3D Studio Max 9: Test Results

3D Studio Mac, which is now available in version 9, is one of the most popular content creation programs in the market. Tom’s Hardware tests it with Service pack 2. One particular feature is that the user can choose between the two APIs Direct3D and OpenGL. While OpenGL was the clear favourite in the past, Direct3D (DirectX) is gaining the upper hand this year. Essentially, this is due to the better support of the hardware shaders.

In our assessment, real application benchmarks (SPECapc 3ds Max 9) play a more important role than the synthetic tests with Viewperf 10.0.

It is interesting to see that the differences in the application benchmarks are not as pronounced as they are in the synthetic test results. The FireGL V7600 takes the lead in two individual tests, while the Quadro FX 4600 takes the Graphics test. The hardware shader test produced some unexpected results. Here, the old FX 4500 pulls ahead of the newer FX 4600 - a reproducible idiosyncrasy that can probably be remedied in a future driver release.