Mustang:
I understand that you and whoever else worked on 3D MArk needs to make money, but I would expect that your primary clients would be reviewers, graphics card manufacturers, and anyone else who needs detailed statistics on a video card.
I on the other hand was just looking for a neat demo to see what my card could do. Even if your product was only $5, I still wouldn't buy it, becuase I'd only view it once and then never again. Even if I couldn't try it at all without paying for it, I still wouldn't buy it. I'd just find a free demo elsewhere.
Your work deserves to be rewarded, but maybe you are going about it the wrong way. I see 3DMark pro is only $19.95 and there is no higher license available. If I were futuremark, I would consider selling primarily to professionals who need to benchmark stuff for their magazines and websites, like Tom's Hardware. And I would charge a price to match that clientelle. Like Sysmark is $400.
Of course I don't know how many regular users do buy the product and make you money. I'm just telling you what I would think should be done looking at it as an outsider. It just seems like a product more useful to benchmarkers than end users like myself.
And you know I don't know anything preventing you from having a more expensive license which allows you to publish the results of tests with the product, and/or disallowing tests which would be very important to benchmarkers and not at all important to end users who just want to see how fast their video card renders. The quality benchmarks for example... Do I care if my card is cheating at trilinear mipmapping? Not really. I only care if the picture looks good (which I can see with my eyes) and whether the framerate is high.
I understand that you and whoever else worked on 3D MArk needs to make money, but I would expect that your primary clients would be reviewers, graphics card manufacturers, and anyone else who needs detailed statistics on a video card.
I on the other hand was just looking for a neat demo to see what my card could do. Even if your product was only $5, I still wouldn't buy it, becuase I'd only view it once and then never again. Even if I couldn't try it at all without paying for it, I still wouldn't buy it. I'd just find a free demo elsewhere.
Your work deserves to be rewarded, but maybe you are going about it the wrong way. I see 3DMark pro is only $19.95 and there is no higher license available. If I were futuremark, I would consider selling primarily to professionals who need to benchmark stuff for their magazines and websites, like Tom's Hardware. And I would charge a price to match that clientelle. Like Sysmark is $400.
Of course I don't know how many regular users do buy the product and make you money. I'm just telling you what I would think should be done looking at it as an outsider. It just seems like a product more useful to benchmarkers than end users like myself.
And you know I don't know anything preventing you from having a more expensive license which allows you to publish the results of tests with the product, and/or disallowing tests which would be very important to benchmarkers and not at all important to end users who just want to see how fast their video card renders. The quality benchmarks for example... Do I care if my card is cheating at trilinear mipmapping? Not really. I only care if the picture looks good (which I can see with my eyes) and whether the framerate is high.