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Free software available in English, Spanish and German that stress tests your computer's video capabilities

Free software available in English, Spanish and German that stress tests your computer's video capabilities

Vote: (3 votes)

Program license: Free

Developer: OZone3D

Version: 1.31.0.0

Works under: Windows

Vote:

Program license

(3 votes)

Free

Developer

Version

OZone3D

1.31.0.0

Works under:

Windows

Pros

  • OS support goes all the way back to XP
  • Simple and easy to use interface
  • Supports OpenGL
  • Provides an option to test with or without anti-aliasing
  • Free

Cons

  • Lacks some advanced features found in other GPU benchmarking tools
  • Only supports Windows based operating systems

Furmark is a Windows-based utility designed to test and report on a graphic card's capabilities. The program essentially ramps up a stress test of the graphic processing unit (GPU). It begins with a fairly light test with trivial GPU-based tasks. Furmark will then proceed to increase the difficulty of the tasks presented to the GPU.

A user can obtain a number of important results by running a test with Furmark. One of the most important pieces of information provided by the program comes down to what the graphics card is actually capable of. Vendors often make somewhat exaggerated claims about the capabilities of their GPUs. This is seldom really a lie. But graphics card manufacturers are understandably hesitant to talk too much about worst-case scenarios with their products. They'll instead benchmark their cards in environments that provide the best possible results for the GPU. This can involve anything from underlying RAM in the system to hard drive speed. In this capacity, Furmark can tell people whether their graphics card is really living up to the manufacturer's claims.

Furmark doesn't just help people find problems with their GPU either. The program is also an important tool for solving those issues. This is largely done by running Furmark before and after making changes to a computer's architecture or software configuration. For example, a user might run Furmark and discover that his graphics card is underperforming. He knows that he has lower than average RAM in his computer and thinks that might be the problem. The user might try borrowing a few sticks of RAM to see if that helps before splurging on the purchase. In that case, Furmark would tell him whether or not the extra RAM was actually helping or not.

Furmark can also be used to track down underlying issues with a computer's overall stability. A GPU is one of the most important parts of a computer. It's responsible for drawing everything on screen and calculating many elements of a system's graphical display. This means that when something goes wrong with a GPU it will often crash the entire computer. But because it happens so fast, and because GPU problems usually result in blank screens, it's often difficult to properly diagnose. People only know that their computer is crashing. They don't know that it's the fault of the graphics card.

Furmark can help users diagnose that problem through its stress test. The program only increases resource usage in the GPU. Therefore if a computer crashes when using Furmark's stress test then it suggests the graphics card is the source of the problem. Likewise, Furmark can then be used to verify if a repair job on the graphics card was successful.

Pros

  • OS support goes all the way back to XP
  • Simple and easy to use interface
  • Supports OpenGL
  • Provides an option to test with or without anti-aliasing
  • Free

Cons

  • Lacks some advanced features found in other GPU benchmarking tools
  • Only supports Windows based operating systems