🚀 go-pugleaf

Installed my new 1080GTX yesterday. It replaced the 770 which,
honestly, as still pulling its weight - it handled pretty much every
game on "high" detail and only struggled with newer games on "ultra"
settings - but it was obvious that it's days were numbered. Plus, its
fans were always a bit too loud for me, and they hadn't gotten any
quieter over the years (the opposite actually). So, I got a
superfluous - and far too expensive - upgrade that financially I
already regret but I'm happy with nonetheless.

But the best part of getting a new video card isn't seeing how well
new games will run, but returning to older titles and watching as the
new GPU handles their once hardware-melting graphics whilst barely
ticking over. It used to be that Crysis was my go-to test-game but
these days my laptop can run that game*. Thief 4 was the test-game for
my previous card; my older nvidia 270GT struggled with that game's
SSAO but the 770GTX took it all in stride. I considered installing
Crysis 3 to see what the 1080 does with it (the 770 played it fairly
smoothly but it hiccuped in some parts) but then I'd have to play
Crysis 3 and I really don't want to do that ;-)

Instead, I loaded up all the old benchmark programs - the 3DMarks, the
various Uniengine benchmarks/demos, Aquamark, the nvidia demos, etc -
and had fun with those. Remember those things? Back in the 2000s it
seemed a new one was released every three months; they were a great
way to show off your computer's power and it seemed everybody was
running them. Nowadays, they've sort of fallen into a quiet niche;
"real" benchmarkers and overclockers spurn them for quieter, more
"sophisticated" tests that have lots of knobs and dials and boring
numbers, while the PC gaming hoi polloi just use their games to show
off their PCs potential. But I still have a soft spot in my heart for
these sort of show-pieces.

The older 3DMark programs - the ones I could get running on modern
Windows anyway - were the most fun. The framerates were in the
thousands-per-second (for one benchmark, it topped 11,000 fps which -
I admit - made me giggle like a giddy schoolgirl). I mostly stuck with
their demo modes, which I rather enjoyed - the older ones especially
were quite good at setting up mood and atmosphere with their little
two minute vignettes. I also rather enjoyed the Unigine Valley
benchmark, if only because it let me stretch its graphics across all
four of my monitors. 

So that was fun. And hey, now I know that the new GPU works :-)

If you've any interest in revisting the older benchmarks, Futuremark
is giving away their older "legacy" benchmarks for free here:
https://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/legacy

I wasn't able to get all of them working (3DMark1999, 2000 and - oddly
enough - 2005 - just wouldn't work, but the rest were fine). They're a
fun way of revisiting the glory days of the "Noughties" when graphical
flash was all the rage ;-)


* well, no /my laptop/ can't, but that's just because I bought a cheap
11' laptop which is great for doing a bit of work on the road but
terrible for games. But most laptops can run crysis alright, albeit at
lower graphic settings