SPEC/GWPG announces Maya 2012 benchmark;
outlines bold new vision for SPECviewperf 12

VANCOUVER, B.C., Canada, August 9, 2011 – SPEC’s Graphics and Workstation Performance Group (SPEC/GWPG) today announced a new application-level benchmark for Autodesk Maya 2012 and outlined a bold new vision for its SPECviewperf performance evaluation software. The announcements were made in conjunction with Siggraph 2011 in Vancouver, B.C.

The SPECapc (SPEC Application Performance Characterization) group expects to put the finishing touches on its new Maya 2012 benchmark before the end of the year. It will replace SPECapc for Maya 2009, introduced in July 2009. Expected to follow in relatively short order are updated benchmarks for Siemens NX and SolidWorks CAD applications.

A whole new SPECviewperf

SPECviewperf 12, planned for release next year, is a ground-up rewrite of the standardized benchmarking software for measuring graphics performance, first released in 1994. The new version will improve upon the existing software in several ways:

• It will be more flexible, supporting two application programming interfaces (APIs) – OpenGL and Direct3D – upon release and easily extensible in the future to APIs such as OpenGL ES.
• It will be simpler to add viewsets – the testing files that recreate graphics paths for popular applications – because they will be independent plug-ins that can be defined with only five function calls. Even programmers without prior Viewperf experience should be able to generate viewsets in a few hours.
• It will be easily portable to OSs beyond Windows.
• It will support dynamically generated viewsets, accommodating workloads for medical imaging, CAE and other interactive applications.

While making major strides forward, SPECviewperf 12 will maintain compatibility with SPECviewperf 11, enabling performance measurement using existing viewsets.

“Version 12 will be a landmark release for a benchmark that’s acknowledged worldwide as the standard for measuring performance of workstations running professional graphics-oriented applications,” says Ian Williams, chair of the SPEC Graphics Performance Characterization (SPECgpc) group that develops SPECviewperf. “It will open up tremendous opportunities for people to measure real-world graphics performance for a wide range of applications.”

About SPEC

The Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC) is a non-profit corporation formed to establish, maintain and endorse a standardized set of relevant benchmarks that can be applied to the newest generation of high-performance computers. SPEC’s membership includes computer hardware and software vendors, and leading universities and research facilities worldwide. For more information, visit: www.spec.org.

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Images available upon request.

Media contact:
Bob Cramblitt, Cramblitt & Company
919-481-4599; [email protected]

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