wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton's method for estimating functions, with f(x)=x²-k, where k is the number we're sqrting, until Sgn(f(x)/f'(x)) does not equal that of the previous iteration, starting with an estimation of k/2. It then uses an iterative calling of the estimation method a set amount of times to increase the accuracy of the results. It then confirms that n(k)²=k to ensure the calculation was correct. It repeats this for all numbers from 1 to the requested maximum. (learn more)

It's been 5 years since we released wPrime and since then there hasn't been as much as a peep in regards to new software released. Since 1999 we've been working on a similar game to Ambrosia SW's Escape Velocity - one on the Windows platform and set in the Star Trek universe.

Since then there have been a number of similar games, such as Ambrosia SW's EV Nova and Microsoft's Freelancer, but we're finally getting some headway on our own and expect it to be released to be within Q2 2011.

Here are some youtube previews:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KKwKmYcJoo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=567TICWS13g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDFAjD-28w0

I've received a number of e-mails over the years asking about the message 'Cheat Detected' in the console. wPrime has a number of rudimentary detection methods for detecting various cheats. They are easily beaten if you know how they work so I can't explain them but one of them can be triggered into a false positive by running the test just before midnight so you might want to avoid this.

When I designed it, I figured that most overclockers will be running the test after a fresh CMOS clear so it wouldn't have been an issue; but I guess today there are ways of booting up a system that's been overclocked beyond capacity without reseting the internal clock.

We've just found that wPrime is indeed hanging on certain systems (confirmed on a fresh install of Windows Vista). It appears as though Vista would assign a different temporary directory to wPrime from CPUz (probably because wPrime was run as Admin). Consequently wPrime never found the CPUz output file and waited.

We've corrected this in version 2.03. Please run in compatibility mode in 64 bit OS and as Administrator on Windows Vista or 7.