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Old 08-21-2004, 02:44 PM   #9
johnblommers
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Join Date: Aug 2004

Location: Seattle
Posts: 756
Performance numbers

This is so interesting I decided to characterize the performance of the Goldfish Aquarium (GA) application (not the screen saver). Here are the summary findings:

(1) In a 0-fish unpopulated tank, the frames per second (FPS) varies dramatically from 190 fps for a lush planting to an incredible 542 fps for a large clear tank. The amount of non-fish stuff in the tank is what impacts the performance most. This is the area ripe for optimization.

(2) In a lush planting tank, the performance varies slightly from 190 fps for an empty tank to 124 fps for a 5-fish tank. The number of fish has a minimal impact on the performace. Therefore can we please allow more fish in the tank?

(3) The size of the GA application window barely effects the performance until the window size exceeds 1024x768. This is very interesting! Good job!

(4) The GA application works very nicely when it spans monitors. When the monitors are connected to different performing video cards, the fps is higher when more of the window overlaps the faster card, and vice versa. When the application overlaps monitors connected to the same card, the performance remains constant. Also good job!

(5) It is possible to duplicate the GA application and run them all at the same time on multiple screens if desired. Then you can look at the punishment being visited upon the graphics card using the free utility GET_ATI_NVIDIA_RAM_V059 available from:

http://people.freenet.de/amichalak/A...NOINSTALL.sitx

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Follows is the raw data to support the above conclusions:

Application mode 1024x768 with bubbles
124 fps 5 monstros lush planting
142 fps 4 monstros lush planting
142 fps 3 monstros lush planting (same as for 4, I know)
166 fps 2 monstros lush planting
181 fps 1 monstros lush planting
190 fps 0 monstros lush planting

Application mode 1024x768 with bubbles
190 fps 0 monstos lush planting
232 fps 0 monstrols medium planting
250 fps 0 monstrols rocks only
500 fps 0 monstros pond
542fps 0 monstros large clear tank

Application mode 1024x768 with bubbles
542 fps 0 monstros large clear tank
477 fps 1 monstros large clear tank
333 fps 2 monstros large clear tank
300 fps 3 monstros large clear tank
250 fps 4 monstros large clear tank
227 fps 5 monstros large clear tank

Application windowed mode with bubbles lust planting 5 monstros
123 fps 1024x768
124 fps 0800x0600
124 fps 320x240
124 fps 160x240

86 fps when hit F key for full screen
90 fps in window 1450x906

app window crosses screen boundry (314x96)
11.55 fps 100% on slow monitor
9.25 fps some on both
76 fps bout 1/2 n 1/2
99 fps most on big monitor
125 fps all on big monitor

and when both monitors are on the same fast card the app runs at the same speed.

BTW the application can be duplicated so many; instances can run at once
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System is a Dual processor G5 2Ghz unit
with 1.5Gig RAM,
one ATI Radeon 9600 Pro w/64meg VRAM
split across two attached LCD monitors
(ACD 1600x1024 and
ASD 1280x1024), and
one ATI Radeon 7000 with
one 1024x768 Wacom Cintiq LCD
running Mac OS X 10.3.5 with all the patches.
Reasons people don't watch Star Trek:
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01% - My parents were killed by Klingons and it's still too painful.
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