Unigine unveils new Valley Benchmark

February 15, 2013 | 09:49

Tags: #benchmark #gpu-benchmark #heaven-40 #siberia #unigine-heaven

Companies: #unigine

The Heaven 4.0 benchmarking tool, released to the world earlier this week, isn't the only thing Unigine has been working on, it seems, with the company announcing the availability of an all-new benchmarking tool: Valley Benchmark.

Based on the same Unigine Engine as the popular Heaven benchmark, Valley ditches the steampunk-inspired floating village for something a little more down-to-earth: a digital representation of the company's native Siberia. 'Living in Siberia, we wanted to show how beautiful the nature is here' claims Andrey Kushner, Unigine's lead technical artist, of the decision to relocate the benchmark's setting. 'It is full of contrasts, and flowers can grow through the deadfall right next to brutal mountains. It was an interesting challenge to create this huge, yet detailed world. Moreover, our engine is so flexible that we could place all objects procedurally and recreate this valley with photorealistic graphics.'

As with Heaven, Valley is designed to put some serious stress on even the most powerful graphics card. The benchmark allows for per-frame GPU temperature and clock monitoring, supports stereoscopic monitors and multi-monitor setups, and comes with a range of benchmarking presets for easy comparisons between PCs. Where Valley differs from Heaven is in scale: Unigine's latest benchmark features 64,000 square kilometres of detailed terrain modelled on the Siberian countryside through which users are free to fly or hike when not in benchmarking mode.

Other advanced features include user-controllable dynamic weather settings, a dynamic sky with volumetric clouds, sun shafts, impressive depth of field effects and ambient occlusion, while the company has worked on a procedural placement engine for the valley's varied vegetation and rocks - with the result that Unigine claims the valley is 'unique in every corner.'

As with the most recent Heaven release, Valley Benchmark is available for free in a Basic Edition for Windows, OS X and Linux, while a $19.95 Advanced Edition - $5 more expensive than Heaven 4.0 Advanced, interestingly enough - brings benchmark looping, command-line automation and CSV exports of results to the mix. As with Heaven, professional use is limited to Valley Benchmark Professional at a cost of $495.

If you're curious to check out the latest Unigine benchmark, the free version can be downloaded now from the official site - and while you're waiting, here's a little taster of what's in store.


Discuss this in the forums
YouTube logo
MSI MPG Velox 100R Chassis Review

October 14 2021 | 15:04

TOP STORIES

SUGGESTED FOR YOU