Late last month UL Benchmarks announced its latest addition to its signature 3DMark benchmark suite, Port Royal. This extension to the suite would test and offer comparisons of real-time ray tracing performance for any graphics card that supports Microsoft DirectX Raytracing. Over the weekend further information regarding the Port Royal's availability, pricing, and a full benchmark run demo video have been released.
Above you can see the video embedded. The video shows a shiny spacecraft dock inside a shiny space station which looks like it is populated by cyber-zombies. Then a person emerges from the space ship and opens a port which releases lots of brown fluid. UL Benchmarks states that "as well as benchmarking performance, 3DMark Port Royal provides a realistic and practical example of what to expect from ray tracing in upcoming games." In particular, the ray tracing you see in this demo is used to enhance reflections, shadows, and other effects that are difficult to achieve with traditional rendering techniques. The benchmark runs at 2560 × 1440 resolution.
As mentioned in the headline, the 3DMark Port Royal DXR benchmark will become generally available on 8th January 2019. From that date, if you buy the 3DMark Advanced Edition (USD $29.99) you will find that Port Royal will be included. If you already own 3DMark you will have the option to upgrade for USD$2.99. Subscribers to the 3DMark Professional Edition (USD $1495pa) will of course also get access to the DXR benchmark from 8th Jan.
The release date coincides with CES 2019 where UL Benchmarks will be showing all its newest 3DMark and PCMark software and talking about its plans for 2019.
