Exhaustive Doom III Benchmarks

Micah

Member
Well, I posted these in my livejournal, but I figured a few people here might be interested. Here's the quick and dirty cut and paste with my wonderful commentary. (naughty)

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width="100%" summary="" border=0><TBODY><TR align=left><TD class=caption>G33K T1M3</TD><TD class=index align=right>[05 Aug 2004|05:02pm]</TD></TR><TR align=left><TD bgColor=#ffffff colSpan=2>Well, I took a half day, going to upgrade my nephews computer (add more ram from 256 to 768) so that he can play doom3 with better framerates.

This got me thinking. I had several hours to kill, so I decided to benchmark both my machines using the "timedemo demo1" command in doom3. ( CTRL+ALT+~ to pull up the console)

ATI released new drivers today which were specifically designed to raise performance in doom3. Not only do they work, but they are actually amazing the hell out of me.

Machine 1 - AMD 2400XP, 1.5GB DDR266, Soyo Dragon 333 Ultra Platinum, ATI 9800pro 128MB Game is installed on 1250GB Raid5 array (might decrease load times on the demo - I dunno - but once it's been run once, it's already cached).

Machine 2 - Intel P4 2.8E, 1GB DDR400 Dual Channel, Intel 865GBF, Chaintech Geforce FX5950 256MB Game installed on normal IDE Drive ( 80GB WD )

Machine 1's CPU holds an average running temp of 154 degrees F during the test.

Machine 2's CPU holds an average running temp of 124 degrees F during the test.

Benchmarks were made 3 times at each setting. The first is always a bit slower because of caching, but - it is indicative of performance when entering a new area. Granted, the timedemo might not be the best benchmark, but it's good enough, and was easy to use.

First I benchmarked Machine 1 using the most current Certified Driver
Medium Detail 800x600
NO AA - 27 / 32.8 /32.8
2x AA - 28 / 30.9 /31
4x AA - 24.7 / 26.9 / 26.8

Then with the New improved Driver released today
No AA - 27.9 / 33.9 / 34.4
2x AA - 28.9 / 32.2 / 32.1
4x AA - 25.2 / 27.5 / 27.4

Yeah, so - it bumped performance up about a frame or two straight across the board. So I started thinking... surely my p4 would fare better. After all, it's faster, the cpu has more cache, the video card has double the ram, and is faster. Granted the P4 has 1GB of ram as compared to the AMD's 1.5GB. But it's Dual Channel in the p4 and also DDR400 compared to the AMD's DDR266. Hmm... I should mention that DDR266 vs. DDR400 isn't going to make a big difference. I've seen benchmarks, and built lots of machines. While you would expect it to make a huge difference, it really doesn't. Also, the AMD is my daily use machine, got tons of stuff loaded, Inksaver, Livejournal, Norton AV, Winamp Agent, Creative Volume Control and of course Spybot. The P4 on the other hand, has loaded, norton AV, Norton Ghost, and Intel's Active Monitor. Last of all, the FSB on the AMD is 333mhz, while on the Intel it's 800mhz. The Intel machine also cost a hell of a lot more to build ( not counting the RAID array on the AMD ) as compared to the AMD.

So, I Benched the p4, at the same settings.
Medium Detail 800x600
No AA - 33.2 / 35.6 / 35.6
2x AA - 31.4 / 33 / 33
4x AA - 29.1 / 30.4 / 30.4

Hmm... Not bad, the intel pulls ahead a bit. but only marginally. Maybe I'm just not pushing the machines hard enough. Lets push things a little harder and kick up those settings.

AMD Tests
800x600 Very High Quality
No AA - 27.9 / 33.4 / 33.3
2x AA - 27.2 / 31.1 / 31
4x AA - 23.3 / 25.7 / 25.8

1024x768 Very High Quality
No AA - 25.9 / 29.3 / 29.3
2x AA - 23.9 / 26.5 / 26.6
4x AA - 19 / 20.4 / 20.5

Intel Tests
800x600 Very High Quality
No AA 28.7 / 31 / 30.9
2x AA - 26.8 / 28.8 / 28.8
4x AA 24.8 / 26.4 / 26.4

1024x768 Very High Quality
No AA - 22.3 / 23.6 / 23.6
2x AA - 20.7 / 21.6 / 21.7
4x AA - 18.8 / 19.7 / 19.7

So - what the **** happenned??? My best guess is that the extra 512MB of RAM really helps alot. I've had both the ATI and the nVidia card in the P4, and in 3dmark the scores were significantly higher with the nVidia. That's why the ATI card is in my AMD machine, I thought the best performing video card should be in the stronger machine. Also, Running 3dmark 03 on both machines, the P4 scored higher. Since I've gone through all this trouble though - might as well run 3dmark too on both machines. That will be the next post.

Also the driver on the nVidia card is 5672. A new version is available 6177. I'll upgrade tonight and see how it changes. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
 
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width="100%" summary="" border=0><TBODY><TR align=left><TD class=caption></TD><TD class=index align=right>[05 Aug 2004|05:18pm]</TD></TR><TR align=left><TD bgColor=#ffffff colSpan=2>Quick update - Ran Aquamark on both machines
Default settings 1024x768x32bit No AA 4x Antistropic Filtering
same drivers still being used

AMD - 32,771
GFX 4860
CPU 5034

Intel - 43,693
GFX 5892
CPU 8453

Strange stuff. I did read that Carmack said that Doom 3 was going to use video cards differently, but in their own Benchmarks, the nVidia was ahead of ATI. While Aquamark says the Intel should be screaming past the AMD, the two are closely matched, with the AMD pulling slightly ahead. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
 
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width="100%" summary="" border=0><TBODY><TR align=left><TD class=caption>Last Geek entry for the night</TD><TD class=index align=right>[06 Aug 2004|12:13am]</TD></TR><TR align=left><TD bgColor=#ffffff colSpan=2>Upgraded the drivers on the nVidia in the p4. Now running 6177.

Results

800x600 Very High
No AA - 35.9 / 39.7 / 39.7
2x AA - 31.2 / 36.3 / 36.3
4x AA - 30.5 / 32.9 / 33

1024x768 Very High
No AA - 29.9 / 32.5 / 32.4
2x AA - 27.1 / 29 / 29
4x AA - 24.4 / 26 / 26

Aquamark - 43,127
GFX 5802
GPU 8396

Hmm... Aquamark dropped a bit. But the framerates increased in Doom 3. It's worth noting that there is a new beta driver available - and I'm not using it. I'm using what is currently endorsed/available on the nVidia site. Normally I don't run beta drivers, but since ATI was pushing theirs, and I saw alot of people on hardforum.com using them, I figured I'd give it a try. In any case, I'll be running the machines at the framerates that fall between 25-30fps. So for the p4 it's gonna be 1024x768 2xAA, and for the AMD 800x600 2xAA.

Just for s**** and giggles, I figured I'd run the benchmarks on the p4 on the low end of settings. But I still left vsync enabled, because screen tearing annoys me, and if I had my way - vsync would be forced in hardware on all cards by default. Here's the results.

640x480 Low
No AA - 47.4 / 52.1 / 52.1
2x AA - 46.4 / 49.8 / 49.6
4x AA - 43.5 / 46 / 46.5
8x AA - 25.5 / 26.3 / 26.3
16x AA - 20.9 / 21.4 / 21.4

Goddamn, I think I'm going to see that timedemo in my dreams tonight. </TD></TR><TR><TD class=comments align=right width="100%" bgColor=#e0e0e0 colSpan=2>post comment</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
 
the new catalyst drivers fixed a major graphic glitch in doom3 for me. (9700 pro)
 
what glitch was that? I'm still running the latest omega's. I haven't tried the doom enhanced cats yet.
 
that's an impressive set of work there Micah!!! Great info for everyone else too.. :) I'll post any info I have from my sad sad GeForce2 and my soon to arrive FX5200 just for comparison sake..
 
I've got 12fps on 640x480, low quality, with (i think) everything off

P4 3ghz 512mb PC2700 ram, Geforce FX Go5200 64mb O/C'd.

Yeah, FEAR me!
Doom 3 is a monster.
 
CONEH8R said:
I've got 12fps on 640x480, low quality, with (i think) everything off

P4 3ghz 512mb PC2700 ram, Geforce FX Go5200 64mb O/C'd.

Yeah, FEAR me!
Doom 3 is a monster.

Upgrade your video card man!
 
i had all these random blue, white and yellow streaks that would randomly flash on and off, ill run a benchmark and post results here in a bit
 
system:
P4 2.53Ghz
512MB ram
128Mb radeon 9700 pro with catalyst drivers
im planning on popping in another stick of 512 here soon

1024x768, medium quality, everything on except AA
29.1fps

800x600, high quality, everything on except AA
30.8fps

1024x768, high quality, everything on except AA
24.4fps

and just for laughs
1600x1200, ultra quality, everything on except AA
14.9fps

dont let that 14.9 fool you though, it runs fine when nothings going on, but when you pull out the flashlight, start shooting, or something like that happens, it crawls. im sure the chart of FPS over that 80 or 90 seconds the timedemo lasts goes from 1 fps to 40fps
 
jersey_emt said:
Upgrade your video card man!
It's a laptop... upgrading isn't quite as easy...

The funny thing is I run a GeForce2 32mb card and I'm putting down nearly 25 fps with EVERYTHING off at 620x480... so nearly double his rate... I just got the FX5200 card today... going to test it out...
 
Well, I have no problems at all running Doom 3 here is my comp specs

Duel 3.2GHZ Xeon Processors
4 Gigs of Ram
2X 520 Gig hard drive Raid 1
Nvidia quadro FX Professional Graphics card

I run the game on Ultra high quality, looks good

I am a Freelance Computer Animator that is why I have such an expensive computer.
 
damn...

Do the professional quadro cards really have that much of a better performance? My work machine has one... I use it for CAD stuff... but I've never gotten the point.. is it just crisper better 2d stuff basically? I've never seen a computer bog because of video/3d during cad stuff... (although you doing animation is another thing).

And how do you have a 520gb drive? the biggest I can find is about 300 gb... and to do Raid1 you have to have a pair... so... just curious! Pretty cool though.
 
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anyone notice that in doom3, you can run at a lower resolution than other games and it looks better...like normally 800x600 doesnt look very good but on doom3 it looks pretty killer
 
Yup I'm running at 800x600 at medium quality, looks awesome. No choppyness at all.

P4 2.4gHz
768mb DDR
ATI Radeon 9600 (All-In-Wonder)
 
help me with this slight glitch if you can, its the only glitch i have left.

when i use the flashlight, the reflection of the light off surfaces has these tiny little squares of black in it, you can kind of see it in this screenshot

and you can see the awesome 'growth' taking over the base
 

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jersey_emt said:
Upgrade your video card man!

$800 for a new motherboard with a better card on it. :(

Welcome to Laptop central.

frame/frame/frame/mouse click/frame/fame/gun fires/frame/frame/you die because the monster already had you dead at frame 2

LOL
 

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