How to Run Heaven Benchmark for Accurate Gaming Performance ResultsUnigine Heaven is a longstanding GPU benchmarking tool used by gamers, overclockers, and hardware reviewers to measure graphics performance, stability, and thermal behavior. Running Heaven correctly and interpreting its results takes more than pressing “Run”. This guide walks through preparation, configuration, test execution, and result analysis so your Heaven Benchmark runs produce accurate, repeatable, and meaningful data.
What Heaven Benchmark measures (short)
Heaven renders a demanding, tessellated 3D scene with dynamic lighting, shadows, and particle effects to stress the GPU. It reports:
- FPS (frames per second) — real-time performance.
- Score — aggregate metric based on frame times and other factors.
- Min/Max/Avg FPS — distribution of performance.
- GPU temperature and clock behaviors (if monitored alongside).
Before you run: environment and hardware preparation
- Update drivers
- Install the latest stable graphics drivers from NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel. Driver updates can significantly change benchmark results.
- Close background apps
- Quit web browsers, chat apps, screen recorders, overlays (Discord/GeForce Experience), and any software that may interfere with CPU/GPU or I/O.
- Power settings
- On Windows, set Power Plan to High performance (or equivalent). In GPU control panels, choose maximum performance or prefer maximum power for the tested profile.
- Thermal conditions
- Ensure adequate case airflow and consistent room temperature. Warm ambient temps can reduce sustained GPU clocks.
- If testing for thermal throttling, run long loops; otherwise keep runs consistent.
- Stable overclocks / stock settings
- If using overclocking, verify stability before benchmarking (use stress tests like FurMark or OCCT). For accuracy, note whether results use stock or overclocked settings.
- Disable variable refresh/VRR
- Turn off G-Sync/FreeSync/VRR or adaptive sync in driver settings for consistent frame timing unless you’re specifically testing VRR behavior.
Downloading and installing Heaven
- Get the official build from Unigine (or Steam). Use the latest stable release unless you need an older version for comparison.
- For automated, repeatable runs, use the standalone executable; Steam installations may add overlays or updates that can affect consistency.
Recommended Heaven settings for meaningful results
Use a mix of realistic and synthetic settings depending on your goal:
- Resolution: test at the resolutions you play (e.g., 1920×1080, 2560×1440, 3840×2160). Resolution drastically changes GPU load.
- API: DirectX 11 is common for comparisons, but test DirectX 12 if that matches your real-world games.
- Quality: “Ultra” for heavy stress; “High” or “Custom” when mimicking in-game settings.
- Tessellation: set to Extreme for maximum GPU tessellation workload; use lower tessellation to emulate less tessellated games.
- Anti-aliasing (MSAA): include the AA level you use in games (off, 2×, 4×).
- Stereo 3D and Fullscreen: run in fullscreen for consistent timings; disable stereo unless testing it.
- Run duration/loops: select multiple loops (3–5) or run single long loop if measuring thermal throttling.
Example balanced profile for modern GPUs:
- Resolution: 2560×1440
- API: DirectX 11
- Quality: Ultra
- Tessellation: Extreme
- AA: 4× MSAA
- Fullscreen: On
- Run: 3 loops
Running the test: steps for reproducibility
- Reboot (optional)
- Rebooting before a test ensures minimized background noise and fresh GPU state.
- Start monitoring tools
- Use hardware-monitoring software (HWInfo64, MSI Afterburner, GPU-Z) to log GPU/CPU clocks, temperatures, power draw, and utilization. Enable frame-time or polling logs if available.
- Start Heaven in fullscreen and wait 10–15 seconds
- Let the GPU settle at idle clocks, then start the benchmark to avoid initial spikes affecting averages.
- Run an initial warm-up pass
- Do one quick run to warm the GPU to operating temperature, then run your recorded tests. Discard the warm-up results.
- Execute multiple runs
- Run 3–5 consistent passes with the same settings. Use the average score and consider min/1% lows for experience-relevant metrics.
- Record everything
- Save Heaven’s score files/screenshots and the monitoring logs. Note driver version, GPU BIOS, power plan, ambient temp, and any other system changes.
Interpreting results: what matters
- Average FPS and Score: good for headline comparisons. Use the score for cross-resolution comparisons only when the same test settings are used.
- 1% lows and 0.1% lows: indicate micro-stutter and frame-time spikes; more relevant for perceived smoothness than avg FPS.
- Min FPS: important for worst-case behavior but can be outlier-sensitive.
- Frame time consistency: plot frame times if you can. A steady 60 FPS with even frame times feels smoother than a variable frame rate averaging 60 FPS.
- Temperatures and frequency behavior: if clocks drop under load, you’re likely thermal- or power-limited. Correlate dips in FPS with clock/temperature logs.
- Power draw: useful to understand efficiency; two GPUs with similar FPS but different power indicate efficiency differences.
Comparing GPUs and systems
- Keep everything identical except the component being tested (same driver, background processes, power plan, and test sequence).
- Compare multiple resolutions to show scaling behavior.
- For laptop testing, test both plugged-in and battery modes (battery usually reduces clocks).
- Use percentage difference for clarity. Example:
- GPU A average FPS = 120, GPU B average FPS = 100 → GPU A is 20% faster.
(If you want, I can create a small spreadsheet template to calculate percent differences and normalize scores.)
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
- Single run conclusions: always run multiple loops.
- Running in borderless windowed mode: can cause inconsistent frame timing.
- Overlays and recording software: disable or account for their overhead.
- Comparing across driver versions: drivers can change performance; note versions.
- Not monitoring thermals: without temp/clock logs you can’t explain behavior.
Advanced tips
- Use command-line options (where available) to automate repeated runs and collect results programmatically.
- For long-term stability tests, run Heaven in a continuous loop for 30–60 minutes and monitor clock/thermal behavior.
- Combine Heaven with other benchmarks (e.g., 3DMark, real-game benchmarks) to create a fuller performance profile.
- When overclocking, test stepwise: small core/memory steps followed by Heaven runs to check stability and gains.
Sample test log template (concise)
- GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4080
- Driver: 560.89
- Power Plan: Windows High Performance
- Resolution: 2560×1440
- API: DirectX 11
- Quality: Ultra, Tessellation: Extreme, 4× MSAA
- Runs: 4 (discard first warm-up)
- Avg FPS: 142.3; 1% lows: 98.1; Min FPS: 65; Score: 3,210
- Peak Temp: 78°C; Peak Power: 340 W
Conclusion
Accurate Heaven Benchmark results come from consistent preparation, controlled settings, proper monitoring, and multiple runs. Focus not only on average FPS or score, but on 1% lows, frame-time consistency, and thermal/clock behavior to understand how a GPU will perform in real games. Follow the steps above and you’ll produce repeatable, meaningful results you can compare confidently.
If you want, tell me your system specs and target resolution and I’ll suggest exact Heaven settings and a testing sequence.
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