   ---- The DOOM 2 Benchmark! ( DEMO2 - 12Dec95) Jeff Rollason ----

This is a games benchmark based on the 3D game DOOM 2. It is a more useful
means of assessing a machines potential to run 3D games than conventional
benchmarks which just measure particular aspects video and processor
performance. DEMO2 is used for the benchmark as it did not change between
v1.66 and v1.9 of DOOM 2. The DOOM 2 engine may have changed a little
between these versions, but the differences are small in performance.

This release of the DOOMBENC results also provides the results of the tests
run through the RATING program to test video card performance (See the end of
this doc).

Please submit your own results for this test. EVEN BETTER, SUBMIT RESULTS FOR
YOUR MACHINE WITH DIFFERENT VIDEO CARDS etc.. Make sure that your machine is
running at its full potential. Careful tweaking of the CMOS can yield a
substantial improvement in machine performance (check that wait states are
set to 0, hidden refresh is on, cache enabled etc..)

  4.4 1991  386dx33   64   4  16isa Trident                Tiny Computers
  9.9 10/95 AmdDX100 256  16  ISA   Paradise PVGA1A-JK     *(3)
 10.1 1991  486dx33    0  20  ISA   Onboard ET4000         IBM PS/1
 10.3 1989  CyrDX66u  64   8  ISA   ATI Wonder(integrated) Horthgate slim386
 10.5 1992  486sx50  ???  12  local Paradise               Toshiba 4400SX
 11.2 1993  486SX33  256   8  VLB   Genoa 8500VL           Lucky (LSI)
 11.2 1994  486dx100 256  20  ISA16 Trident 8900           *(Green)(10)
 11.8 6/92  486sx33  256   4  VLB   Cirrus CL-GD5422       *
 12.2 4/92  486dx36  256   8  ISA9  ET4000 1MB DRAM        *(Pacomp)
 12.8 1993  486dx33    0   8  VLB   Cirrus AVGA3 5424      Opus
.12.8 1994  Nx586/90 256  16  ISA16 Tseng ET4000           Alaris/Nexgen(13)
.12.8 1994  Nx586/90 256  16  16    ATI Graphics Wonder    Alaris/Nexgen(13)
 14.1 1994  486dx100 256  20  ISA16 Oak OTI-077            *(Green)(10)
 14.8 1992  486dx66  256  16  VLB   Diamond Stealth Viper  *
.15.2 1990  486dx50  256   8  ISA16 NCR 77C22E 2Mb DRAM    *
 16.5 1993  ibmDX75  256  16  VLB   Herc'Graph'Pr0 2Mb     Blue Lightning
 17.0 1993  486d2-50   0  16  local Onboard 32bit S3       *
 18.9 10/95 AmdDX100 256  16  VLB   Diamond Stealth Viper  *(3)
 19.0 1992  486dx66  256  16  VLB   ET4000/W32i DRAM       *(2)
 19.2 12/94 P90      256  32  ISA   Tseng ET4000 1MB DRAM  *(4)
 19.7 1992  486d2-50 256   8  ISA   Onboard ET4000         Compaq
.21.5 ?     CyrDX66  256   8  VLB   Diamond Stealth SE     *
 21.5 6/92  486dx50  256   8  VLB   Genoa 8500VL           Generic
 21.9 1992  486dx66  256   8  VLB   Speedstar Pro          *
.23.3 12/92 486dx66  256  16  VLB   ATI Mach32             Gateway 2000(12)
 24.6 2/95  486dx66  256   8  PCI   sis 86c201 (?)         *SIS sg86c201
 25.2 1994  486dx66  256  16  VLB   SpeedStar Pro          *
.25.5 1994  Nx586/90 256  16  VLB   Herc' Dyn' Pro   (ET4) Alaris/Nexgen(13)
 26.0 1992  486dx100 256  16  VLB   ET4000/W32i DRAM       *(2)
 26.1 1993  486dx66  256  16  PCI   ATI grap'ult' (mach32) GW2K
 26.2 1992  486dx66  128  16  VLB   Cirrus AVGA3 5428      *
 27.1 1995? 486dx66  256   8  VLB   ET4000/W32p DRAM       *
 27.5 4/94  486dx66  256  12  VLB   ET4000/W32i DRAM       Dan Technology(8)
 27.7 3/94  486dx100 256  16  VLB   Herc' Dyn' Power (ET4) *
 27.8 10/94 486dx66  256  32  PCI   ATI Mach64 2MB DRam    *
 28.2 6/94  AmdDX80  256  16  VLB   Orchid Kelvin64 2-DRAM *
.28.3 1994  486dx66  128  16  VLB   Tseng ET4000 1MB       Dell 466 MXV
 28.4 4/94  486dx66  256  12  VLB   Diamond Stealth32-VRAM Dan Technology(8)
 29.2 95?   P100     256   8  PCI   Trident PT540          Atlantic Systems
 29.3 1993  486dx100 256  16  VLB   Cirrus 5426(integrated)AST Advantage Pro
.30.2 12/92 P83ovdr  256  16  VLB   ATI Mach32             Gateway 2000(12)
 31.4 10/95 AmdDX100 256  16  VLB   ET4000/W32i DRAM       *(3)
 31.6 1994  AmdDX100 256  16  VLB   ATI Mach64 -2meg       *
 31.7 1995  P75      256  16  PCI   Trident 9440           RM (Microstar mobo)
 31.9 1994  P66      256   8  PCI   ATI GX Mach 64 VRAM    Hi-Grade-SIS(1)
 31.9 1994  P66      256   8  PCI   ET4000/W32p DRAM       Hi-Grade-SIS(1)
 32.5 12/94 P75      256  32  PCI33 Herc' Dyn' Power (ET4) *(4)
 32.7 10/95 AmdDX100 256  16  VLB   Herc' Dyn' Power (ET4) *(3)
 33.0 1994  486dx100 256  16  VLB   Diamond Stealth64-DRAM *
 33.2 11/92 P90      512  32  VLB   Herc' Dyn' Power (ET4) *Opti
 33.3 1994  P66      256   8  PCI   Diamond Stealth64-DRAM Hi-Grade-SIS(1)
 34.0 1994  P90      256   8  PCI   Diamond Stealth64-DRAM Vale Platinum
 34.0 1994  486dx100 256  20  VLB   ET4000/W32i DRAM       *(Green)(10)
 35.1 10/94 486dx100 256  12  VLB   Diamond Stealth32(ET4) *
 35.3 1994  486dx100 256  12  VLB   Diamond Stealth64-DRAM Gateway486-33
 36.0 1994  486dx100 256  16  PCI   ATI WinTurbo Mach64-Vr *
 35.8 12/94 P90        0  32  PCI30 Herc' Dyn' Power (ET4) *(4)
 37.4 1/95  486dx100 512  16  VLB   Herc' Dyn' Pro   (ET4) *
 38.3 1995  486DX100 256  16  PCI   Diamond Stealth64-DRAM GatewayP4D(Saturn2)
 38.4 1994  486dx100 256  16  VLB   #9GXE64(S3-864)        Dell Dimension
.38.8 1995  P75      256   8  PCI   ET4000/W32p DRAM       Hi-Grade (TMC)
.39.0 1995  P75      256b 16  PCI   Cirrus Logic CL-GD5434 * SIS
 39.0 1995  AmdDX120 256  20  PCI   Diamond Stealth64-VRAM *
 39.0 12/94 P90      256  32  PCI30 Herc' Dyn' Power (ET4) *(4)
 39.3 5/95  P90      256  32  PCI   ATI Graph'Pro Turbo/VR *(plato)
 40.9 12/94 P90      256  16  PCI   Diamond Stealth64-VRAM Zeos Pantera
 41.4 12/94 P90      256  16  PCI   Diamond Stealth64-DRAM Micron Po'Sta'+
 41.6 10/95 P75      256b 32  PCI   Herc' Grap' Term' (S3) *(9) Triton
 41.8 1992  P90      256? 32  PCI   Spider Tarantula 64    *(Plato)
 41.9 3/95  P90      512  16  PCI   Diamond Stealth64-DRAM Micron
 42.4 1992  P90      256  24  PCI   Diamond Stealth64-VRAM Gateway 2000
 43.0 11/92 P90      256   8  PCI   #9GXE64Pro 2meg        Dell Dimension
 43.0 6/95  P90      256  16  PCI   Diamond Stealth64-DRAM *
 43.1 12/94 P100     256  32  PCI33 Herc' Dyn' Power (ET4) *(4)
 43.4 10/94 P90      256   8  PCI   Alpine CL-GD5434       Packard Bell
.45.0 ??/95 P133     256b 16e PCI   Cirrus ..              Atlantic Coast
 45.3 12/94 P100     256  32  PCI33 Herc' Grap' Term' (S3) *(4)
 47.5 P100  6/95     256  16  PCI   ATI Mach64-DRAM        Quantex Microsy'
 48.8 11/94 P100     256  16  PCI   Hercules Stingray 64/V *(plato)
 49.2 8/94  P90      256  16  PCI   Diamond Stealth64-DRAM *
 49.3 05/95 P100     256b 16  PCI   Matrox Millenium 2m WR *(5)
 49.8 10/95 P90      256b 32  PCI   Herc' Grap' Term' (S3) *(9) Triton
 50.7 1995  P100     512  32  PCI   Diamond Stealth64-VRAM *
 50.1 1995  P100     256  16  PCI   ET4000/W32p DRAM 2-meg Hi-Grade TMC+Triton
 51.0 05/95 P100     256b 16  PCI   Diamond Stealth64-VRAM *(5)
 52.1 3/95  P100     256b 16e PCI   #9 Motion 771 2m       Dell Dimension
 52.7 10/94 P100     256b 32  PCI33 Diamond Stealth64-VRAM Supermicro P55CMS
 53.2  95?  P100     256  16  PCI   Diamond StealthPr-VRAM *(Plato)
 54.0 1995  P120     256b 8e  PCI   ATI Mach64 2Mb DRAM    Gateway(7*)
 54.3 1995  P100     256b 16e PCI   Diamond Stealth64-DRAM Micron Millenia
 54.6 1995  P120     256b 16e PCI   ATI Mach64 2Mb VRAM    Gateway(7*)
 54.7 10/95 P100     256b 32  PCI   Herc' Grap' Term' (S3) *(9) Triton
 55.1 05/95 P100     256b 16  PCI   Hercules Stingray 64/V *(5)
 55.4 5/95  P120     256  64e PCI   Diamond Stealth64-VRAM Micron Millenia
 55.8 3/95  P120     256b 16e PCI   Diamond Stealth64-VRAM Micron Millenia120
 56.6 3/95  P133     256  16e PCI   ATI Mach64-VRAM 2m     Micron P5-133(6)
 56.8 1995  P133     256  32e PCI   Number 9 Motion 771    *ASUSTeK mobo (11)
 56.8 1995  P133     256  32e PCI   Matrox Millenium 2m WR *ASUSTeK mobo (11)
 57.5 10/95 P120     256b 32  PCI   Herc' Grap' Term' (S3) *(9) Triton
 59.8 1995  P133     256  32e PCI   Diamond Stealth64-DRAM *ASUSTeK mobo (11)
 59.8 1995  P133     256  32e PCI   D.Stealth Vid64-DRAM   *ASUSTeK mobo (11)
 60.8 5/95  P133     256b 16e PCI   Diamond Stealth64-VRAM Micron Millenia133
 60.9 3/95  P133     256b 24e PCI   Diamond Stealth64-VRAM Micron P5-133(6)
 61.1 8/95  P133     256b 32  PCI   Spea V7 P64Vid DRAM S3 *(9) Triton
 62.5 8/95  P133     256b 32  PCI   Diamond Stealth64-VRAM *(9) Triton
 62.9 8/95  P133     256b 32  PCI   Herc' Grap' Term' VRAM *(9) Triton
 63.4 8/95  P133     256b 32  PCI   Spea V7 P32 DRAM S3    *(9) Triton
 63.4 8/95  P133     256b 32  PCI   Herc' Dyn' Power (ET4) *(9) Triton
 63.6 8/95  P133     256b 32  PCI   Herc' Grap' Term' (S3) *(9) Triton
 64.1 3/95  P133     256  16e PCI   ATI Mach64-VRAM        Gateway 2000 P5
.64.1 ?/95  P133     256b 48  PCI   Diamond Stealth64V-VRM Ten Tech (Triton)
 69.0 ?/95  P133     256b 16e PCI   Hercules Stingray 64/V *Supermicro Mobo


Results preceded by "." are new results. "?" = details to follow or unknown.
"(n)" indicates same machine tested with differing components. Cache figures
with "b" suffix indicate "burst" (e.g. 256b). Ram with "e" suffix indicate
EDO ram. ISA16 indicates 16-bit ISA card instead of 8-bit. PCI33 indicates
PCI running at 33MHz (instead of 30 MHz). ISA can be run at 7.5MHz or 10MHz
etc. "*" for PC make indicates "Home brew". The figures above assume the
fastest ISA rate available. "local" indicates a proprietry local bus, as used
in some portables and earlier desktop machines.

Figures should be for machine in normal configuration (not clean boot),
running from DOS (not a DOS Window). Win95 allows Windows to be shut down to
plain DOS. Please distinguish Stealth32 from Stealth64. They are completely
different cards!

                 -------- How to run the Benchmark ---------

The frames per second is obtained by running:

     DOOM2 -NOSOUND -TIMEDEMO DEMO2

This prints out gametics and realtics to run the entire demo (2). Ignore the
"cannot open demo2.lmp" message. DEMO 2 is now used as this is the only DEMO
which has not changed with DOOM version number.

     fps = (gametics/realtics)*35

Figures are for "no sound", screen size the largest with status bar and full
detail. L2che is the external cache, not the on-chip cpu cache. The BIOS date
is displayed when your PC starts up (the BIOS date almost certainly does not
matter, but it is an easy indication of the age of the motherboard).

          -------- How do I get my results in the listing? --------

Post your figures to me directly on CompuServe 100031,3537 (or internet
100031.3537@compuserve.com), otherwise I will miss them.

                       --------- Conclusions ---------

Buying a machine for 3D games is hard without advice or experience. Published
benchmarks may not be helpful, for example the notorious 3DBENCH program
looks convincing but when applied to 2 machines that differed in their DOOM
fps speed by 2.4 : 1, 3DBENCH only managed to show a variance of 5% between
them

You may want to interpret the information above as you choose, but I have
tried to glean a few conclusions.


------- Notes and Wisdoms(?)

1.   It seems that the choice and age of the motherboard is evidently
     critical for the 486 based systems. The variations in performance are
     substantial.

2.   Overdrive processors with old motherboards are probably a waste of time.
     The figure 26.0 above was an Intel 486dx100 overdrive, which I returned
     and exchanged for an AmdDx100 with a new motherboard (actually much
     cheaper!), yielding a somewhat improved 31.4  and leaving me with a
     spare motherboard.

3.   Video Cards: The Trident PT540 looks like a card to avoid! The P100 with
     this card passed the cpu benchtests but did very badly in the fps
     rating. The home brew(3) machine above was tried with 4 video cards,
     showing a 3.2 : 1 variation in fps performance, confirming the
     importance of the choice of video card. In particular DOOM ran half as
     fast with a Diamond Stealth Viper-VRAM than a old cheap generic DRAM
     ET4000/W32. Note that Diamond keep changing chipsets: the Viper to
     Stealth32 to Stealth64 used Weitek, ET4000/W32 then S3. Note that cards
     that use interleaved RAM almost certainly do not offer extra benefits
     for DOS games (e.g. Hercules Dynamite Power, whose interleaving needs 2
     meg of ram and whose benefits are only available to Windows drivers
     etc.).

4.   ISA bus? Don't even think about using an ISA-bus video card!!

5.   PCI or VLB? The conventional wisdom is that PCI is better, with its
     technical advantages. However I have examined 4 magazine reviews with
     compare the same cards based on VLB and PCI, and all (to their surprise)
     concluded that the VLB cards were generally faster, sometimes by up to
     30%. This may be attributable to the fact that the processor actually
     sits on the VLB whereas PCI has some buffered connection with a separate
     processor bus. Also VLB will run at the speed that the processor runs
     (usually 33MHz) whereas PCI usually runs at 30MHz. It appears that P66,
     P100 and P133 machines run PCI at 33MHz. Maybe all this will change, but
     at the moment (aug95) the 486 VLB machines may have an advantage that
     the Pentium PCI machines do not have.

     A later input on VLB and PCI was provided by Paul Schmitz [71776,337]
     Sep95 who tried a three PCI and three VLB boards when choosing his
     DX4-based machine. He found that the PCI boards were all faster the the
     VLB boards, which suggests that perhaps PCI has now sorted out any
     problems it did have.

6.   The Intel 486dx100 machines above seem to be some 10% faster than the
     AmdDX100 machines. This could be attributed to the larger 16k cache in
     the Intel chip compared to the 8k of the Amd version. The Intel chip
     also has a beefed-up integer multiply which is 3-5 times faster than a
     DX2-100 would be. Amd now have a 120MHz version out with two types of
     cache. The theoretically faster Write-Back version of the latter seems
     to be actually between 1% slower and 6% faster.

8.   Memory? Almost all machines above have 8meg+. None seem to show any
     obvious advantage having 16meg. One user reports though that he has 32
     megs of RAM and lets DOOM sit in his 14meg Smartdrive cache! This
     undoubtably kills those minor jerks as DOOM loads each new scene.

9.   What should I buy? With limited funds a $160 AmdDx100 with motherboard
     looks an economic base for a machine. If funds are less tight the P100
     looks good value at the moment (Aug95). Wait until the P6 is out! The
     Pentium price will be bound to drop. If funds really are tight, then a
     486dx66 on a newer motherboard will still perform well. If you have the
     money for a Pentium then the Supermicro and Micronics motherboards look
     good.

10.  NexGen P90? These look very cheap, but I was warned off buying one
     because of user reported compatibility problems. NexGen now have a
     P133. From a bench result received 8dec95 it looks as if a VLB NexGen
     P90 is about the same as a 486DX66 in performance! Also the board does
     not seem to run Heretic, but works with DOOM and Descent. That looks
     like a firm thumbs down to me!

11.  Windows 95? It seems that Windows 95 shutdown to DOS is as fast as a
     pure DOS machine, whereas Windows 95 running a DOS session will probably
     be 20% slower (provide figures for shutdown Windows).

12.  Asynchronous or pipelined burst cache?  Steffen Itterheim [100606,2141]
     had the patience to ty out a number of different hardware, clock and
     video combinations for these tables. For a P90, the pipelined cache
     added about 5% on the fps performance. For a P133 this increased to 6%.

13.  Two very consistent independent tests looking at fps performance against
     clock rate have shown the following results. These came from (1) Steffen
     above and (2) and (3) Timothy Zakharov [73773,3047]. These results
     looked at Pentium P75, P90, P100, P120 and P133 with (1) Graphite
     Terminator, (3) Hercules Stingray + Triton and (3) Stingray + Supermicro
     motherboard with pipeline burst cache.

                    clock     fps[1]    fps[2]    fps[3]
                    ratio     ratio     ratio     ratio
          P75       1.0       1.0       1.0       1.0
          P90       1.2       1.2       1.19      1.19
          P100      1.33      1.31      1.32      1.32
          P120      1.6       1.38      1.38      1.41
          P133      1.77      1.53      1.53      1.55
          P120->133 1.11      1.11      1.11      1.10

     From these tests above it can be seen that the P120 offers a poor
     performance return for the clock rate. This is (I believe) because the
     120 uses a 60MHz bus whereas the P100 and P133 both use 66 MHz. Unless
     you can get a very favourable price for a P120, then maybe only the only
     upgrade from 100 is the 133.

Thats' enough for now.

Jeff Rollason

Author of the Shareware "PocketD Plus" - The tiny but advanced file manager.
"BEST UTILITY" award winner 92, 94 and 95. Download from CIS as POCK.ZIP.


------------------------Results of RATING program-------------------------

This uses the RATING program and provides a way of comparing large numbers
of inter-related results. An earlier version of this test included all
instances where cards were tested on similar machine types. This proved to
be too vulnerable to varying performance of one 486/Pentium compared to
another, so I have restricted the input to examine results where groups of
video cards were tested on a common physical machine. This comparision is
only valid where all results can be linked by a chain of common video cards
or the same testing platform.

     Video card                      Rating

 1. Hercules Stingray64/V                1087
 2. Diamond Stealth32-VRAM               1032
 3. Hercules Graphite Terminator         1028
 4. Diamond Stealth64-DRAM               1027
 5. Diamond Stealth64-Video64            1025
 6. Spea V7 P32-DRAM                     1020
 7. Hercules Dynamite Power              1018
 8. Hercules Graphite Terminator-VRAM    1012
 9. Diamond Stealth64-VRAM               1009
10. ET4000/W32                            991
11. Spea V7 P64-DRAM                      983
12. ATI Mach64 DRAM                       976
13. Number-9 Motion-771                   974
14. Matrox Millenium                      973
15. ATI Mach64 VRAM                       964
16. Diamond Stealth Viper                 596

---------------------- File used as input to RATING ----------------------

This is provided with this release as DOOMBENC.RAT. The RATING program and
instuctions can be downloaded as RATING.ZIP.


