Finnish software developers Futuremark has started working on a new version of the Online Results Browser to build a more stable and faster system to house results from its different test suites, but there will be sacrifices.
Futuremark has developed benchmarks for PCs for 10 years running and its older tests of the 3DMark family is still being used by overclockers worldwide to measure the performance of their systems. Not the least our own overclockers NHOC has shown that classics like 3DMark2001 and 3DMark03 still has their charm.
But when moving to the new ORB Futuremark will retire some of the older test suites. You will no longer be able to register results from 3DMark2001, 03 or 05. Or for that matter PCMark 02 or PC Mark 04. This means that overclockers, and sites dedicated to overclockers, will no longer be able to rely on Futuremark’s verification. In theory this leaves the field wide open for cheaters and more or less kills any credibility of the test suites.
With the new site, Futuremark is also officially ending online service support for legacy benchmarks. This means that the new service will not support 3DMark 2001 SE, 3DMark03, 3DMark05, PCMark 2002 or PCMark04. Nothing prevents you from running these benchmarks even after the online support is retired and you still do get a result as all legacy benchmarks display the result without submit but you will no longer be able to submit or compare scores with these benchmarks and existing results from these benchmarks will no longer be accessible.
Futuremark has revealed some details on the new system that in general looks like a great improvement, but like many of the commentaries at the company website we hope it rethinks and at least comes up with some kind of solution to support those who wants to keep using the older benchmarks.
