GPUScore: The Expedition

The Expedition is a GPU benchmark for mobile devices, premium smartphones being as target devices. It offers a very demanding workload for that device range.

GPUScore: The Expedition measures GPU performance in a 3D mobile game scenario. It could be an action or real-time strategy game that the content represents, with a logical story line. This approach was chosen as being more representative for real games, having a logical flow from the start to the finish.

All GPUScore benchmarks do their benchmark runs frame based, which guarantees maximally comparable results, as the workload is made as identical as possible on all tested devices. GPUScore benchmarks also avoid hitting frame rate limits of devices by rendering 9 frames per displayed frame. Driver trickery like skipping non-rendered frames is tackled by showing clearly visible thumbnails of the frames in between in a grid strip at the bottom of the screen. Too small thumbnails could invite driver trickery.

The Expedition includes several different benchmark tests, or modes, which utilize the same content but different settings:

Official:

This is the primary benchmark that produces the most comparable results. This mode also submits the results of the benchmark run to Basemark’s online results platform, Powerboard 4.0. The benchmark content is always rendered at 2540x1440 resolution ‘under the hood’, even though the device’s display resolution may be different. This mode produces the most comparable measurement of the device’s GPU’s rendering performance.

Official Native:

This mode renders the content at the native resolution of the device’s display. This test offers an insight into the practical performance of the device, as applications, and sometimes even games, render at native resolution. Performance result comparisons in this mode might reveal how devices of an older generation may render the content faster than newer or higher end devices, because the higher end devices often have much higher display resolution. This test also uploads the results to Basemark’s Powerboard 4.0, but into a separate category than the Official benchmark.

Official VRS:

The Official VRS test mode renders the benchmark content at 2560x1440 resolution with same settings as the Official, but with Variable Rate Shading enabled. The results are uploaded to a separate Official VRS category on Powerboard 4.0. This mode is only available on devices with VRS hardware and driver support.

Custom:

The custom benchmark enables GPU performance benchmarking beyond the Official benchmarks above. In case you want to compare devices’ performance using another common resolution than the one used in the Official benchmark ,or you want to use lighter rendering settings for benchmarking lower end devices, this mode allows it. Lower end devices can also be benchmarked using the older benchmark, Basemark GPU, which is also available for mobile operating systems. Custom mode allows users to modify the parameters for benchmark runs. The default values, which are also the values used in the Official benchmark, are written in bold. These options are available in all versions of GPUScore: The Expedition.

Experience:

Experience mode runs the benchmark scene in time-based rendering mode. No benchmark results are produced in Experience mode as different frames may be rendered on each device, potentially even when rerunning on the same device.