Testing in SPECviewperf 6.1.2.

In this part we will estimate performance of out participants in the SPECviewperf tests.

This test suite was specially developed for performance estimation of a video subsystem of a computer under the OpenGL. Each test shows a real operation of the card as if it works in a real application.

Here are the main differences of the tests:

• All given tests are developed and used in real applications
• All parameters of rendering and models are developed by independent software vendors (ISVs) and users
• The results are given in fps (frames per second)

What do these tests measure? Here is a full list:

• 3D primitives, including points, lines, line_strip, line_loop, triangles, triangle_strip, triangle_fan, quads and polygons;
• attributes per vertex, per primitive and per frame;
• lighting;
• texture mapping;
• alpha blending;
• fogging;
• anti-aliasing;
• depth buffering

This is the most complete test suite for a professional accelerator.

Advanced Visualizer Viewset

The first test is Advanced Visualizer Viewset, or AWadvs-04. Here is its description:

• Geometric, analysis, and motion data importation from a wide range of CAD, dynamics and structural systems.
• Automatic object simplification and switching tools for working with ultra-large production data sets.
• Motion for an unlimited number of objects, cameras, and lights with Wavefront SmartCurve editing techique.
• Interactive test rendering and high-quality, free-form surface rendering
• Software rotoscoping for matching computer animation with live action background footage.
• Realistic imaging effects, including soft shadows, reflection, refraction, textures, and displacememt maps, using Wavefront's fast hybrid scanline/raytracing renderer.
• Interactive image layering and output to video with Wavefront's new Recording Composer.
• Powerful scripting and customization tools, open file formats, and user-defined interfaces.

This test combines 10 subtests:

Test results:

The latest NVIDIA's accelerators are leading here. By the way, on the Athlon XP platform the Quadro4 750XGL outscores its elder brother probably because the GPU performance is limited by the CPU one. The diagram of the Pentium 4 stand proves it.

DesignReview Viewset

The second test is DesignReview Viewset, or DRV-07.

Here is its description:

DesignReview is a 3D computer model review package specifically tailored for plant design models consisting of piping, equipment and structural elements such as I-beams, HVAC ducting, and electrical raceways. It allows flexible viewing and manipulation of the model for helping the design team visually track progress, identify interferences, locate components, and facilitate project approvals by presenting clear presentations that technical and non-technical audiences can understand.

On the construction site, DesignReview can display construction status and sequencing through vivid graphics that complement blueprints. After construction is complete, DesignReview continues as a valuable tool for planning retrofits and maintenance. DesignReview is a multi-threaded application that is available for both UNIX and Windows NT.

The model in this viewset is a subset of the 3D plant model made for the GYDA offshore oil production platform located in the North Sea on the southwest coast of Norway. A special thanks goes to British Petroleum, which has given the SPECopcSM subcommittee permission to use the geometric data as sample data for this viewset. Use of this data is restricted to this viewset.

DesignReview works from a memory-resident representation of the model that is composed of high-order objects such as pipes, elbows valves, and I-beams. During a plant walkthrough, each view is rendered by transforming these high-order objects to triangle strips or line strips. Tolerancing of each object is done dynamically and only triangles that are front facing are generated. This is apparent in the viewset model as it is rotated.

Most DesignReview models are greater than 50 megabytes and are stored as high-order objects. For this reason and for the benefit of dynamic tolerancing and face culling, display lists are not used.

The updated DRV-07 shaded model contains 367178 vertices in 42821 primitives. Vertex arrays are used to send the data to mirror the current release of the Design Reivew application. The color and material changes are taken directly from the GYDA model. The wire frame model contains 1599755 vertices in 94275 primitives.

There are 5 tests specified by the viewset that represent the most common operations performed by DesignReview. These tests are as follows:

Test results:

The leaders are the same, the Athlon XP still holds the accelerators back.

Data Explorer

The third suite is Data Explorer, or DX-06.

Here is its description:

The IBM Visualization Data Explorer (DX) is a general-purpose software package for scientific data visualization and analysis. It employs a data-flow driven client-server execution model and is currently available on Unix workstations from Silicon Graphics, IBM, Sun, Hewlett-Packard and Digital Equipment. The OpenGL port of Data Explorer was completed with the recent release of DX 2.1.

The tests visualize a set of particle traces through a vector flow field. The width of each tube represents the magnitude of the velocity vector at that location. Data such as this might result from simulations of fluid flow through a constriction. The object represented contains about 3,000 triangle meshes containing approximately 100 vertices each. This is a medium-sized data set for DX.

Test Weighting

All tests assume z-buffering with one light in addition to specification of a color at every vertex. Triangle meshes are the primary primitives for this viewset. While Data Explorer allows for many other modes of interaction, these assumptions cover the majority of user interaction.

The first version of this viewset included indirect rendering to handle the client/server model of X-Windows-based systems. In this version, tests with indirect rendering have been removed to allow the viewset to be fully ported to Windows NT and OS/2 environments.

Test results:

The situation is the same. The FireGL8800, Wildcat II 5000 and QuadroDCC go on a par.

Lightscape Viewset

The fourth suite is Lightscape Viewset, or light-04.

Here is its description:

Lighting

The most significant feature of Lightscape is its ability to accurately simulate global illumination effects. The system contains two integrated visualization components. The primary component utilizes progressive radiosity techniques and generates view-independent simulations of the diffuse light propagation within an environment. Subtle but significant effects are captured, including indirect illumination, soft shadows, and color bleeding between surfaces. A post process using ray tracing techniques adds specular highlights, reflections, and transparency effects to specific views of the radiosity solution.

Interactivity

Most rendering programs calculate the shading of surfaces at the time the image is generated. Lightscape's radiosity component precalculates the diffuse energy distribution in an environment and stores the lighting distribution as part of the 3D model. The resulting lighting "mesh" can then be rapidly displayed. Using OpenGL display routines, Lightscape takes full advantage of the advanced 3D graphics capabilities of SGI workstations or PC-based OpenGL-compliant graphic acceleration boards. Lightscape allows you to interactively move through fully simulated environments.

Progressive Refinement

Lightscape utilizes a progressive refinement radiosity algorithm that produces useful visual results almost immediately upon processing. The quality of the visualization improves as the process continues. In this way, the user has total control over the quality (vs. time) desired to perform a given task. At any point in the solution process, users can alter the characteristic of a light source or surface material and the system will rapidly compensate and display the new results without the need for restarting the solution. This flexibility and performance allow users to rapidly test various lighting and material combinations to obtain precisely the visual effect desired.

There are four tests specified by the viewset that represent the most common operations performed by the Lightscape Visualization System:

Test results:

medMCAD-01 Viewset

The fifth suite is medMCAD-01 Viewset, or medMCAD-01.

Here is its description:

Unlike other viewsets, the medMCAD-01 viewset is a 'generic' viewset i.e. it is representative of a class of applications rather than a single application. The medMCAD-01 viewset is intended to model the graphics performance of a range of medium scale, immediate mode, MCAD applications such as Pro/ENGINEER(TM) from PTC and SolidWorks from SolidWorks Corporation.

The viewset consists of twelve tests, each of which represents a different mode of operation. Four of the tests use a wireframe model, and the other tests use a shaded model. All tests use immediate mode and vertex arrays (glDrawArrays). Each test has two runs: a) with orthographic projection, and b) with perspective projection, zoom and pan (walkthru). Each test returns a result in frames per second, and a composite score is calculated as a weighted geometric mean of the individual test results. The tests are weighted to represent the typical proportion of time a user would spend in each mode.

This viewset uses new features that require SPECviewperf!" 6.1.2.

The shaded model uses 47,000 triangle strips with approximately 444,000 vertices resulting in 349,000 triangles total. There are no discrete triangles. The average triangle screen area is approximately 17 pixels. The maximum depth complexity is 34 with an approximate mean depth complexity of 8.

The wire frame model consists of 26,500 line strips, with around 192,000 vertices giving 120,000 lines total. The mean line length is 7 pixels.

The wireframe tests use aliased lines, since these still are the default for many immediate mode MCAD applications. The shaded tests use either one ore two infinite lights with normalization enabled. Lighting is single sided. There is no texture mapping. See the script files for more information.

Test results:

ProCDRS-03 Viewset

The last test is ProCDRS-03 Viewset, or ProCDRS-03.

Here is its description:

The ProCDRS-03 viewset is an update to ProCDRS-02 (which was a complete update of the CDRS-03 viewset). It is intended to model the graphics performance of Parametric Technology Corporation's CDRS industrial design software.

The viewset consists of ten tests, each of which represents a different mode of operation within CDRS. Two of the tests use a wireframe model, and the other tests use a shaded model. Each test returns a result in frames per second, and a composite score is calculated as a weighted geometric mean of the individual test results. The tests are weighted to represent the typical proportion of time a user would spend in each mode.

The model data was converted from OpenGL command traces taken directly from the running CDRS software, and therefore preserves most of the attributes of the original model.

This viewset uses features that require SPECviewperf(TM) 6.1.2.

The new ProCDRS-03 viewset doubles the display list size by adding a second truck to the frame. The triangle and line counts increased accordingly.

The shaded model is a mixture of triangle strips and independent triangles, with approximately 562,000 vertices in 9,300 OpenGL primitives, giving 262,000 triangles total.

The wire frame model consists of only line strips, with around 404,000 vertices in 37,000 strips, giving 388,000 lines total.

All tests run in display list mode. The wireframe tests use anti-aliased lines, since these are the default in CDRS. The shaded tests use one infinite light and two-sided lighting. The texture is a 512 by 512 pixel 24-bit color image. See the script files for more information.

Test results:

The FireGL 8800 takes the third position after the Quadro4 line.

And now let's combine the fps of the cards and find out which is better:

These are very tough professional tests, and the game accelerator drags behind.

Conclusion

In these tests the NVIDIA products are undoubtedly leaders. The latest Quadro4 cards are far ahead. Although the tests are synthetic, the 3D MAX proves that the Quadro4s are the best. The Quadro DCC model also has quite good results.

The FireGL 8800 is a successful product indeed. The only thing that the developers have to do is to correct the drivers to avoid errors in the 3D MAX. However, even if they do it, ATI is half a year late. The FireGL 8800 was intended to be a competitor against Quadro4 750XGL both in price and in performance, but it fights against the Quadro4 750XGL not very well, as well as against the Quadro DCC and Quadro2 PRO. Well, better late than never.

The Wildcat II 5000 shows the most stable results. Taking into account that it lacks for any quality problems I could recommend you this card... if not the price. At such price one can get a more efficient modern accelerator.

The FireGL2, Quadro2 PRO and Quadro2 MXR remain in the shadow of their elder brothers. Their speed and quality are rather good, but they are still less efficient.

As for the platforms, the Intel's one seems an optimal solution for professional applications, and the AMD's platform suits better for games. In our further tests we won't use a stand based on the AMD processors any more, at least, until professional applications are optimized for them.

Write a comment below. No registration needed!