Benchmark Flight (Or How I Discovered The Holy Grail)

[Guest]

In the following message, buried now deep within another thread, Greg asked me to run the benchmark flight that he and Doug Horton worked up for FS2002.http://ftp.avsim.com/dcforum/DCForumID8/18218.html#34I did, three times now, and get about 59 FPS with the system described in my sig. I guess that's pretty good. In an email, Greg reports getting just 30 FPS with a 2.1 Ghz P4. I'm hoping that Greg has data from other systems for the sake of comparison, as the link at simflight.com for maintaining this benchmark no longer works.Has anybody else here run the benchmark?-Basil

[Guest]

What sort of things are you required to do in the Benchmark Basil? I read that post earlier and wondered about it because reportedly it is what they use over there at simhq.com. I often wondered what they did to get their FS2002 benchmark.Thanks,Robb

[Guest]

I think this file was used at simflight.com. Is that different than simhq.com?It is a situation file, and special fs2002.cfg file, and a video that you run, and watch the fps meter. I can email it to you if you like.-Basil

[Guest Kurt]

Basil,If it's the benchmark with two flights, "Honolulu" and "Heathrow" , I have run it. I do not think it is very accurate for making comparisons though. I have an old machine and get right around 30 fps, which I think is artificially high. You can see why this could happen by looking in the supplied .cfg file.Under the &l;DISPLAY&r; section the UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=0 is set to unlimited which is fine, but under the &l;GRAPHICS&r; section, the LOD_TARGET_FPS= is set to 31 instead of the default 10.A second problem I see with this benchmark is with using the average framerate counter, It resets itself and you are not getting figures for the entire video, only the part of the flight from the last reset to the end of the flight.If the LOD_TARGET_FPS= was set to 10 and you used FRAPS to get the low, average, and high frames for the entire flight it would be more accurate for making comparisons.I have been using a flight video since FS2000 to bench my own system and think it is a good idea, but the way this bench is set up, I don't believe you will be getting an accurate comparison between systems.Kurt M

[Guest]

Hey Basil,No need to send me that file unless you would like mr to run it for comparison purposes. Simhq.com is the only hardware site (or site that regularly includes hardware) that uses FS2002 in their benchmarks. However, they rarely make hardware compariosin snd gice no indication as to settings.Take care buddy,Robb

[Guest]

>If it's the benchmark with two flights, "Honolulu" and >"Heathrow" , I have run it. I do not think it is very >accurate for making comparisons though. I have an old >machine and get right around 30 fps, which I think is >artificially high. It has the Honolulu flight, but not the Heathrow one.>>You can see why this could happen by looking in the supplied >.cfg file. >>Under the &l;DISPLAY&r; section the UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=0 >is set to unlimited which is fine, but under the >&l;GRAPHICS&r; section, the LOD_TARGET_FPS= is set to 31 >instead of the default 10.I wonder if that's really a problem for this particular situation. If the computer cannot display 30 fps in this situation, it is not going to display 30 fps just because the target is set to 30. In any case, my computer displays almost twice that, so I doubt it distored things. >>A second problem I see with this benchmark is with using the >average framerate counter, It resets itself and you are not >getting figures for the entire video, only the part of the >flight from the last reset to the end of the flight. >This one I noticed myself, though I think the frame rate average at the end was comparable to what I was seeing throughout the video.>I have been using a flight video since FS2000 to bench my >own system and think it is a good idea, but the way this >bench is set up, I don't believe you will be getting an >accurate comparison between systems. We need an "official" benchmark routine built into FS9.>-Basil