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MikeC
06-Jul-2002, 21:59
Hi All,

Wanted to pass along word that I've posted a few benchmarks results from two very popular games that are out on the market.

Warcraft III
http://www.nvnews.net/cgi-bin/search.cgi?keyword=warcraft+iii+testing

Morrowind
http://www.nvnews.net/cgi-bin/search.cgi?keyword=morrowind+testing

Warcraft III was tested using the games replay capability while Morrowind
was based on my own "home grown" test. Performance was measured using a GeForce4 Ti 4600 using the latest version of FRAPS.

Happy Gaming!

Cheers,
Mike Chambers
nV News - http://www.nvnews.net
Malo
06-Jul-2002, 23:12
wow impressive numbers for those high resolutions. I've found Morrowind to be quite CPU limited. Im running it at 1024+2xAA+2xAF on a GF4 4400 310/670 on an Athlon 1.4/133sdram, i'll have to do some numbers when i get home from work today. I've used 4xs mode for screenies (god it looks nice), while not playable in towns, wilderness still pulls some decent frames.

I wonder if its possible to use the editor to control the player movement to direct an exact passage in and out of town so others can reproduce the exact benchmark?
MikeC
06-Jul-2002, 23:52
Kalbaz,

Thanks for the interest. Although I didn't provide any screenshots from the path I took in my initial post, these will give you an idea...

Leaving town:

http://www.nvnews.net/images/news/200207/mw_1.jpg
http://www.nvnews.net/images/news/200207/mw_2.jpg
http://www.nvnews.net/images/news/200207/mw_3.jpg
http://www.nvnews.net/images/news/200207/mw_4.jpg
http://www.nvnews.net/images/news/200207/mw_5.jpg

Re-entering town:

http://www.nvnews.net/images/news/200207/mw_6.jpg
http://www.nvnews.net/images/news/200207/mw_7.jpg
http://www.nvnews.net/images/news/200207/mw_8.jpg
http://www.nvnews.net/images/news/200207/mw_9.jpg

Enable FRAPS at the starting point and wait a couple of seconds for the frame rate to become stable. Then enable the logging mode (Scroll Lock key).

Head for the stairs on the house directly in front of you as shown in the second image. As you approach the stairs, slowly turn right and get into position to cross the bridge (image 3). Cross the bridge and head for the street sign post (image 4). While approaching the street sign post, veer off to the left and stop logging frame rates when you're positioned on the small bridge next to the tree.

Now for the return trip. Turn around 180 degrees and face the town. Enable the FRAPS logging mode. Backtrack using the same path that you left town with. You'll find checkpoints in screenshots 6-9.

Look forward to seeing your results...
Malo
07-Jul-2002, 00:04
What about factors like weather? Obviously you dont want to be doing these benchmarks during a storm but what about sun effects, I gather they would have an effect on the benchmark. Would you rather dawn/dusk effect like your screenshots?

Also it might be of interest to do the exact same benchmark at night because of the extra lighting effects from guards carrying torches. This produces a slowdown effect which might expose certain features in chips to handle the lighting more effectively etc...

Kalbaz
ben6
07-Jul-2002, 00:33
It's too bad there isn't a builtin benchmark for this game. A fps counter is nice , don't get me wrong, but there's so many variables in the game with weather, lighting , water (pixel shader on/off) , NPCs , on every run through. Heck you'll find Fargoth in about 10 different places during the day (I spent a while looking for his hiding place LOL never found it)
Moloch
07-Jul-2002, 00:40
no shadows?? I love em! :) I also have my view distance at 100%.
although I miss fsaa with those settings, shadows look sweet+I hate fog... makes it hard to snipe!
Malo
07-Jul-2002, 00:59
ack! shadows and 100% view distance are too consuming for my little athlon 1.4, the gf4 4400 doesnt make enough of a difference. i prefer the trade off for 2xFSAA+2xAF. Its a wonder why the shadows make such a performance hit when I look at Neverwinter with multiple light sources and detailed shadows with a very high fps.
Moloch
07-Jul-2002, 01:46
2x af? can you tell its on even? my 1gig athlon handles the shadows fine.. makes allmost no diff, but the draw distance is what makes the game on the bleed edge of playable. I use 128tap AF(enabled though rage3dtweak) :P looks so good.. no blurries over here... nope :D
Malo
07-Jul-2002, 02:01
well I prefer FSAA to full anisotropic, so thats my tradeoff.... tried having 8xAF+2xFSAA, too much performance hit. Maybe when nvidia release these new high speed anisotropic drivers they are raving about things may be different.

As for shadows, I'll experiment tonight with number for shadows on and off, that should give you an idea of what kind of hit i am getting, and why I don't use them.
fresh
07-Jul-2002, 02:36
Isn't there some DLL you can get which captures all call to BeginScene/EndScene in D3D and can do the proper timing? This wouldn't be hard to write. I know there's a GL version called GLtrace which captures all calls to GL.
Moloch
07-Jul-2002, 05:05
well with shadows I can only see the diff between on and off :-?
maby if I overclock a bit I can get 128tap+2x performance fsaa... heh heh :)
LittlePenny
07-Jul-2002, 05:14
My poor little Mobility Radeon 16mb gets low 5 and high 21 in War3.
MikeC
07-Jul-2002, 11:54
What about factors like weather? Obviously you dont want to be doing these benchmarks during a storm but what about sun effects, I gather they would have an effect on the benchmark. Would you rather dawn/dusk effect like your screenshots?

Also it might be of interest to do the exact same benchmark at night because of the extra lighting effects from guards carrying torches. This produces a slowdown effect which might expose certain features in chips to handle the lighting more effectively etc...

Kalbaz

Heh, one could end up spending an entire review with nothing but Morrowind benchmarks :) I doubt that I'll take this particular test any further.
MikeC
07-Jul-2002, 11:57
2x af? can you tell its on even? Yes, it makes an impact.
Festina
10-Jul-2002, 22:23
Hmmm, I just got my Geforce4 Ti 4600 today and wanted to "really" play Morrowind as it should be, everything looked fine.

I had FSAA set to 2x,4x, Quincunx and testing that on Morrowind, I found that the edges of buildings or walls "tear" up when I look around fast. It only takes half a second by it's noticable. I am not sure if this is due to something in Morrowind, or something to be expected.

Any clues?

Sorry, I'm quite ignorant about antialising stuff.
MikeC
11-Jul-2002, 02:16
Have you enabled vsync under the Direct3D display properties?

Right click on desktop and select Properties. Click on settings tab, then Advanced button at lower right. Click on GeForce4 Ti 4600 tab (it may be named different if you're using the manufacturers drivers), click on Additional Properties button on bottom left. Click on Direct3D Settings tab then the More Direct3D button at the bottom left. Set Vertical Sync mode to "Always On".

If you don't see the Vsync option, you'll need to install CoolBits :)