureMark

Introduction:
Who in the gaming and enthusiast worlds (increasingly becoming the same community) has not heard of, and used, FutureMark’s 3DMark? Used as a benchmark for system evaluations and for bragging rights amongst the growing number of gamers and PC enthusiasts, 3DMark has become the standard for measuring the performance level of both systems as a whole, and more specifically the performance of the video adapters that we spend so much of our hard earned money on.  

However, the days of using a static benchmark to test performance are fast declining. Time demos, once used by many to see how well a game and hardware would run, are no longer a true measure of performance. New games are using massive AI routines, Physics engines, particle effects and HDR rendering. All of these have an even bigger impact on testing a system and video card than the current system tests available. To add to this, GPUs are becoming more complex and powerful and able to render many effects in hardware, that until recently did not exist.
FutureMark has not sat idly by while these changes have been going on; instead they have shifted the philosophy behind 3DMark to match the new advances in gaming technology. We here at Planetx64.com have taken a close look at FutureMark’s new system test; 3DMark06, which promises to be a new standard in measuring gaming performance. Lets take it for a few laps around the track, shall we?

{mospagebreak title=A New 3DMark?}

New Benchmark? I don’t see any new benchmark.
When you first start 3DMark06 you notice that the splash screen is not very different. This does not give much hope for new and advanced tests when the application finishes loading and you are faced with the same configuration screen that was in 3DMark05. It is somewhat of a let down. Fear not, for the most significant changes are not on the surface. Those lie under the hood, not only in the way that 3dMark06 runs, but the way your final score is calculated. To understand the differences in design and thought, it is helpful to take a look back at the history of 3DMark and see what each version was developed to evaluate.

Canyon Flight:
Another returning scene from 3DMark05 is Canyon Flight; this test has been updated again with improved artwork, SM 3.0, HDR rendering and the CSM Shadow technique, as well as a brand new shadow filtering technique. This test is an example of HDR rendering of a large-scale outdoor scene with very large water areas with many reflections. Also added are light scattering algorithms (to provide a perception of distance), HDR reflections and refractions, a depth fog to make the sea monster appear to be deep under the surface, a complex fog effect to give the appearance of humidity, and cloud blending. In all, the Canyon Flight test is an impressive display of HDR and SM3.0 at work.

Deep Freeze:
Deep Freeze is the second of the two HDR/SM3.0 tests. It is a brand new test designed to show HDR and SM3.0 performance in a vast landscape with very detailed HDR and soft shadow effects throughout the scene. Included in this scene are more fog effects and heavy particle effects to simulate a snowstorm effect.

{mospagebreak title=The CPU Tests}
CPU TESTS:
3DMark06 features two CPU tests; both of these are performed using the same game model built into 3DMark06, the game called Red Valley features 87 bots. These bots are a combination of “speeders” and “tanks”. The speeders are attempting to navigate around the course to a goal, while the tanks are attempting to destroy them. The game allows for the measurement of three types of CPU performance: game logic, physics, and path finding AI. Game logic (including graphics engine) runs as a single main thread, the physics simulation also runs as a single thread and is synced to the main thread at each physics step. The AI runs as multiple worker threads that is able to scale with available CPU resources, these worker threads are then synced at set intervals with the main thread. To enhance the CPU load, the tests are run at 640×480 with a fixed frame rate of 2fps.
Each test measures a different aspect of CPU performance. The differences are listed below:

Test 1:
Higher path finding task complexity
Tighter AI Synchronization
Duration 40 frames
Fixed Frame Rate (2FPS)
Shader Profile 2.0
640×480 Resolution

Test 2:
Lower path finding task complexity
Laxer AI Synchronization intervals
Duration 60 frames
Fixed Frame Rate (2FPS)
Shader Profile 2.0
Resolution 640×480
The CPU tests are also heavily geared towards dual core or dual CPU systems.

Test System 2 Opteron 146

Test System 2 Opteron 170

Test System 2 Opteron 170 @ 2.2GHz (220MHz x10)

As you can see, 3DMark06 does take advantage of multiple CPU cores and even receives a small benefit from the two additional logical cores on the XE840 CPU. This is a good thing to see, as the extra overhead from hyperthreading actually slowed 3DMark05 down. It is also interesting to note that while SLI shows an almost 100% improvement on the graphics tests, in no way does it effect the CPU score, just as a very powerful CPU does not effect the graphics scores. This will allow users to determine what areas in their systems may be weak in terms of gaming performance. Even with a 10% overclock we do not see a 10% overall score increase.
Finally below are screen shots taken during testing:

{mospagebreak title=After Thoughts}

3DMark has become both a staple for measuring graphics performance by the technical press and as a method for establishing bragging rights about one’s system. With 3DMark05 the tests could be swayed significantly by using either a powerful (or heavily overclocked) CPU or GPU. In 3DMark06, this is not the case. As noted above in the testing section, even OCing the CPU or GPU did not have a huge impact on the overall score.
FutureMark has also embraced many new gaming trends and technologies in their testing suite, making 3DMark06 the most in-depth single testing suite for graphical system performance as it relates to 3D gaming available today. While no static benchmark will ever be a true measure of in-game performance, 3DMark06 comes closest to real world gaming of any testing software produced.

You can view the entire gallery of images here

Now go and grab it at Futuremark

Discuss the review here