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WinTune '95 - Video
Wintune 95 - Video

The Video analyzer reports the current configuration of the video subsystem and measures video performance for a series of common activities such as creating windows, scrolling text, drawing shapes, and displaying bitmaps.

For questions on a particular item reported by this analyzer, click on the item in Wintune's Details tab and press F1, or right-click on the item and select "Tell Me More". You can also browse the help topics using the >> and << buttons above, or select a specific item from the list below.

Frequently asked questions:

None

Results:

Color depth

Video speed

Video board

Driver type

Acceleration

Create window

Scroll text

Draw lines/curves

Draw filled objects

Display 24-bit image

Destroy window

Tested on

Tips

VID101: Use a Plug and Play video driver


Resolution

Horizontal by vertical resolution in pixels. Since Windows can change video resolution without rebooting, Wintune rechecks the video resolution each time before it starts testing to ensure its results are correct.


Color depth

The number of bits used to represent each pixel on the screen. The 4-bit (16-color) and 8-bit (256-color) modes use a palette where the colors are chosen from a spectrum of 256,000 possible colors. High color (15 or 16-bit, 32,000 or 64,000 colors) and true color (24 bit, 16.7 million color) modes represent colors directly and do not use a palette.


Video speed

Overall video performance is measured by taking the total number of pixels written to the screen during all of the video subtests, then dividing by the total time taken to complete all of the subtests.


Video board

Description of the video board provided by Windows.


Driver type

Windows 95 works best when used with newer 32-bit Plug and Play drivers. These drivers support new features such as on-the-fly resolution changes and animated cursors. They also tend to be more stable and consume fewer resources than older video drivers. However, Windows 95 does support older Windows 3.1 drivers in case there isn't a Plug and Play driver available. If you are using a Windows 3.1 driver, you should contact your vendor to see if a better driver is now available.

Note: Wintune 95 uses the method that Microsoft documented in the Windows 95 Resource Kit for detecting 32-bit Plug and Play video drivers. Just as Wintune 95 shipped, we received reports of new ATI drivers being misidentified as Windows 3.x drivers. If we determine that ATI is correct in using this new driver installation method for 32-bit Plug and Play drivers, we will fix the problem in a future release.


Acceleration

Windows 95 provides a way to disable certain hardware acceleration features of the video board in situations where you are encountering crashes or incorrectly-drawn screens. However, disabling acceleration can reduce performance.

To check video acceleration settings:

1.	Run the System item in Control Panel, or right-click the My Computer desktop icon.

2.	Click the Performance tab.

3.	Click the Graphics button.

If you are having problems with Wintune crashing at the very end of the video test, there is probably a bug in your video driver. Disabling graphics acceleration options may solve this problem.


Create window

This subtest measures the time it takes to create a new (blank) window on the screen.


Scroll text

This subtest measures the time it takes to scroll text of various sizes in a window.


Draw lines/curves

This test measures the time it takes to draw randomly-placed straight lines and circles in a window.


Draw filled objects

This test measures the time it takes to draw circles and rectangles that are filled with a color other than the background window color.


Display 24-bit image

This test measures the time it takes to display a true-color image.  The image used is a close-up of an eye. On systems that are not using a true-color or high-color video driver, you may notice unusual color highlights in the image. This is normal, since the video board cannot represent the image accurately.


Destroy window

This test measures the time required to remove the window from the screen.


Tested on

The date and time that tests were completed.


Tip VID101: Use a Plug and Play video driver
Use a Plug and Play video driver

Windows 95 works best when used with newer 32-bit Plug and Play drivers. These drivers support features such as on-the-fly resolution changes and animated cursors. They also tend to be more stable and consume fewer resources than older video drivers. However, Windows 95 does support older Windows 3.1 drivers in case there isn't a Plug and Play driver available. If you are using a Windows 3.1 driver, you should contact your vendor to see if a better driver is now available.

See also:

Driver Type