Catzilla 4K - Advanced Reviews

Lots of bug, errors in registration. Blank pages with no error, no messages. A beta, uncompleted, bugged software, with a lot of adv banner on their site, we have to pay. ?! Are you joking? This crap should be deleted from Steam.

Catzilla is no longer updated or supported. Support requests go unanswered and developers no longer reply to emails. Their website forums are littered with advertisement spam as they no longer monitor their forums. Various webpage links are broken as well.

Purchased this in part for the benchmark, but mainly for the innovative "recommendations" feature to see if they had any suggestion that I had perhaps skipped regarding the next upgrade. Program suggested I change my 980ti for a 970..and that I change my i7 3770 for an i5 4570. This just plain does not work. Moreover, the program asked me to register through their own website or Google/Facebook with a weird "code" that I could never. After creating an account on their website, I couldn't log in either. I like to help smaller studios/developers with their new software, but sadly, I do not recommend this one. At least, not now.

Worthless sorry gamers .i got the impression this was to look at my system and tell me where my week spots was and make sugestion to up date my system .when i finnshed with there scan it would not tell me about my hardware with out paying more for a update . was a good system but was misledding . im an old man that just likes to play games !!!! and with no way to trouble shoot why games wont start or crashes out any more seems like they walk away from you after you buy there games.----sorry im not a geek just a gamer who likes to play and have fun-- smartbombbradie if theres a way i can give you this i will just tell me how ? and you might be able to tell every one about it . thank you guys from the weedcutter

EDIT! The catzilla team heard our pleas and complaints. its a whole lot better giving us the advanced version. Have to do it from their website but still, much better. tests just as good as Future Mark. The recommendations it makes a extremely valuable in creating a better system. All in all, they made it worth my money ^^

Sadly, it doesn't work as it needs to. Despite having a secondary card slaved to PhysX only, this benchmark seems to only want to use this card for any tests. In order to get a test on my actual card, I have to uninstall/disable my secondary card in the system for the benchmark to ignore it. The benchmark is short, and while funny to watch, doesn't seem to really stress hardware as much as it should. Sorry to say, but you're better off with 3DMark.

MAJOR UPDATE TO THIS REVIEW! CHANGING FROM NOT RECCOMENDED TO RECCOMENDED. PLEASE READ THE NEW UPDATE FOR 23/03/2014. UPDATE 23/03/2014: Catzilla has apparently listened to the negative feedback and fixed pretty well everything I had an issue with. They've : - improved their description to show exactly what you're getting - upgraded what you actually get for your $15 - changed their product base from a subscription service to one-time purchase - updated the software to fix bugs I can now say that I'm happy that I spent $15 on a piece of good benchmarking software. Now you get pretty much everything you could ask for from this product for $15. A consistent overall benchmark that seems to allow a good comparison between machines. Some nice features like being able to save all test scores to disk for later use, or being able to upload all your test scores to an online profile where you can compare against other users on the leaderboards. I will leave the old version of the review below, but please note that the old review no longer reflects anything of the new updated version. EVERYTHING UNDER THIS LINE IS OLD AND NO LONGER APPLIES TO THIS PRODUCT. I AM ONLY KEEPING IT HERE AS A BIT OF HISTORY TO MAKE OLDER COMMENTS MAKE SENSE. [strike]I wish I had realized that this is basically the "free" version of Catzilla (mentioned nowhere in the description) that you can download from their website at no charge. In order to actually get any real features, you have to sign up for a damn subscription (again mentioned nowhere in the description). UPDATE: I didn't notice before but as another reviewer pointed out, it does allow you to run all the tests (vs just up to 720p like the free version), but that's the only difference between this and the free version that I've been able to see so far.[/strike]

NOTICE: This review was written THE DAY OF CATZILLA'S LAUNCH and does not reflect the most recent updates that have been implemented. Wow do I regret buying this. The Steam version of this application doesn't seem to line up with any of the paid versions you can get through AllBenchmark. It doesn't seem to want to play ball with their online score recording at all. It wont save historic scores, you can't upload scores to your website, you can't push your scores to facebook, you can't even save your score and go back to it later. Once you close the application the scores get wiped. And the syndicated sign-on part of things is just horrible. The amount of times I've tried to log into their website using Facebook sign on and the browser just ends up in a redirect loop. It's a horrible experience. I regret buying this, I want my money back, steer clear...

I've built rigs for the 25 years since I was 12. They're usually very high end rigs, where phenomenal performance [i]and[/i] reliability are vital. My tool-set changes and expands with the landscape. On Windows, some of my favorite utilities remain the following, offered for informative purposes: + SpeedFan + CPU-Z + GPU-Z + memtest + RealTemp + [url=http://www.ocbase.com]OCCT[/url] These are robust and [i]free[/i]. They focus on hardware monitoring, testing, benchmarking, and burn-in. I prefer pegging-out my CPU, RAM, GPU, and PSU for at least 24h before any overclocking or tweaking. Once I'm happy with a configuration, I then burn-in for as many days as patience allows. If something's going to die, I want to know while I can easily RMA it. Modern GPU manufacturers also distribute good utilities with their hardware. [b]----[/b] Utilities like Catzilla and 3DMARK (an established alternative I'll discuss alongside Catzilla) provide benchmarks geared toward replicating possible realistic gaming usage rather than stressing and killing your system. Catzilla performs a similar set of complex graphical scene tests as others in this field and provides you an overall score with a breakdown of test elements at the end and an option to submit to an online database for comparison to the wider testing population. It also seems to use the same score calculations. The numbers come in similar to tests on other suites and at the same "better than 90%" placement that other suites give this 2.5yr old system. Core functionality, therefore, seems on-par with competitors. It is everything wrapped around that core which erodes my interest. [b]----[/b] Launching Catzilla hung my system and reduced the GUI to low-memory mode for the [i]two minute[/i] load time. Competing products launch instantly. Once launched, the first thing I noticed was that they used resolution terminology that put me off, because it comes across as inexperienced. They provide only the vertical number, followed by a "p". It may seem pedantic, but when referencing display resolutions in the world of PCs, you provide both horizontal and vertical measurement (1920x1200). We do this, because there are many aspect ratios (5:4, 4:3, 16:9, 16:10, 21:9). Providing a single number omits vital info that can impact calculations like estimated performance or configuration. You can't assume 1080 vertical means anything, because horizontal could be 1920 at 16:9, but 2560 at 21:9. You can't assume 2560 horizontal means anything, because at 16:9 vertical would be 1440, but 1600 at 16:10. This terminology is acceptable for TVs, because they're standardized at 16:9. While prevalence of 16:9 TVs made it common with computers (manufacturers would rather produce one ratio than reconfigure plants for multiple), you can't count in this being the case. We also don't add [b][i]p[/i][/b] to the resolution. It stands for [i]progressive scan[/i] (as opposed to [i]interlaced[/i]), which every monitor inherently is, so there's no point going out of our way to redundantly state this. This is accepted in TVs, because some TVs only do interlaced at certain resolutions and some content is only progressive or interlaced and some hardware (like last gen consoles) only deliver an interlaced signal, in some cases. I can accept someone coming from the console world, with little PC experience, or simply caught up in the habit of using TV-specific terminology may discuss resolutions in this way, but it leaves me with a negative impression from a [i]professional software developer[/i] putting out PC software to test PC displays for PC rigs. 3DMARK and other suites give full resolution detail when referenced and uses accurate terminology. [b]----[/b] The second negative impression came with trying to customize a test for my system. The default tests run at 576 (oops, "576p"!), 720, 1080, and 1440. All 16:9 ratios. I have a 16:10 display and I want a benchmark that is representative of what I'm going to have when I'm gaming at 16:10 at a native resolution. Unfortunately, you can't. Even "custom" configuration does not allow you to choose anything but those four resolutions. All you can customize are options like multi-threading. A developer confirms in their forums that there is no way to customize resolution and this will never change. Presumably, this is to standardize certain parameters for comparison of your benchmark against others in the database. Fine. I still want the option to perform my own benchmark under my own conditions and parameters so that I can compare my system against itself after performance tuning. These four resolutions make for a constrained testing environment. 3DMARK and other suites allow full configuration of these options and even uploading them to their database for comparisons. [b]----[/b] I was disappointed that the touted Hardware recommendation feature/tab never worked. It had zero results and kept saying that I needed to run a full test. This was supposed to be a feature which links you to advised hardware upgrades. [b]----[/b] Another problem you will encounter is navigating their site. A dark and "edgy" interface which looks more at home as the official Call of Duty site. It isn't enjoyable to use. In fact, it can be confusing. One button pulls up a set of information, but it seems broken, until you realize the data has been displayed a couple screens downward, without any evident notification. Also, one expects the "compare to other users" button to match your results against the database, until much frustration ultimately reveals it only compares you against one user that you must provide a name for. Comparison against the whole population requires going back to the application and selecting "show all" under the Top 10 users list, which launches your browser and takes you to the database. [b]----[/b] Worse, you have to register an account and link it to your application. An overly complex process involving multiple long codes, contradictory sets of instructions, and numerous failed attempts. I ultimately had to rely on a user in the forums who found another guy's steps listed somewhere. Even these did not help; but they guided me in the right direction. This should be a simple matter of "application gives me a code, I go to website and enter code on my profile". Some parts of the process even take you to dead URLs with error messages. My final complaint is that when you exit the program, Steam thinks it is still running. I am unable to identify this application running in the process table, but Steam will not close, because of it. You can not launch Catzilla again, either, until you reboot your computer. [b]----[/b] Ultimately, Catzilla is serviceable. It has received some press in the last year, but it's usually around how quirky the superfluous test video is. Dismissing that; focusing on what is actually provided, it does what other packages do, but in a less polished way with fewer customization options. I still prefer 3DMARK, which I mention in this review because of its popularity, my familiarity, and its availability on Steam. While $10 USD more, it's more robust, less glitchy, has a pleasing interface, allows more customization and control, and has an established history and reputation. It is also frequently updated and offers a wider variety of specialized tests for everything from a tablet, notebook, and laptop to an extreme gaming rig. Even better, wait until 3DMARK is on sale. I've seen it 90% off ($2.50) in the last week of 2013. While waiting for a sale, use the free version (or free version of another suite). But keep an eye on Catzilla. I love competition and hope they continue to refine this. I hope it evolves into a robust utility giving competitors a run for their money. I just don't see the current iteration being part of my tool-set at the current price.

When this game first came out it was an appaling mess. The website didn't work with the software, and the subscription model didn't line up with the Steam release. This has all since changed. Things now work (although they aren't exactly streamlined). But the software does now do what it is intended to do. It's a benchmark, designed for people who want to test what their system is capable of. And it does exactly that, runs a graphically intensive scenario and delivers a score on how well the system performs. And this version now lets you save that data online, and the developers are engaging the community in improving things. To that end I'm changing my review to positive, there is no reason for it to be negative now.