Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!munnari.oz.au!bruce!monu1!monu6!cpa From: cpa@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (Christopher P Avram) Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms Subject: Video speed Summary: 256 colour is slower than 16 for some cards Keywords: video speed standard enhanced real mode 256 colour Message-ID: <1990Dec14.134019.21702@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> Date: 14 Dec 90 13:40:19 GMT Organization: Caulfield Campus, Monash University, Melb., Australia. Lines: 81 I have seen a lot of talk on this group about the speed of Windows 3.0 so here are some tests. Question. Is 256 colour mode much slower? Question. Is standard mode much faster than 386 enhanced mode? To understand these tests find and run WINBench.EXE. Its a PC Magazine program. My conclusions are that for this particular card, enhanced mode costs very little in video performance (perhaps it does slow CPU bound processes this test didn't test that). There is a performance cost for 256 colour mode on this video card. The card is very much slower in area fill operations in 256 colour mode. Screen re-paint is not always an area fill type operation. The program used to do these tests is a windows 2 program that seems to work in windows 3. I plan to publish tests for a TVGA clone and a Paradise VGA Plus clone real soon now. The tests are only comparative between modes not between video cards. If you want to know which is the fastest video card, this series of tests wont help. -------------------------------------------------------- Windows 3.0 Video Speed Tests Run by: Christopher P Avram, Department of Computer Technology, Monash University Caulfield Campus. Run date: November 14, 1990 Using: PC Magazine DispInfo Version 1.2 by Charles Petzold 1986 Processor: 386 AT Bus clone; No co-processor; 8 Mbytes Memory; no cache; 25MHz Video card: a Tseng Labs 3000 clone Video Memory: 512 Kbytes Video Bus: 8 bit Shadow Ram enabled. Video Drivers: From cica.cica.indiana.edu and Microsoft Windows 386 Enhanced mode Driver Line Rectangle Ellipse BitBlt StretchBlt Scroll Fill VGA 640x480x16 3.9 11.0 53.8 5.5 79.6 6.6 44.5 Tseng 640x480x16 3.8 11.0 49.4 6.0 81.3 6.7 44.8 Tseng 640x480x256 5.5 43.4 104.9 6.6 92.3 7.4 287.7 Tseng 800x600x16 3.8 13.2 70.9 7.7 104.4 8.8 53.4 VGAfont 800x600x16 3.8 9.9 50.5 5.5 76.4 5.7 33.3* Tseng 1024x768x16 3.9 17.0 70.9 7.1 108.8 9.3 80.9 Windows Standard mode Driver Line Rectangle Ellipse BitBlt StretchBlt Scroll Fill Tseng 640x480x256 5.0 42.3 86.2 6.0 86.8 7.3 282.0 Windows Real mode Driver Line Rectangle Ellipse BitBlt StretchBlt Scroll Fill Tseng 640x480x256 3.8 41.7 67.6 6.0 86.8 6.6 278.6 All data in seconds per 100 operations. * NOTE: The test is performed in a window whose size is set to 60 system font characters wide and 20 system font characters high. The Tseng drivers install by default using a large system font (8514), so area based operations operate on a large screen area. The fonts available are for 640x480 or 1024x760 but 800x600 is between. When in 800x600 mode, I have run the tests with both system fonts. ------------------------------------------------- Chris Avram Department of Computer Technology Faculty of Computing and Information Technology Monash University Caulfield Campus PO Box 197 Phone + 61 3 573 2196 Caulfield East Vic 3145 Fax + 61 3 573 2745 AUSTRALIA email cpa@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au