3Dlabs Oxygen GVX1 PCI

Indy3D

The Indy3D benchmark is split up into three types of tests: application, image quality, and primitive (synthetic) tests. For the purposes of illustrating performance we have only used the application tests in this section.

The application tests are split into 3 sections, MCAD, Animation, and Simulation. Their respective descriptions from the SENSE8 Corporation Website can be found below:

MCAD Benchmark

The MCAD benchmark test consists of two different tests (MCAD40 and MCAD150) designed to simulate the rendering of typical models of medium to high complexity (40,000 or 150,000 polygons). The MCAD150 test has enough polygons that it tends to give results highly dependent on the CPU or geometry transformation hardware and little else.

The MCAD visual database is an engine model supplied by Engineering Animation Incorporated (EAI). The engine was created with SDRC's IDEAS Master Series and was converted into a VRML 1.0 file using EAI’s VisMockup application.

Animation Benchmark

The Animation model is a human figure supplied by the Westwood Studios. We feel this type of character-based modeling is typical of the game and video animation markets. The cityscape around the figure was created by Sense8 to put the figure in a typical setting. The file supplied by Westwood Studios was in 3D Max format and was then processed by Sense8 to eliminate redundant polygons and stored in a compact Sense8 format.

Simulation Benchmark

We have selected a realistic sailing simulation built by Sense8. The sailboat is driven forwards by wind forces acting on the boat and by resistance of the boat to the water. The physics involved in this simulation are fairly simple and we have verified that on the reference system, the impact of running the physics simulation is not noticeable with any of the graphics boards we tested at the official settings. However, it is possible that for smaller windows or boards with extremely large texture fill capabilities (anything that can deliver 25-35 fps for the simulation), the impact of the physics model will be felt if the CPU can't keep up with the rendering and becomes the bottleneck. The justification for this is that in the simulation market, there is almost always some CPU utilization for running code other than 3D transformations/lighting.

In addition to the physics simulation, we are creating "waves" by moving the vertices of a mesh of polygons near the boat. We have verified that this makes a negligible contribution to performance under most expected environments.

Judging by the nature of the benchmarks, we'd once again expect to see the GeForce come out on top. And indeed it does with the GVX1 as the only remotely close competitor in the MCAD benchmarks. But by this time we've already proven the basic performance of all of the cards being compared here.