Q3Test2 Benchmarking!! Post your scores!

[howard33]

You bet your ass I count game FPS as useful benchmarks. Not necessarily Pac Man, but real games like Q3 and Half Life. They're a hell of a lot more meaningful than that pile of shit 3DMark 99 crap.

I suppose you think that people whining about their Matrox card not arriving yet is useful?? So he posted his question in a thread that didn't match exactly- big deal. Don't read it if you have a problem with it. If it REALLY gets to you so much that he posted to the wrong thread, then I think you need to buy yourself a life. Either that or just move onto the next message and skip his.

[maxie]

Why should not games be a good performance tester?
If a gfx-card shows very good numbers in 3D MARK and bad fps in popular games, and a another card shows bad in 3D MARK and very good in Games.
Which card is best then? At least I know what I think about that..


------------------
-[MAxie]-
P2/448, 128Pc100, 16 GB IBM HDD, G200, V2, Sb Live!, Eizo T57S 17", MS Gamepad, 4xDVD, Adaptec 2940UW, Ricoh CDRW

[VonKruel]

OK here's my configuration:

ABIT BH-6 mainboard
PII-412 (PII-333 oc'd: 4 * 103)
128MB PC100 SDRAM
G400 MAX
Powerdesk 5.13
32-bit z-buffering enabled
SB Live!

Q3 Test v1.06 graphics configured as "High Quality", only resolution was changed.

Here are my results:

q3testdemo1.dm3 q3testdemo2.dm3
1280x1024: 14.8 20.7
1024x768: 23.9 29.5
800x600: 30.7 34.3
640x480: 32.0 35.7

800x600 is the res. I'm running in for now, since 1024x768 is a little too slow and hardly any fps is gained by going to 640x480. I really think it looks great in 800x600 anyway.

General notes/impressions:

I pre-ordered from the Matrox store on June 2, and got my card on July 14.

In general, I'm really happy with this card. Highlights:

o excellent DVD playback - the divicore player is very good
o image quality is second-to-none
o bump mapping really is cool - the bundled game "Expendable" is graphically *stunning* and shows off the card really well

The dual-head is really great. Currently I'm running a 19" monitor as the 2nd head. The 2nd DAC is lots slower than the main 360MHz RAMDAC, but I can still do:

1280x1024 @ 75Hz (not too bad)
1152x864 @ 85Hz (this is what I chose)
1024x768 @ 85Hz

Anyway I hope I provided a bit of good information here. I think that a PII-400 (which isn't such a hot rod anymore) is good enough to enjoy a G400 -- you'll just have to bump the res. down a notch from what you'd run with a PIII-558 setup. The G400 is a but CPU-hungry with OpenGL games because the ICD needs optimization work.

Worth every penny, and worth the wait!

------------------
"Anyone who is truly interested in self-improvement should not rule out becoming pure energy." -- unknown

[Buuri]

Hmm.. the point about this good direction was that this useless information can be posted to Gaming section.

I'll be soon posting my PacMan benchmark results, if you think that game framerates are counted as benchmarks.


B

[Nuno]

Well, apart from that hardware/gaming problem my G200 overclocked to Pll 200 gives 43.2 fps at the fastest settings and 18.2 fps at a custom setting that I feel playable and doesn´t compromise too much the visual quality (640x480, 32 bit rendering, lightmap, geometry detail full, 16 bit textures, bilinear, texture quality 1 mark below maximum)

Peace - I think this is a valid topic to the hardware forum. Q3test is not yet a game, is little more than a benchmark from a next gen game, so it shows the performance we should expect from both g200/g400. Posting it make so much sense as posting the 3dmark max results or whatever. So fell free to post yours too.

Oh, and Buuri, are you for serious? Games frame rates should not be takem as benchmarks? So what should we be looking for when comparing 3d cards? 3D Winbench? I want to play games with my hardware, so it´s the games frame rate that interest me and prove the card´s real-world performance.


G200 8 Mb, bios 2.3, PD 5.13, celeron 450 A, 96 Mb ram

[This message has been edited by Nuno (edited 07-17-99).]

[This message has been edited by Nuno (edited 07-17-99).]

[MarcelM]

Hi

isn't this a little bit slow?
I mean 4 a MAX?
Thought the OpenGL issue was a gonner with
the arrival of the G400 and esspecialy
on the MAX......
Hmmmmm....

------------------
G400-16MB, Abit BX6 rev2, 96 MB, 6.4 GB Hdd (3x), Pent. II 350 Mhz (3.5 * 112)

[Jake]

Hi again!

Well, I quickly realized after having finally download the Q3Test2 that my venerable G200 would not let me play at 1024*768 in a decent framerate. (I did not expect it to anyway). using the 32-bit z-buffer didn't change much either, except for a dramatic drop in an allready bad framecount.
can somebody please explain to me why there is all this hype about whether or not the z-buffer is at 16 or 32 bit's?? Maybe I'm not looking closely enough, but isn't it supposed to make the background in a 3D enviroment look better?

As it turns out the only playable resolution is 640*480, average detail levels. I got an average of 20 fps in Q3Testdemo1.

I really still hope this is due to the fact that the OGL ICD still needs optimizing.
Or maybe it's because it's still only an alpha version of Q3. I would like to read your comments on this subject, if you have any...

Am I being naive? Will we ever get decent framerates on the G200 in Q3?

Regards,

Jake

[This message has been edited by Jake (edited 07-18-99).]

[LAMFDTK]

VonKruel you and I have the same set-up 'cept the Mobo, I have the Asus P2B But everything is the same. The 5.13 is a dog in Opengl, from what your scores tell me. I beat them all on a TNT1 no overclocking. The 5.xx should kick this sucker into gear. Thanks for the benchmarks. They tell the real out of the box story. Q3 bores the hell out of me. But I like the benchmark as a guide. In a few weeks I should get my G400 32/Dual.

[VonKruel]

Yeah Matrox's OpenGL ICD really needs optimization work. The card itself is very fast though, as benchmarks of Direct3D games show. In OpenGL the card is able to show its stuff a bit better in higher resolutions (e.g. 1280x1024, 1600x1280) because fill rate is of more importance than driver performance. I'm glad they have a *working* ICD though, and I'm looking forward to seeing higher fps in the next few months. Matrox can make *great* drivers once they put some real effort into it, as they appear to have done with OpenGL. However I think it's clear that anyone who wants proven, fast OpenGL performance *now* should get a different card.

------------------
"Anyone who is truly interested in self-improvement should not rule out becoming pure energy." -- unknown

[Himself]

For the sake of comparison:

K6-2 350 w/ tnt 1, 128MB ram.

Numbers listed in increasing res, 640x480, 800,600, 1024,768 q3testdemo1. A3D vortex 1 sound card, yes I tested with sound on.

Using the Q3Tweak set for best performance as a starting point.

48.5
48.2
46.3

Set detail to high.

42.8
42.8
41.3

Use lightmaps instead of vertex.

41.0
41.2
38.0

Up the texture quality a notch, to value 3 from 2 counting from left to right.

41.4
41.6
37.1

Switch to trilinear from bilinear:

41.6
41.2
35.5

Pretty static results I am getting here, seems to be stuck at 40fps across the board, still a PII 450 with a G400 Max should be able to do a lot better.

[Himself]

16 bit modes, naturally.

------------------
"putain qu'est-ce ça rame!!!"

[Jake]

Hi!

Thanks for the replies guys! I must say that even though Q3 is very slow on my system with all details on it looks GREAT! Did they ever design a great chip on the G200! I mean the colours are so vibrant and crispy, you can allmost feel that Q3 rocket launcher shell impact in your face.

If Matrox is able to produce a faster ICD, even our ancient G200 might rock at this game. I truly hope so.

On a sidenote, I would really like to get me a G400. Anyone have a spare that they are not using and would love to give to a poor sucker??? (Just kidding, as if anyone would willingly part with a gold nugget like that!!!)

Frag you l8er,

Jake

[Stil]

As a general rule of thumb, low resolution benchmarks judge the quality of the drivers, and high resolution benchmarks judge the quality of the hardware.

Remember, drivers can change but hardware doesn't so the true test of a card is in the high-res tests.

[Pedwalk]

Some of the scores did seem a little low to me also. It seem sto help on high resolutions if you turn off high quality sky. It really helps spped for me without a noticeable difference.
My system: cel 366 @ 458, abit bx6r2, 128 mb pc100 ram, g400 (not oc'ed), 5.13 drivers, mx300, etc.
Settings: 32 bit color and textures, ligtmaps, high geometric detail, bilinear, textuer detail set in middle, high quality sound.
q3testdemo1, q3testdemo2
640x480 34.7 38.7
800x600 31 34.4
1024x768 30 34
1152x864 25.1 30.5
1280x960 19.5 25.1

10x7 is playable, and really looks beautiful.

[Agent86]

Thankyou somebody for finally posting some marks here.

You people need to learn to keep your panties on. Benchmarks are both hardware and game related, so don't beat off just coz somebody posted something with the word "game" in it on this forum!

Now, back to the issue, the Q3Test1.07 benchmarks, I haven't actually managed to run any, I can't figure out the console commands, they've changed since the first one, and since I'm a lazy sod, I haven't bothered reading any of the instructions people post around here. Can someone fill me in? I can say this much though, my V3 has just received a 30% speed injection. It would seem that 3dfx has used some voodoo on id and got them to squeeze their code a bit, 1024x678 with high res textures is no longer a battle, in fact, the worst rate I saw on the screen was 27fps on the Tournament maps central column room.

Oops, that was game related wasn't it, SO SHOOT ME!

Dave K