3DMark Steel Nomad launches… for free!

(Auszug aus der Pressemitteilung)

Today, we’re thrilled to launch 3DMark Steel Nomad and 3DMark Steel Nomad Light. This update includes two new non-raytraced cross-platform benchmarks – Free for all 3DMark users.

Time to move on

Since Time Spy launched in 2016, there’s been a truly gigantic number of submitted results:

Over time, the average Time Spy score has approximately quadrupled. This, alongside game and hardware technology developments over the last eight years, meant that Time Spy was starting to show its age, and a new non-ray-traced benchmark was needed.

We’re not fully retiring Time Spy just yet, but we suggest you use our latest benchmarks to get the best benchmarking experience on modern hardware.

Steel Nomad strides into town

Steel Nomad is a non-raytraced, cross-platform GPU benchmark that uses graphics technologies just like your favorite new game titles.

Running at a native 4k resolution, it improves upon Time Spy with more modern implementations of graphics technologies and is roughly three times heavier for your PC than Time Spy, and almost seven times heavier than Fire Strike. You can see this is not reflected in the data from a high-end GPU from 2024, as CPU bottlenecking is negatively impacting frame times in Fire Strike and Time Spy.

Steel Nomad launches today on Windows and Windows-on-Arm using the DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs, Android using Vulkan, and iOS using Metal. As a cross-platform benchmark, we’ll be releasing support for new APIs and platforms throughout the year. Also, due to popular demand, we’ve brought back sound for this benchmark.

Stay tuned for information on macOS soon! As for Linux gamers, unfortunately you’ll have to wait a bit longer, but we are still committed to releasing 3DMark Steel Nomad for you as well.

“This town is big enough for the both of us”

PC gaming is more accessible, portable and flexible than ever. Desktop rigs are pushing more frames than ever, laptops are capable of comfortably playing top-end games, phones and tablets have the power to deliver full gaming experiences, and we’ve seen the rise of portable handheld gaming PCs in recent years.

With so many hardware configurations, Steel Nomad arrives alongside Steel Nomad Light, letting gamers, reviewers, and enterprises test all their gaming hardware in a non-ray-traced gaming workload.

With the addition of these two benchmarks, the 3DMark application provides a complete set of benchmarks for testing modern gaming hardware in both raytraced and non-raytraced gaming situations.

Explore the Frontier

Explorer mode, you’ll be able to explore the benchmark scene and toggle or change graphics settings. Hidden in the world are several secret locations for you to find and many Easter eggs referencing the last 25 years of 3DMark Benchmarks. We recommend enabling sound for the full experience. Explorer mode for Steel Nomad and Steel Nomad Light is available for everyone who has purchased 3DMark.

Updates to 3DMark Editions

For those of you trying out 3DMark with the 3DMark Demo before you buy, the 3DMark Steel Nomad and 3DMark Steel Nomad Light benchmarks will also be available for you to run. As with all other benchmarks in the 3DMark Demo, you won’t be able to access custom benchmark settings, HDR, or modes such as Explorer and VS. Mode.

With the release of Steel Nomad, we’re also updating the naming of 3DMark editions to align better with their intended users. This does not affect any features in these editions.

Available now

3DMark Steel Nomad is available as a free update to all 3DMark users. 3DMark is available to purchase on Steam, the Epic Games Store, or directly from UL Solutions for $34.99. To celebrate the launch of Steel Nomad, 3DMark will be 75% off for one week.

The 3DMark App is free on the App Store and Google Play store.