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AquaMark3 Performance Measurement Test |
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Lighting, Shading and Fill Rate |
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The final
AquaMark3 test we ran proved to be the most interesting to
us. Below is a screen capture from the AquaMark3 "SVIST"
Shader Visualization Technique test. Again, red areas
denote DX9 shaders, yellow areas are DX8 and blue have no
shader effects. This test is one of the tests in
the Pixel Performance Measurement test we've graphed for you
below.
"SVIST"
Shader Visualization Technique
Here's what the
folks at Massive have to say about the Pixel Performance
test.
The result of
this test is the average number of drawn pixels per second
(which is written into the result files). It?s kind of a
?real life fill rate test?, with the difference that this
fill rate test contains complex pixel shaders as well as
different texture and blending modes. The test consists out
of two individual runs.
? The first
run creates the overdraw of each frame. Each frame will be
measured and a sum will be created of how many overall
pixel have been drawn in this frame.
? The second run is a normal benchmark run and the results
of the first run will be taken to calculate the drawn
pixel per second.
Oddly enough,
this test liked NVIDIA's Detonator 45.23 drivers a bit
better than the Det 51.75 drivers. We could speculate
that this has occurred perhaps as a result of the recent
effort, that went into optimizing drivers for Half Life 2
DX9 performance. However, that's pure speculation and
we like to work more in the factual here, so feel free to
interpret your own perspective.
What can we say about
AquaMark3 and our quest for a solid DX9 benchmark, to
complement what is soon to be released by the team at Valve
Software? Well, unfortunately AquaMark3, in our
opinion is not the answer. Now before folks start
drafting a rant-mail to the editor here, allow us to put a
few things into perspective. There is no question
AquaMark3 is a solid and useful benchmarking tool. As
a matter of fact, with its basis on a real game engine, and
liberal use of DX9 shader effects, it's a pretty good
indication of what current generation mixed mode DirectX
gaming performance will be like on a given graphics
solution. However, if you want to really measure what
"pure" DX9 performance metrics could be for a video card,
Half Life 2, with its resounding Microsoft endorsement as a
perfect DX9 specimen, is much closer to reality in our view.
On the other hand, we'll most likely include AquaMark3 as a
general DirectX benchmark, for future graphics articles here
at HotHardware. AQM3 is a highly configurable and
stable benchmarking platform for a current DirectX
gaming experience. However, as we all know, DX9 shader
technology in next generation game engines, will become even
more pervasive in the months ahead, so there's a lot more to
the NVIDIA and ATi story that needs to be told. Not to
mention what that slightly influential Carmack fellow is
cooking up in OpenGL.
Comments, questions, rants?
Let us know in the HotHardware Forum!
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