3DMark Wild Life tells you how your phones and notebooks perform against each other

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3DMark Wild Life tells you how your phones and notebooks perform against each other

Cross-platform benchmark for the first time. Image courtesy of UL.

Benchmark developer UL has just released 3DMark Wild Life, a new cross-platform benchmark for comparing the graphics performance (GPU) of the latest Apple, Android, and Windows devices.

Wild Life measures GPU performance by rendering a demanding game-like scene in real-time. The faster the scene runs, the higher your benchmark score.

3DMark Wild Life shows the advanced rendering techniques and post-processing effects that are possible on modern mobile devices. Wild Life uses the Vulkan API on Android devices and Windows PCs. On iOS devices, it uses the Metal API.

Vulkan is a low-overhead, cross-platform 3D graphics and computing API. Vulkan targets high-performance real-time 3D graphics applications such as video games and interactive media across all platforms. Metal is a low-level, low-overhead hardware-accelerated 3D graphic and compute shader API developed by Apple for iOS 8 and combines functions similar to OpenGL and OpenCL under one API.

Two benchmark tests within the single app

Benchmark testing doesn't have to look ugly. Image courtesy of UL.

3DMark Wild Life has two benchmark tests for GPU measurement.

The Wild Life run test is the first benchmark. Image courtesy of UL.

Users can run the 3DMark Wild Life benchmark to measure a device's ability to provide instant performance for a short period of time. This test mirrors mobile games in which the gameplay loop is a series of short bursts of activity.

The 3DMark Wild Life Stress Test is a longer test that shows how a device performs under longer periods of heavy load. It mirrors mobile games in which the gameplay loop is a longer, more immersive experience. Instead of producing a single score, the main result from the stress test is a chart that shows you how the device’s performance changed during the test. It's useful for finding out how much your device throttles performance under heavy loads.

The image below can help you understand how your device manages performance and heat during heavy use.

The stress test is one of the benchmarks. Image courtesy of UL.

The first screenshot on the left in the image above shows a device that offers steady performance with no throttling. The middle screenshot shows aggressive performance throttling after a short time due to heat build-up under heavy load. The last screenshot on the right shows gradual throttling down from the peak to a lower level of sustained performance.

See how your device stacks up to the competition. Image courtesy of UL.

Using charts, lists and rankings, 3DMark gives insights into the performance of different Android devices.

Compare how an OS upgrade affects performance. Image courtesy of UL.

You can also see how major OS updates, like Android 11 and iOS 14, affect the performance of a device.

Download and benchmark your own devices

Here you can see what the score for a Windows-based device would look like. Image courtesy of UL.

3DMark Wild Life is available for free now for Android, iOS and Windows.

You need Android 10 or later to run the Wild Life benchmark. For iOS-based devices, it is compatibility starts with the iPhone 6s to the latest models, that are running on iOS 13 or later. For Windows PCs, Wild Life is available now as a free update for 3DMark Advanced Edition from Steam, the UL Benchmarks website and now from the Green Man Gaming store.

Ready to go give it a try yourself?

Want to see how your devices stack up? We benchmarked some of the latest smartphones available so you can see how an older phone measures up to the latest and greatest. Or if you have the newest around, what sort of scores you should be getting.