October 22, 2009 - Unigine Corp. today announced release of the first DirectX 11 benchmark "Heaven" that is based on its proprietary Unigine engine. The company has already made a name among the overclockers and gaming enthusiasts for uncovering the realm of true GPU capabilities with previously released "Sanctuary" and "Tropics" demos. Their benchmarking capabilities are coupled with striking visual integrity of the refined graphic art.

"Heaven" benchmark excels at providing the following key features:

• Native support of OpenGL, DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11
• Comprehensive use of tessellation technology
• Advanced SSAO (screen-space ambient occlusion)
• Volumetric cumulonimbus clouds generated by a physically accurate algorithm
• Dynamic simulation of changing environment with high physical fidelity
• Interactive experience with fly/walk-through modes
• ATI Eyefinity support

New benchmark grants the power to unleash the DirectX 11 potential in the gift wrapping of impressively towering graphics capabilities. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is ensured within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

The distinguishing feature of the benchmark is a hardware tessellation that is a scalable technology aimed for automatic subdivision of polygons into smaller and finer pieces, so that developers can gain a more detailed look of their games almost free of charge in terms of performance. Thanks to this procedure, the elaboration of the rendered image finally approaches the boundary of veridical visual perception: the virtual reality transcends conjured by your hand.

"Our company has been pushing the limits of advanced 3D real-time technologies with Unigine engine for almost 5 years. We focus on consistent delivering of all the innovation power to game developers and end users by taking advantage of modern GPUs capabilities. So we couldn't have missed the next major stage of DirectX evolution with its inspiring features. We are happy to be the first benchmark provider for this amazing technology. I hope that our strategic relationship with Microsoft will continue", commented Denis Shergin, CEO of Unigine Corp.

Earlier this month the company has announced full support of DirectX 11 features in its top-notch 3D middleware. Updated Unigine engine supports Windows 7 and has successfully incorporated the groundbreaking DirectX 11 capabilities, including the following core features:

• Hardware tessellation
• DirectCompute
• Shader Model 5.0

"Heaven" benchmark is available free of charge for download from the official website.

About Unigine Corp.

Unigine Corp. is an international company focused on top-notch real-time 3D solutions. Main activity of Unigine Corp. is development of Unigine, a cross-platform engine for virtual 3D worlds. Since the project start in 2004, it attracts attention of different companies and groups of independent developers, because Unigine is always on the cutting edge of real-time 3D visualization and physics simulation technologies.

Unigine Corp. is a registered developer of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (previously ATI Technologies Inc.), NVIDIA Corporation and Creative Labs Inc. Being a registered developer the company works closely with hardware vendors in order to provide the best level of performance and stability of its products.