Overview 07 Jul 1998
Here you will find information on how to run standard benchmarks in all the current general aviation simulations, and some military flight simulations (someday).
The Benchmarks consist of several (usually three) different situations where you will observe the frame rate of the sim. Each Benchmark is run under a specified combination of settings, which will be identical for everyone running the tests, so that the results will be truly comparable.
Here is how this site is organized:
News: You enter at the News page. I try to update this daily with pertinent 3D video and flight sim news that I glean form the net and from what people send me.
Information: If you are after general information about 3D video for flight sim, the Information page has a lot of info. I don't update this very often, so some information may be out of date.
3D for FS: a very basic intro on 3D acceleration. A must-read if you are new to all this.
3D Glossary: Here I've tried to define all the terms you hear about when you study 3D cards, with pictures when I can get them, with an eye to helping the flight simmer.
Instructions: If you want to run the Benchmarks on your system, go to the Instruction page and select the flight sim program you want to test. There you will find all the information you need to run the Benchmarks.
Results: these are summary tables based on the data in the Report System. I go through the Reports submitted during the last week, and update the tables. This is the best place to start comparing systems and video cards.
Report System: If you have run the Benchmarks, or if you want to see how other systems did, go to the Report System. You will find instructions on the Report System page about how to use it.
3D Forum: This is a general discussion forum hosted by AVSIM. If you have 3D questions, this is the place to go.
Repository: This will be a place where I and you can put information about 3D video hardware, and 3D software. Eventually, when it begins to fill up, it will become a sort of Living FAQ.
3D Hardware: If you want to read about your specific card, you will find it on the page indexed by the 3D chipset. The list is in the header of each page. Each chipset page will have information about that chipset, and there you will find the results of the 'old' Benchmark tests. These are Benchmark tests run before May 1998, using a more cumbersome test. These results were all hand-edited by me, and I just can't bring myself to trashing them all yet. These old tests are not directly comparable to the current tests, but they might still be of use comparing systems.
3D effects:
FS98 doesn't use very many 3D effects, but here are the
most noticeable:
Texture filtering (or smoothing) so you don't see pixels in ground textures.
This can also be rendered in software, and is evident when you look at the
white stripes on the Meigs runway: you'll see a dithered sort of blending,
with many small pixels used to blend the white and the grey smoothly, only
it's not very smooth in software. I understand the Riva chips don't blend
pixels as much as the 3Dfx chipsets do. Aircraft textures are sometimes
filtered as well, but not all of them. Anyone know why?
Haze and fog look like haze and fog, with no distinct lines seen as you go
from looking down to looking at the horizon. You will see some faint
differentiations in the 'color' of the grey that result from having only 16
bit color.
Clouds: if you have cloud thickness turned off, you can see through the thin
clouds. Cloud textures are also filtered.
Texturization: during a transition to a spot-plane view, you will see at
first a colorless airplane, that rapidly gets sheets of skin drawn on it.
This is the result of the 3D card needing to get the textures from RAM or
virtual memory for the first time. Most 3Dfx cards have only 2 MB texture
memory (some have 4 MB) and the card keeps in memory only the textures it
needs. The Riva128 keeps all textures in system RAM, so texture downloading
may not be evident on your card. I only have a 3Dfx Rush, and have not seen
a Riva in action.
Sunsets: a little oddity is seen in looking at the horizon at dusk. When
the sun is low and becomes colored, the entire horizon also becomes colored.
Trouble is, the color you see depends on which direction you look. The
horizon will have the reddest haze looking west, and as you turn away it
becomes less red and more grey. The entire horizon will have the same
color, based on what color is seen directly in front of your view. In other
words, in a single view you will see no color gradient from side to side,
but the entire horizon will change colors as you move the view. Odd, but
not annoying.
8-Bit textures: FS98 uses non-palletized textures, so if you want to save
some texture memory by using 8-bit textures instead of the normal 16-bit
textues, you'll lose some color shades. The most obvious effect is that all
airport grass turns to concrete. Games like GLQuake implement palletized
textures properly, so every 8-bit texture has its own color-pallet, and when
all textures are rendered in 16-bit color, there is no visible difference
between 8-bit and 16-bit textures. Perhaps MS will fix this in a future
update.
Frame-rate: finally, because the 3D card is doing some of the rendering
work, frame rates should improve. This is very chipset-dependent, however,
as some cards (ViRGE, Rage2, Matrox) don't do much of the rendering work or
do it more slowly than others (Voodoo, Rush, Riva, RagePro, Verite2100/2200,
and PowerVR2 to a lesser extent, and the soon-to-be-inestimable Voodoo2,
which will put all other cards to shame).
Now I'm sure that each manufacturer subscribes to polling services that tell them how many cards are bought for this purpose and how many for that purpose. I don't know what we can do more about that except buy as many cards as you can afford! On second thought, maybe that's a dumb idea. But we can influence the manufacturers. I've seen several sites, which because of their excellence, attract large numbers of readers. With thousands reading the site daily, card makers know that an off-hand opinion read by thousands can affect their sales. I want to make this site so important that card makers cannot afford to ignore it. I cannot do it by myself. What is here now is what I can do on my own, and it isn't enough. So, if you love flight sim and have a passion for 3D technology, if you can express an opinion or compare cards (and know the difference between the two), if you have at least an hour a day to devote to it, if you can ride HTML/CGI/SSI bareback with no hands, I'm looking for you. I want two partners I can trust to help me take this site from average to extraordinary. I'm not talking 1 boss, 2 subordinates; I want partners as good at this as I am. You may have strengths in a different area than I have, as long as we compliment. You are looking at my resume. I hope you can provide something similar for me. Write to me if you are interested. With or without partners, FSBench will continue.
Now, for other things. The time has come to add the last elements of FSBench. These are things that I knew should be part of FSBench from the first day I advertised my web site at AVSIM. My Ph.D. work took almost all my time, and FSBench was just surviving for months. I'm done now, and have time. So here is what I'm adding:
Image Quality assessments will be added to FSBench. Because the next generation of 3D hardware will pretty much max out the performance of the PII CPU, makers are using image quality (16-bit color vs. 32-bit color) to distinguish their cards from the rest. I plan to have some still images of scenes in FS98 and other flight sims that demonstrate the visual differences between cards. Perhaps this will help you when you might choose to sacrifice a few fps for smoother, more vivid colors. Image quality will not be a part of the Reports I get form everyone, but I will need help in gathering them. I will start working on some situations from which screen shots will be made on various systems. I (or a partner) will collect the screenshots, then edit them for quick and easy comparison. Eventually (rather, inevitably) this will involve recording video of each card in action so you can see the effect of MIP-mapping, anti-aliasing, and other dynamic effects. I haven't figured out how to do it yet, but I'm sure it's doable.
The Repository is a permanent forum. There is a lot of great stuff in the forums and in the newsgroups. But there are two problems: (1) the signal to noise ratio is low, and getting lower each month, and (2) the good posts eventually disappear from existence. The Repository is intended to solve both shortcomings. It is a very highly organized public forum. If you have something to say about 3D hardware, 3D-accelerated programs, or 3D technology, you can say it here and it will be here forever. I will grab posts from the newsgroups and from forums that I think need preservation and put them in the Repository. The Repository will, like a reservoir, fill slowly at first, and I suspect will be filled mostly by me. But I want it clear that this is a public forum. You may feel free to post your opinion about your card in the appropriate place, and if you hear there are some new drivers out, let us know with a post. To this end the Repository has a dual purpose: it serves as a conduit from you to the pages of FSBench. If I see something interesting that one of you has posted there, I'll yank it up to this page. There is room in the Repository for other interests. If you know there is an interest in preserving some other aspect of flight sim (scenery, plane and panel design, for example), let me know. I'll create another top-level topic, as long as someone else will offer to be in charge of filling and policing the topic. But for now it exists to serve 3D interests. With your help the Repository can become a sort of Living FAQ, constantly growing, always current.
Daily Updates are already implemented. I try to do updates in the morning and at night. I would like to find some CGI that makes it more convenient to post news, especially if I get partners who will add news also. The content of the updates are a bit weak right now, but with the Repository to take some of the more topical, less interesting news, the updates that make it to this page should improve.
A counter is now on the Results page. With it I'll try to gauge the interest of the community in 3D. It's one of those counters you can't cheat, so don't try to increase the count by reloading the page 20 times. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I try to keep content interesting to increase the number of hits. The more hits, the higher the chance that 3D card makers will realize they have an advantage by sending me an evaluation board so I'll brag it up on the site. Frankly, I don't care what I say about the card, I just want the evaluation boards! Actually, I'm a scientist, and I know how to evaluate without bias. If I review a product, you'll get the straight story. So visit the site often, but don't abuse the counter.
Okay, that's it. Now you know. There is now something to suit everyone. If you want to read about 3D, there will be lots here for you. If you want to contribute occasionally, there is the Repository. If you have talent, time and balls of steel, join me.
Bruce Wilson, College Station TX, 12May98.
More of The Plan: I forgot a couple things last night. First, because cards are getting better, I will now ask for the Benchmarks to be done at 800x600 AND at 1024x768. Yes, I know it's more work for you, but I'm afraid it is essential to evaluate these cards in the mode you will likely use them. And second, as some of you have assumed, I'm dropping the "98" from the title of this site; I will begin assembling Benchmarks for most of the civil flight sims available, and some of the best military ones. I haven't figured out how to display all the results, but I suspect it will have to do with CGI forms and databases.
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These pages look best at 800x600 pixels, 16-bit (32,000 or 64,000) colors, and with font smoothing.
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These pages belong to Bruce Wilson. Please get permission before copying it somewhere else or using it in any published form. ©-thingy 1997, 1998.