tom@mims-iris.waterloo.edu (Tom Haapanen) (01/18/91)
OK, so I have upgraded my 3-year-old 8-bit 256K Paradise VGA+ to a 16-bit
1MB Tseng 4000 card (aka Orchid ProDesigner II). Sure, it seems that
Windows runs faster, but there are open questions...
* I ran the PC Mag benchmarks with both cards (benchg11.zip from cica),
using 800x600x16 in 386 Enhanced mode. The results show the Tseng
card as only 3% faster on the average (20% faster on rectangles)!
What gives? Is the Tseng driver (tseng4k.zip from cica) really that
slow?
* The driver package did not include a 1024x768x16, just a 1024x768x256.
Has anyone seen a 1024x768 16-color driver? Despite the slight amount
of flicker from my NEC 3D, I'd like to have a 1024x768 handy, and the
256-color mode is a tad slow.
Thanks once again for comments... :)
[ \tom haapanen --- university of waterloo --- tom@mims-iris.waterloo.edu ]
[ "i don't even know what street canada is on" -- al capone ]tom@mims-iris.waterloo.edu (Tom Haapanen) (01/18/91)
Tom Haapanen <tom@mims-iris.waterloo.edu> writes: > OK, so I have upgraded my 3-year-old 8-bit 256K Paradise VGA+ to a 16-bit > 1MB Tseng 4000 card (aka Orchid ProDesigner II). [...] > * The driver package did not include a 1024x768x16, just a 1024x768x256. > Has anyone seen a 1024x768 16-color driver? ...well, the Orchid driver package includes just such a beast, and it seems to work just fine. I guess the drivers are interchangeable between Orchid and generic Tseng 4000. [ \tom haapanen --- university of waterloo --- tom@mims-iris.waterloo.edu ] [ "i don't even know what street canada is on" -- al capone ]
tom@mims-iris.waterloo.edu (Tom Haapanen) (01/21/91)
Tom Haapanen <tom@mims-iris.waterloo.edu> writes: > OK, so I have upgraded my 3-year-old 8-bit 256K Paradise VGA+ to a 16-bit > 1MB Tseng 4000 card (aka Orchid ProDesigner II). Sure, it seems that > Windows runs faster, but there are open questions... > * I ran the PC Mag benchmarks with both cards (benchg11.zip from cica), > using 800x600x16 in 386 Enhanced mode. The results show the Tseng > card as only 3% faster on the average (20% faster on rectangles)! All right, two main points: 1. Several people pointed out that the benchmarks are very processor- intensive and even a fast card won't show much improvement. 2. Mike Schmitt deduced that I was running the card in 8-bit mode <blush>. I've rerun the benchmarks, and here are the updated performance figures: Paradise VGA+ 8-bit 1.000 Tseng 4000 8-bit 1.053 Tseng 4000 16-bit 1.107 The benchmarks usually quoted in PC Mag are only a small subset of the overall set, and can thus show more dramatic differences. For example, Tseng is much faster than Paradise in drawing rectangles, and 16-bit mode dramatically improves BitBlt times. The final call? I'm happy with the Tseng, and a bit more informed! :) [ \tom haapanen --- university of waterloo --- tom@mims-iris.waterloo.edu ] [ "i don't even know what street canada is on" -- al capone ]