Futuremark Ends Support for 3DMark Vantage and PCMark Vantage

It is no secret that Microsoft is ending their support for the 10-year old operating system Windows Vista on April the 11th this year and other companies are taking that queue to end the support for their Vista-based apps too. One of them is Futuremark that today announced they are ending their support for 3DMark Vantage and PCMark Vantage.

Futuremark’s 3DMark Vantage and PCMark Vantage are designed to be Windows Vista benchmarks and their support is ending on the same day, April the 11th, 2017. Vista was never the most popular operating system and most people have moved on to different operating systems. In fact, according to StatCoutner, only 1.12 of Windows users are still using Vista.

The end of support means that the products no longer will be sold on the official web store. They will no longer receive updates other than SystemInfo and they will no longer be guaranteed to work with the Futuremark online services. And naturally, there won’t be any customer support for them either.

There are great alternatives tho and I think most people are familiar with. While 3D Mark Vantage was a performance test for DirectX 10, that API is two generations old by now. The new 3DMark Time Spy, Fire Strike, and Sky Diver are already here to replace it, using DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 to test your high-end systems and laptops.

The alternatives to PCMark Vantage are naturally PCMark 7, PCMark 8, and the soon-to-be-released PCMark 10. The difference between the apps is what Windows version they are designed to use: Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, and Windows 10.

While the support ends, there great news for the bargain hunters out there. All FutureMark legacy benchmarks are available for free download with a key to unlock the Advanced Edition features. On April the 11th, 3DMark Vantage and PCMark Vantage will be added to that list and be available for free. You can find the entire legacy app list and download options here.