The 3DMark Night Raid benchmark produces an overall Night Raid score, a Graphics test sub-score, and a CPU test sub-score. The scores are rounded to the nearest integer. The better a system's performance, the higher the score.
3DMark Night Raid score
We use a weighted harmonic mean to calculate the 3DMark Night Raid score from the Graphics and CPU test scores.
3DMark Night Raid score = floor (1 / (W_graphics / S_graphics + W_cpu / S_cpu))
Where:
W_graphics = The Graphics score weight, equal to 0.85
W_cpu = The CPU score weight, equal to 0.15
S_graphics = Graphics Test score
S_cpu = CPU Test score
For a balanced system, the weights reflect the ratio of the effects of GPU and CPU performance on the overall score. Balanced in this sense means the Graphics and CPU test scores are roughly the same magnitude.
For a system where either the Graphics or CPU score is substantially higher than the other, the harmonic mean rewards boosting the lower score. This reflects the reality of the user experience.
For example, doubling the CPU speed in a system with an entry-level graphics processor doesn't help much in games since the system is already limited by the GPU. Likewise, for a system with a high-end GPU paired with an underpowered CPU.
Graphics test score
Each Graphics test produces a raw performance result in frames per second (FPS). We take a harmonic mean of these raw results and multiply it by a scaling constant to reach a Graphics score (S_graphics). The scaling constant is used to bring the score in line with traditional 3DMark score levels.
S_graphics = floor (C_graphics × 2 / (1 / F_gt1 + 1 / F_gt2))
Where:
C_graphics = Scaling constant set to 208.33
F_gt1 = The average frane rate in FPS from Graphics Test 1
F_gt2 = The average frame rate in FPS from Graphics Test 2
CPU test score
The Night Raid CPU test performs rendering and simulation, but only the simulation time affects the score. The time is measured for Bullet Physics and boid simulations, from start to finish of all simulations. Task priorities are set so that only simulations are executed when measuring time, thus eliminating other factors except for the minor overhead of the task system.
Note that on systems with integrated GPUs the rendering will affect simulation time due to shared resources. On systems with discrete GPUs rendering should not affect scores except marginally.
S_cpu = floor ((T_Reference × S_Reference) / T_Simulation )
Where:
T_Reference = Reference time constant set to 115
S_Reference = Reference score constant set to 5,000
T_Simulation = The average simulation time per frame
The reference constants are used to bring the score in line with traditional 3DMark score levels.