Benchmarks on mobile represent an often-used method of grading the internal specs of a smartphone. Futuremark, creators of PCMark and 3DMark, look to update 3DMark for Android by giving it a more ‘human’ message.
What does this mean, exactly? So far, it seems that the app’s update will enable it to show how your smartphone’s performance compares with other users with the exact same device. Also, the app will make comparisons against other popular devices, as well as track how the performance changed over different Android versions. Lastly, the app will also show whether or not a particular device will achieve its ideal performance in any condition. This is significant because in the past, benchmarking apps usually only measured against the optimal performance of other devices.
3DMark’s Android app now also supports the Vulkan API. Rather, it will support Vulkan in the cross-platform Sling Shot Extreme test. Notably, Vulkan doesn’t add much to the hardware, but it does expose more of its capabilities. This is a step up from OpenGL ES, and in theory, this might produce better graphics performance.