Before...and After

swimtech · Sep 4, 2004, 08:50 PM

I find myself in the wonderful situation where I am going to be upgrading my video card soon (I am stoked!) but it might be nice to gather fruitful information during the process...

So that all may know for reference, I want to bench my present setup - with the 183/183 DDR 7500 I have now and compare the result to what I get after I upgrade.

I'm asking y'all what free programs I should use to bench with, and what the results of the programs really show...

As a for instance...
3DMark 2001 is more of a system benchmark compared to 3DMark 2003, which is much more GPU oriented...

I'm sure tons of folks read that read this forum without ever posting will benefit from the results - as well as all the regulars here.

Judas · Sep 4, 2004, 09:58 PM

GL Excess is a nice openGL benchmark similare to that of 3dmark....

~~HawK~~ · Sep 4, 2004, 10:02 PM

some idea's:
If you have S.Sam se: you can use the inbuilt b.mark, console -> dem_bprofile=1
further I always use the PVR D3D & OGL Villagemark's for they are not (much) CPU dependent http://www.pvrdev.com/pub/PC/extra/index.htm to see how much I gained with a new card (or not) example 9700 avg.143fps, 9800pro avg.195, PVR's Fablemark is a nice stencil B.mark 9800pro avg.80fps.

shadermark will also be an indicator on how much you won.. eh gained

No_Style · Sep 5, 2004, 05:16 AM

Read my FAQ. It's still an early revision, but still valuable

It's a sticky too

~~HawK~~ · Sep 5, 2004, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No_Style

Read my FAQ. It's still an early revision, but still valuable

It's a sticky too

It is a nice FAQ,
but Swimtech need AFAIK first to bench a 7000 and don't think he'll get very far with '03, aquamark or other new B.marks IMHO..

Judas · Sep 5, 2004, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawK

It is a nice FAQ,
but Swimtech need AFAIK first to bench a 7000 and don't think he'll get very far with '03, aquamark or other new B.marks IMHO..

Reason i only mentioned GL Excess

No_Style · Sep 5, 2004, 03:53 PM

It's a 7500.. You can bench with 3DMark01. If has UT2K3, he can use the utility as well. Since he does have only a 7500 right now, he should use 3DMark01. You'll see the vast difference right there. The best way to benchmark is still using games though so if you have any games try to bench with them

swimtech · Sep 6, 2004, 06:11 PM

Nice lineup of suggestions guys - I appreciate it.

I didn't even know that SSSE had a bench in it, and I do have both SSSE and UT2K3 (opengl and DX gaming benchies in my hands now - excellent!)

GL Excess looks very interesting, plus being just a gorgeous thing to watch - I'll run it though without audio...

Old standby 3Dmark 2001 will be there, if for no other reason than everyone recognizes it and has likely run it on their machine... I have tried 3D Mark 03 and it just about ran like a slideshow in spots - but it did make it through - think I should include it anyway???

I'll be reading your FAQ No_Style and your link Hawk when I get a bit more time in the next couple days...

Zardon · Sep 6, 2004, 09:45 PM

When the card arrives if you have a digi cam take some pics and let us know how it goes for you !

swimtech · Sep 15, 2004, 03:44 AM

Hey y'all,
Finally got the benchmarks together with the help of all your suggestions above - I really appreciate them guys! Please forgive me in advance for the crude presentation though, I'm a hardware person, not a web/graphics guru - but I'm in the process of learning slowly...

This computer is based upon the KT133A chipset, 100Mhz memory buss, 200Mhz processor buss, 448Mb PC100 SDRam (two of the three sticks are Crucial as a matter of fact), and two 5400 rpm drives (Maxtor and WD). The cards were both tested using the same 4.6 Omegadrive driver, left intact/installed during the upgrade "adventure", which you can read about here:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/hardware-discussion-support/55876-upgrade-adventure-whew.html

The CPU is an Athlon XP 1900 Mobile running at 1.2Ghz

that was magically transformed from a standard Athlon T'bird 1.2Ghz processor during the upgrade - I'll accept it - if it's listed that way in the bios it must be true - right? It seems to be running just fine...

The following results are copied and pasted from the SSSE benchmark, a few description lines added, and spacing changed to make it more readable here:

Demo0002=Elephant Atrium, Demo0001=Valley of the Jaguar

All Demos run at 1024x768, 32bit color, using OpenGL

7500-> dem_bprofile=1
Started playing demo: Demos\auto-demo0002.dem
140.7 KB used for demo profile:
Originally recorded: 7152 frames in 112.1 seconds => 63.8 FPS average.
Without excessive peaks: 6985 frames in 106.8 seconds => 65.4 FPS average.
High peak: 160.9 FPS
Low peak: 37.7 FPS
High sustained: 103.3 FPS (15 frames in 0.1 seconds)
Low sustained: 42.3 FPS (99 frames in 2.3 seconds)
-
stopping game.
Renderer buffers cleared.

9600XT-> dem_bprofile=1
Started playing demo: Demos\auto-demo0002.dem
159.5 KB used for demo profile:
Originally recorded: 8114 frames in 112.1 seconds => 72.4 FPS average.
Without excessive peaks: 7918 frames in 106.2 seconds => 74.6 FPS average.
High peak: 159.4 FPS
Low peak: 40.5 FPS
High sustained: 136.3 FPS (169 frames in 1.2 seconds)
Low sustained: 48.5 FPS (127 frames in 2.6 seconds)
-
stopping game.
Renderer buffers cleared.

7500-> dem_bprofile=1
Started playing demo: Demos\auto-demo0001.dem
105.7 KB used for demo profile:
Originally recorded: 5362 frames in 166.1 seconds => 32.3 FPS average.
Without excessive peaks: 5032 frames in 160.5 seconds => 31.4 FPS average.
High peak: 76.0 FPS
Low peak: 20.5 FPS
High sustained: 60.3 FPS (131 frames in 2.2 seconds)
Low sustained: 22.9 FPS (64 frames in 2.8 seconds)
-
stopping game.

9600XT-> dem_bprofile=1
Started playing demo: Demos\auto-demo0001.dem
133.0 KB used for demo profile:
Originally recorded: 6759 frames in 166.1 seconds => 40.7 FPS average.
Without excessive peaks: 6745 frames in 164.6 seconds => 41.0 FPS average.
High peak: 128.0 FPS
Low peak: 21.8 FPS
High sustained: 90.8 FPS (184 frames in 2.0 seconds)
-
stopping game.
Renderer buffers cleared.

SSSE indicates an overall improvement of about 30% according to the sustained frame rates - looks like I'm CPU limited here by the numbers - and admittedly more than I thought I would be. After thinking about this I remembered that SSSE senses the card, and likely changed the default quality settings for the 9600xt from what they were for the 7500 - I forgot to check (see why in the "adventure" link above) -oops! Onward...

3DMark 2001se (Build 330) - run at 1024x768, 32bit color, no AA

7500 183Mhz core/183Mhz DDR 64Mb = 3148
9600xt 500Mhz core/300Mhz DDR 128Mb = 7299
A doubling! That's more like what I was anticipating. In another thread I posted that I thought I would get a 200% increase - I really meant a doubling there, really (Nacht, please believe me...).

GLExcess:

[color=white]AMD based | AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1900 | 1202@1203 MHz | 448 MB RAM | Windows XP | ATi | RADEON 9600 XT x86/MMX/3DNow!/SSE
7500_183
[/color][color=#ffffff]6885[/color][color=#ffffff] - [/color][color=#ffffff]1024x768
32bpp
9/12/2004

[/color]
[color=white]AMD based | AMD Athlon(tm) Processor | 1202@1203 MHz | 448 MB RAM | Windows XP | ATi | RADEON 7500 DDR x86/MMX/3DNow!
7500_183
[/color][color=#ffffff]2890[/color][color=#ffffff] - [/color][color=#ffffff]1024x768
32bpp
9/11/2004[/color]

More than double! In OpenGL! I like it! This card simply blows away what I had before, and looks better doing it...

That's all I have for now. I'm going to try 3DMark 2003 and Aquamark, and UT2003 (for a DX game) and post those in the next several days...

Edit: The GLExcess results are heavily edited for readability, but the results under the 7500_183 project name are accurate...

jsx[ifl] · Sep 15, 2004, 04:00 AM

!

im glad you love the card dude, nice results with the benchies...doubling up

swimtech · Sep 18, 2004, 02:27 AM

Result for 3DMark03 - 3359.

It ain't Vampy's new 64 rig (nice article there Vampyromaniac!), but it looked good and ran pretty well.

~~HawK~~ · Sep 18, 2004, 10:04 AM

Nice scores, did expected a doubling speed in most B.marks..,
but most important gain is.. the games are better looking and runnin smoother

digitalwanderer · Sep 18, 2004, 05:43 PM

The big thing going from a 7500 to 9600XT would also be AA & AF, you can actually use them with the 9600. 8)

How is the visual difference for ya?

swimtech · Sep 18, 2004, 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawK

Nice scores, did expected a doubling speed in most B.marks..,
but most important gain is.. the games are better looking and runnin smoother

Amen, and a virtual world of a difference... Like having a new 'puter!

Just finished Aquamark 3, score - 19,133, and boy was it gorgeous (1024x768, 32bit color, quality set to very high, AF set to 4x). Most FPS between 17 and 22 in the various stages. The massive overdraw stage sucked her down to about half that frame rate though...

The visual difference between the 7500 and 9600xt in all the 3D stuff I've looked at (quickly...) so far is actually rather small, however some things are noticeable - primary differences are in the realism of the lighting effects upon objects, movement of small objects, and crispness (and "depth") of textures. It stands to reason, my opinion, that the 7500 gave me 90% of the visual quality that the 9600xt gives me and I'm just not used to seeing the remaining 10% - but I do notice it looks better - like clearing a light fog off a window...

The difference in speed though is make or break - I can now run all the programs I can get my hands on at least ok (I get Maximum PC with the disk - so I can check some of the latest demos) whereas I just couldn't with the 7500. Several demos of late refused to install with the 7500 in the machine.

Judas · Sep 18, 2004, 09:14 PM

most excellent....i know i'd be pleased!

Sandok · Sep 18, 2004, 09:31 PM

Reminds me of my jump from my voodoo 3 to my 9800 Pro

Son_of_Thunder · Sep 19, 2004, 06:20 AM

lol, nice increases

one of my friends is a big NWN player (he's 56k, so nwn is one of the only games he can play online) he went from a 32mb ATi card (i don't even know what it was) to a 9800pro. he was ecstatic! his big declaration was "it's in 3d now!! it's not all flat and washed out anymore! and metal shines!"

the biggest jump i made was from my 32mb geforce2 to my 128MB 128b sapphire radeon 9000 (RIP friend)

i went from 30 fps in SoF2 to 115

Vampyromaniac · Sep 20, 2004, 09:19 AM

You've gone through quite an upgrade, my friend. Glad you're enjoying your fast new card.

Judas · Sep 21, 2004, 02:05 AM

i think the biggest jump i ever went through was from a 512kb virge 2d only 800x600 16bit max desktop res..... to a 16mb Creative Labs 3D Blaster Banshee...

and probably from the voodoo 3 3000 to the Hercules 4500 (kyro 2)

Sep 4, 2004, 08:50 PM	#1
swimtech HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: North Carolina Posts: 4,040 Rep Power: 124 System Specs	Before...and After I find myself in the wonderful situation where I am going to be upgrading my video card soon (I am stoked!) but it might be nice to gather fruitful information during the process... So that all may know for reference, I want to bench my present setup - with the 183/183 DDR 7500 I have now and compare the result to what I get after I upgrade. I'm asking y'all what free programs I should use to bench with, and what the results of the programs really show... As a for instance... 3DMark 2001 is more of a system benchmark compared to 3DMark 2003, which is much more GPU oriented... I'm sure tons of folks read that read this forum without ever posting will benefit from the results - as well as all the regulars here. __________________ It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

Sep 5, 2004, 05:16 AM	#4
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	Read my FAQ. It's still an early revision, but still valuable It's a sticky too __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here

Sep 5, 2004, 03:53 PM	#7
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	It's a 7500.. You can bench with 3DMark01. If has UT2K3, he can use the utility as well. Since he does have only a 7500 right now, he should use 3DMark01. You'll see the vast difference right there. The best way to benchmark is still using games though so if you have any games try to bench with them __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here

Sep 6, 2004, 06:11 PM	Thread Starter #8
swimtech HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: North Carolina Posts: 4,040 Rep Power: 124 System Specs	Nice lineup of suggestions guys - I appreciate it. I didn't even know that SSSE had a bench in it, and I do have both SSSE and UT2K3 (opengl and DX gaming benchies in my hands now - excellent!) GL Excess looks very interesting, plus being just a gorgeous thing to watch - I'll run it though without audio... Old standby 3Dmark 2001 will be there, if for no other reason than everyone recognizes it and has likely run it on their machine... I have tried 3D Mark 03 and it just about ran like a slideshow in spots - but it did make it through - think I should include it anyway??? I'll be reading your FAQ No_Style and your link Hawk when I get a bit more time in the next couple days... __________________ It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

Sep 15, 2004, 03:44 AM	Thread Starter #10
swimtech HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: North Carolina Posts: 4,040 Rep Power: 124 System Specs	Hey y'all, Finally got the benchmarks together with the help of all your suggestions above - I really appreciate them guys! Please forgive me in advance for the crude presentation though, I'm a hardware person, not a web/graphics guru - but I'm in the process of learning slowly... This computer is based upon the KT133A chipset, 100Mhz memory buss, 200Mhz processor buss, 448Mb PC100 SDRam (two of the three sticks are Crucial as a matter of fact), and two 5400 rpm drives (Maxtor and WD). The cards were both tested using the same 4.6 Omegadrive driver, left intact/installed during the upgrade "adventure", which you can read about here: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/hardware-discussion-support/55876-upgrade-adventure-whew.html The CPU is an Athlon XP 1900 Mobile running at 1.2Ghz that was magically transformed from a standard Athlon T'bird 1.2Ghz processor during the upgrade - I'll accept it - if it's listed that way in the bios it must be true - right? It seems to be running just fine... The following results are copied and pasted from the SSSE benchmark, a few description lines added, and spacing changed to make it more readable here: Demo0002=Elephant Atrium, Demo0001=Valley of the Jaguar All Demos run at 1024x768, 32bit color, using OpenGL 7500-> dem_bprofile=1 Started playing demo: Demos\auto-demo0002.dem 140.7 KB used for demo profile: Originally recorded: 7152 frames in 112.1 seconds => 63.8 FPS average. Without excessive peaks: 6985 frames in 106.8 seconds => 65.4 FPS average. High peak: 160.9 FPS Low peak: 37.7 FPS High sustained: 103.3 FPS (15 frames in 0.1 seconds) Low sustained: 42.3 FPS (99 frames in 2.3 seconds) - stopping game. Renderer buffers cleared. 9600XT-> dem_bprofile=1 Started playing demo: Demos\auto-demo0002.dem 159.5 KB used for demo profile: Originally recorded: 8114 frames in 112.1 seconds => 72.4 FPS average. Without excessive peaks: 7918 frames in 106.2 seconds => 74.6 FPS average. High peak: 159.4 FPS Low peak: 40.5 FPS High sustained: 136.3 FPS (169 frames in 1.2 seconds) Low sustained: 48.5 FPS (127 frames in 2.6 seconds) - stopping game. Renderer buffers cleared. 7500-> dem_bprofile=1 Started playing demo: Demos\auto-demo0001.dem 105.7 KB used for demo profile: Originally recorded: 5362 frames in 166.1 seconds => 32.3 FPS average. Without excessive peaks: 5032 frames in 160.5 seconds => 31.4 FPS average. High peak: 76.0 FPS Low peak: 20.5 FPS High sustained: 60.3 FPS (131 frames in 2.2 seconds) Low sustained: 22.9 FPS (64 frames in 2.8 seconds) - stopping game. 9600XT-> dem_bprofile=1 Started playing demo: Demos\auto-demo0001.dem 133.0 KB used for demo profile: Originally recorded: 6759 frames in 166.1 seconds => 40.7 FPS average. Without excessive peaks: 6745 frames in 164.6 seconds => 41.0 FPS average. High peak: 128.0 FPS Low peak: 21.8 FPS High sustained: 90.8 FPS (184 frames in 2.0 seconds) - stopping game. Renderer buffers cleared. SSSE indicates an overall improvement of about 30% according to the sustained frame rates - looks like I'm CPU limited here by the numbers - and admittedly more than I thought I would be. After thinking about this I remembered that SSSE senses the card, and likely changed the default quality settings for the 9600xt from what they were for the 7500 - I forgot to check (see why in the "adventure" link above) -oops! Onward... 3DMark 2001se (Build 330) - run at 1024x768, 32bit color, no AA 7500 183Mhz core/183Mhz DDR 64Mb = 3148 9600xt 500Mhz core/300Mhz DDR 128Mb = 7299 A doubling! That's more like what I was anticipating. In another thread I posted that I thought I would get a 200% increase - I really meant a doubling there, really (Nacht, please believe me...). GLExcess: [color=white]AMD based \| AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1900 \| 1202@1203 MHz \| 448 MB RAM \| Windows XP \| ATi \| RADEON 9600 XT x86/MMX/3DNow!/SSE 7500_183 [/color][color=#ffffff]6885[/color][color=#ffffff] - [/color][color=#ffffff]1024x768 32bpp 9/12/2004 [/color] [color=white]AMD based \| AMD Athlon(tm) Processor \| 1202@1203 MHz \| 448 MB RAM \| Windows XP \| ATi \| RADEON 7500 DDR x86/MMX/3DNow! 7500_183 [/color][color=#ffffff]2890[/color][color=#ffffff] - [/color][color=#ffffff]1024x768 32bpp 9/11/2004[/color] More than double! In OpenGL! I like it! This card simply blows away what I had before, and looks better doing it... That's all I have for now. I'm going to try 3DMark 2003 and Aquamark, and UT2003 (for a DX game) and post those in the next several days... Edit: The GLExcess results are heavily edited for readability, but the results under the 7500_183 project name are accurate... __________________ It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it. Last edited by swimtech; Sep 15, 2004 at 03:55 AM.

Sep 4, 2004, 10:02 PM	#3
~~HawK~~ Banned Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 2,092 Rep Power: 0	some idea's: If you have S.Sam se: you can use the inbuilt b.mark, console -> dem_bprofile=1 further I always use the PVR D3D & OGL Villagemark's for they are not (much) CPU dependent http://www.pvrdev.com/pub/PC/extra/index.htm to see how much I gained with a new card (or not) example 9700 avg.143fps, 9800pro avg.195, PVR's Fablemark is a nice stencil B.mark 9800pro avg.80fps. shadermark will also be an indicator on how much you won.. eh gained

Sep 6, 2004, 09:45 PM	#9
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	When the card arrives if you have a digi cam take some pics and let us know how it goes for you !

Sep 15, 2004, 04:00 AM	#11
jsx[ifl] DH's Unofficial Hero Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Montreal Posts: 650 Rep Power: 0	! im glad you love the card dude, nice results with the benchies...doubling up __________________ [color=Gray][color=DarkRed][color=Gray][color=DarkRed][color=Gray][color=DarkRed][color=Gray][color=DarkRed][color=Gray][color=DarkRed][color=Gray][color=DarkRed][color=Gray] [/color][/color] [/color][/color][/color][/color][/color][/color][/color][/color][/color][/color][/color]

Sep 18, 2004, 02:27 AM	Thread Starter #12
swimtech HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: North Carolina Posts: 4,040 Rep Power: 124 System Specs	Result for 3DMark03 - 3359. It ain't Vampy's new 64 rig (nice article there Vampyromaniac!), but it looked good and ran pretty well. __________________ It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

Sep 18, 2004, 10:04 AM	#13
~~HawK~~ Banned Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 2,092 Rep Power: 0	Nice scores, did expected a doubling speed in most B.marks.., but most important gain is.. the games are better looking and runnin smoother

Sep 18, 2004, 05:43 PM	#14
digitalwanderer Colour Commentator Join Date: May 2002 Location: Highland, IN USA Posts: 5,619 Rep Power: 0	The big thing going from a 7500 to 9600XT would also be AA & AF, you can actually use them with the 9600. 8) How is the visual difference for ya? __________________ WTF is up with the sigs?

Sep 18, 2004, 09:31 PM	#17
Sandok DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 9,472 Rep Power: 0	Reminds me of my jump from my voodoo 3 to my 9800 Pro

Sep 19, 2004, 06:20 AM	#18
Son_of_Thunder HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Kalamazoo, MI Posts: 1,441 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	lol, nice increases one of my friends is a big NWN player (he's 56k, so nwn is one of the only games he can play online) he went from a 32mb ATi card (i don't even know what it was) to a 9800pro. he was ecstatic! his big declaration was "it's in 3d now!! it's not all flat and washed out anymore! and metal shines!" the biggest jump i made was from my 32mb geforce2 to my 128MB 128b sapphire radeon 9000 (RIP friend) i went from 30 fps in SoF2 to 115 __________________

Sep 20, 2004, 09:19 AM	#19
Vampyromaniac confutatis maledictis Join Date: May 2002 Location: somewhere dark Posts: 5,974 Rep Power: 77 System Specs	You've gone through quite an upgrade, my friend. Glad you're enjoying your fast new card. __________________ *Digitalis 3.3* Athlon 64 3000 // ASUS K8V SE Deluxe // 1024MB PC3200 (2-2-2-10 1T) ATI All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro // 20" Dell 2005FPW (DVI) M-Audio Revo 7.1 + Philips Acoustic Edge // Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 320/16 Western Digital WD3200KS + 120/8 Seagate 7200.7 NEC ND-3550A 16x DVD±RW + Lite-On 52x24x CD-RW Antec Sonata case // 480W Antec TruePower personal bests \|\| Aq'3: 46796 \| 3D'01: 20461 \| 3D'03: 6336 \| 3D'05: 2677 \| PC'04: 4605 \| PC'02: 7691,9092,1250