Do these G400 Max benchmarks sound reasonable?

[Engr62]

This may not get very much of a response with all of the Parhelia excitement (or dissappointment as as the case may be), but I was trying to benchmark my G400 Max to see if my setup is running properly. Here is my system:

P3 933 Mhz
Asus P3V4X MB (Via Apollo Pro 133A chipset), VIA 4-in-1 v. 4.32
256 Mb Generic PC133 RAM (2-128 Mb sticks, Cas3)
Maxtor 15 Gb 5400 RPM hard drive
Matrox G400 Max (drivers=6.82)
Windows 98SE, DirectX 8

In the advanced display settings for the G400 Max, I set it to use the 32-bit z-buffer for 32-bit colors (I think that was the setting I changed).

Here are the benchmarks:

Quake 3 Test 1.11, Demo001 (all details maxed except I used bilinear filtering instead of trilinear filtering):

640x480x16 = 94.6 fps
640x480x32 = 67.4 fps
800x600x16 = 67.9 fps
800x600x32 = 46.5 fps
1024x768x16 = 43.9 fps
1024x768x32 = 29.0 fps
1280x1024x16 = 27.4 fps
1280x1024x32 = 17.1 fps
1600x1200x16 = 19.1 fps
1600x1200x32 = 11.0 fps

3DMark 2000 (defaults except for the resolution and color depth changes):

640x480x16 = 4950
640x480x32 = 4575
800x600x16 = 4410
800x600x32 = 3688
1024x768x16 = 3377
1024x768x32 = 2461

I know that the VIA AGP interface on my MB is not the greatest. I have seen other benchmarks (on AnandTech) that showed the G400 Max with the TurboGL drivers getting 80 fps at 800x600x16 on a 600 MHz P3 (I'm only getting 68 fps at this resolution and color depth). Is my VIA chipset that bad, or is there a better set of G400 drivers for my setup?

[Kruzin]

Moved to the Benchmarks forum.

[Reckless]

Not sure where but I had read that after a certain driver release Matrox 'suggested' dropping the TurboGL ones? However, I seem to remember (when I was on Win98) that the TGL's were still a tad quicker.

I've got no comparison scores but my 3D Mark 2001 SE score was 1482 - 1024*768x32 (http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=3479364)

I don't think your FPS values look 'too' shabby!

[Engr62]

Reckless, thanks for the reply.

Does anyone know if the TurboGL drivers are still part of the 6.82 driver set? If they are not, what version last had the TurboGL drivers and where could I find them?

[Kruzin]

They where never a part of the drivers.
They where a separate download, and should still be in Matrox's "Previous Drivers" section on their web site.
TGL is not supported on any version of Powerdesk above 6.0 for Win9x.
It was only for win9x, not 2000 or XP.
It was dropped because most of the optimizations that made it fast where eventually incorperated into the PD6 drivers.

[Jon P. Inghram]

With a G400 MAX @ stock 150/200 and AGP 2x, 6.82 drivers, Win98, Asus TUSL2-C, Celeron Tualatin 1.2 @ 1.32/110 FSB, 512 MB ram at CAS2...

1024x768x16

3DMark Score 3487 3D marks
CPU Speed 339 CPU 3D marks

Game 1 - Helicopter - Low Detail 67.1 FPS
Game 1 - Helicopter - Medium Detail 48.0 FPS
Game 1 - Helicopter - High Detail 21.2 FPS
Game 2 - Adventure - Low Detail 59.6 FPS
Game 2 - Adventure - Medium Detail 53.7 FPS
Game 2 - Adventure - High Detail 40.9 FPS

Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 269.4 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 268.0 MTexels/s

High Polygon Count (1 Light) 3.5 MTriangels/s
High Polygon Count (4 Lights) 3.2 MTriangels/s
High Polygon Count (8 Lights) 3.0 MTriangels/s

8MB Texture Rendering Speed 223.3 FPS
16MB Texture Rendering Speed 215.6 FPS
32MB Texture Rendering Speed 166.5 FPS
64MB Texture Rendering Speed No OGG encoder

Bump Mapping (Emboss 3-pass) 98.0 FPS
Bump Mapping (Emboss 2-pass) 125.5 FPS
Bump Mapping (Emboss 1-pass) 224.5 FPS
Bump Mapping (Environment) 97.7 FPS

640x480x16

3DMark Score 5691 3D marks
CPU Speed 335 CPU 3D marks

Game 1 - Helicopter - Low Detail 116.3 FPS
Game 1 - Helicopter - Medium Detail 75.5 FPS
Game 1 - Helicopter - High Detail 30.9 FPS
Game 2 - Adventure - Low Detail 132.0 FPS
Game 2 - Adventure - Medium Detail 75.7 FPS
Game 2 - Adventure - High Detail 43.8 FPS

Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 265.2 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 264.2 MTexels/s

High Polygon Count (1 Light) 3.4 MTriangels/s
High Polygon Count (4 Lights) 3.2 MTriangels/s
High Polygon Count (8 Lights) 2.9 MTriangels/s

8MB Texture Rendering Speed 515.0 FPS
16MB Texture Rendering Speed 479.8 FPS
32MB Texture Rendering Speed 317.1 FPS
64MB Texture Rendering Speed No OGG encoder

Bump Mapping (Emboss 3-pass) 201.2 FPS
Bump Mapping (Emboss 2-pass) 266.3 FPS
Bump Mapping (Emboss 1-pass) 498.9 FPS
Bump Mapping (Environment) 225.3 FPS

[Engr62]

Kruzin,

I was assuming that the TurboGL was part of the driver sets based on this quote from an article on AnandTech on the TurboGL drivers:

"The mini-ICD will be integrated in the 5.30 driver that is scheduled for public release..."

So, it was never part of the driver sets? I'll check Matrox's site. Thanks for the info.

[Engr62]

Jon, Thanks for the detailed 3D Mark 2000 scores.

[Joel]

Here another look for you.

With a G400 MAX @ stock 150/200 and AGP 2x, 6.82 drivers, WindowsXP Pro, Asus A7V, AMD 1.2GHz Thunderbird, 192 MB PC100 Ram

1024x768x16

3DMark Score 3323 3D marks
CPU Speed 259 CPU 3D marks

Game 1 - Helicopter - Low Detail 67.4 FPS
Game 1 - Helicopter - Medium Detail 47.4 FPS
Game 1 - Helicopter - High Detail 20.4 FPS
Game 2 - Adventure - Low Detail 60.0 FPS
Game 2 - Adventure - Medium Detail 49.1 FPS
Game 2 - Adventure - High Detail 32.6 FPS

Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 270.5 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 268.1 MTexels/s

High Polygon Count (1 Light) 2793 KTriangels/s
High Polygon Count (4 Lights) 2662 KTriangels/s
High Polygon Count (8 Lights) 2402 KTriangels/s

8MB Texture Rendering Speed 224.2 FPS
16MB Texture Rendering Speed 216.1 FPS
32MB Texture Rendering Speed 167.9 FPS
64MB Texture Rendering Speed Not Enough AGP Memory (I only had it set to 64MB in BIOS)

Bump Mapping (Emboss 3-pass) 99.4 FPS
Bump Mapping (Emboss 2-pass) 126.5 FPS
Bump Mapping (Emboss 1-pass) 225.6 FPS
Bump Mapping (Environment) 100.3 FPS

Joel

[pabst]

Did them a while ago, but .....

G400 @ 150/200 AGP 2x
K7-750 on MSI-K7TPro
Win98SE using 6.21 (??) drivers

Resolution 1024x768 16bit
Z-Buffer Depth 16bit
Frame Buffer Triple
CPU Optimization AMD Athlon(tm)

3DMark Score 3316 3D marks
CPU Speed 238 CPU 3D marks
Game 1 - Helicopter - Low Detail 69.5 FPS
Game 1 - Helicopter - Medium Detail 48.2 FPS
Game 1 - Helicopter - High Detail 21.3 FPS
Game 2 - Adventure - Low Detail 61.8 FPS
Game 2 - Adventure - Medium Detail 46.4 FPS
Game 2 - Adventure - High Detail 29.2 FPS
Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 270.5 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 268.4 MTexels/s
High Polygon Count (1 Light) 3.0 MTriangels/s
High Polygon Count (4 Lights) 2.6 MTriangels/s
High Polygon Count (8 Lights) 2.2 MTriangels/s
8MB Texture Rendering Speed 232.6 FPS
16MB Texture Rendering Speed 226.2 FPS
32MB Texture Rendering Speed 178.5 FPS
64MB Texture Rendering Speed 122.3 FPS
Bump Mapping (Emboss 3-pass) 108.7 FPS
Bump Mapping (Emboss 2-pass) 137.3 FPS
Bump Mapping (Emboss 1-pass) 239.4 FPS
Bump Mapping (Environment) 103.9 FPS

640x480x16=4218
640x480x32=4124
1024x768x32=2577

The Q3 scores look okay, but I haven't played q3 for windows in a while so what do I know. Perhaps the discrepencies are because the reviewers aren't testing with sound enabled? (s_initsound 0 ... I think). If you're really desperate, there's a program called WPCREdit that can help you squeeze out a little more performance out of your motherboard, it takes quite a bit of trial and error and can cause as many problems as it solves, but it does work.

pabst ...patiently waiting for P's linux support.

[Engr62]

Thanks for the 3D Mark 2000 scores guys.

pabst, I forgot to mention in my post that I had sound disabled during the Q3 tests. I've found that most sites aren't the greatest at describing all of the settings they use during testing, so it's really tough to compare.

I've done some research on the Matrox forums and it sounds like I should probably stay away from the TurboGL driver anyway. They only worked with the 5.xx driver sets, and one of the tech people on the forums said that those driver sets didn't work that great with VIA chipsets. Also, the image quality with the TurboGL driver was less than desirable. Supposedly, the OpenGL driver in the 6.xx driver sets was optimised and is as fast as the TurboGL driver. The only numbers I have to compare to are those in the AnandTech article though.