Copyright: PerformanceTest V5.0


Overview
PerformanceTest by PassMark Software - Overview

PerformanceTest is a fast, easy to use software benchmarking tool that allows everybody to quickly assess the performance of their PC and compare it to a number of standard 'baseline' computer systems.

PerformanceTest allows you to,

•	Find out if your PC is performing at its best.

•	Compare the performance of your machine to similar machines.

•	Measure the effect of configuration changes and upgrades.

•	Avoid paying big bucks for poor performance.

•	Make objective independent measurements on which to base your purchasing decision.

This program is a is designed to be run from a CD or USB memory stick. This means you can take it with you when you go out shopping for a new or second hand PC. The other major advantage is the built in ‘baseline’ results that enable a reasonable comparison to be made between computer systems. Additional new baselines can also be downloaded from PassMark's Web site (http://www.passmark.com)

The results are presented as easy to read bar charts so that you don’t need to spend hours studying the number to know the result.

Timing for the tests is done using high resolution timers, which are accurate to approximately 1 millionth of a second on most PC’s.

Of course for a measurement to be accurate and fair, several precautions need to be taken. Failure to take into account these factors will result in measurements that are inaccurate.

The application includes the following additional features

•	Comprehensive online help

•	Support for printing results

•	The ability to save your benchmark results to disk as a new baseline.

•	A 'Notes' field for storing your own information along with the saved Benchmark result.

•	Support for copying the results to other applications (eg. MS-Word)

•	The ability to export results to HTML, text, GIF, BMP and EMF formats

•	The ability to graph detailed disk performance

•	Single test execution, execution of a test suite or execution of all tests with a single mouse click.

•	A summary 'Mark' figure for each test suite plus the calculation of the PassMark Rating figure.

•	An easy to use point and click interface

•	A summary system information screen including CPU type, CPU speed, Total RAM, etc..

•	The ability to compare the performance of your computer to multiple 'Baseline' computers at the one time.

•	Advanced test windows that allow you to create your own customized benchmark test.

Click on the contents button for more help topics.


Test descriptions

Several standard test suites are built into the software. Each of these test suites contains a number of different tests designed to measure different aspects of your computer system. These tests can be run as a group or as individual tests. The result of each test is presented using a particular unit of measurement

The following standard test suites are currently available.

CPU test suite

CPU operations

Graphics test suite

Tests of standard two dimensional graphical functions

Disk test suite

Reading, writing files

CD/DVD test suite

CD read speed test

3D Graphics test suite

Tests the DirectX 3D graphics system

In general the tests are run for the amount of time specified in the field “Test Duration” Preferences dialog box . In cases where a long test period is required to obtain a more accurate result a multiple of this “Test duration” value is used.

The time required to set-up a test is never included in the test duration or the calculation of the test result.

See also

Advanced test windows


Measurement units
Units of measurement

The result of each test is presented using a particular unit of measurement. In each case the higher the number, the higher the performance of the computer. For some tests there is a differentiation between integer and floating point numbers. Integers are whole numbers such as 23, 459532, -26.  Floating point numbers contain a fractional part, eg. 1.003, 98394.2.  These two types of numbers are treated quite differently inside a computer, which is why PerformanceTest differentiates between the two.

MBytes / Sec	MegaBytes transferred per second

Used to measure the amount of information transferred to and from a disk or memory.

Add’s / Sec	Millions of additions per second

Used to measure the number of integer or floating point mathematical operations. Also used for the MMX instruction tests.

Subs's / Sec	Millions of subtractions per second

Used to measure the number of integer or floating point mathematical operations. Also used for the MMX instruction tests.

Mult’s / Sec	Millions of multiplications per second

Used to measure the number of integer or floating point mathematical operations. Also used for the MMX instruction tests.

Div’s / Sec	Millions of divisions per second

Used to measure the number of integer or floating point mathematical operations.

Lines / Sec	Thousands of lines per second

Used to measure the number of lines that can be drawn in a window per second. This is a measure of the 2D graphics performance.

Images / Sec	Thousands of bitmap images per second

Used to measure the number of bitmap images that can be drawn in a window per second. This is a measure of the 2D graphics performance.

Shapes / Sec	Thousands of shapes per second

Used to measure the number of shapes that can be drawn in a window per second. This is a measure of the 2D graphics performance.

Frames / Sec	Number of different image frames displayed per second

Used to measure the performance of animation using 3D graphics. High frame rates produce a smoother, more realistic picture.

MegaFLOPS (or FLOPS)

FLOPS is the number of floating point operations that can be performed per second. As this figure is normally in the millions the term MegaFLOPS is used. 1,000,000 FLOPS = 1 MegaFLOPS. This is an industry standard measurement, that is used to compare the performance of diverse computer systems.

Composite Average

This is an extra heading used for the summary section. It doesn’t really represent a particular unit of measurement as it is a combination (weighted average) of several other measurements.


Baselines

A baseline is a standard set of results from another computer. These baseline results can be used to determine how fast your computer is in comparison with other computer systems. Baselines are stored in files on the computer’s disk. These files end with the extension “.pt” and are normally found in the PerformanceTest installation directory. When PerformanceTest starts up the installation directory is scanned for Baseline files.

A number of standard baselines are available for selection from the Select Baselines menu option. After a baseline has been selected the results from your computer will be compared against this baseline system. See interpreting the results  for more information.

Baselines are selected for display from the “Select Baselines” dialogue window. New baselines can also be installed from another location so that they can then be selected. This allows you to load a new baseline that you have previously created or that you have received via E-Mail, etc..

PerformanceTest is backwardly compatible. This means that those baseline files created with older versions of PerformanceTest can be used with version 4.0. The additional test results present in version 4.0 will not however be available from the older baseline files.

There are two different types of baseline files. Licensed baselines files and Unlicensed baseline files. Files contained in the PassMark database of results are licensed and can only be used by registered users. Files supplied with the Shareware version are unlicensed and can be used by anybody. Files created by both the Shareware and Registered versions are also unlicensed.

Some information about the computer system that generated the baseline is held in the baseline file. For more details about the information stored with the baseline see the Baseline information menu option.

Adding new baselines

If new baselines are available they can be added to the Baseline selection window by copying them (by using Windows explorer for example) to the directory where PerformanceTest is installed. PerformanceTest will automatically include them in the selection list the next time it starts.

Baselines files must have a ‘.pt’ file name extension and PerformanceTest must be restarted before it searches for new baselines files.

The second method is to use the "Install baseline from file" menu option. This copies the baseline file to the PerformanceTest installation directory and adds it to the selection list.

Any baseline file saved to the PerformanceTest installation directory using the "Save as baseline" menu option will also automatically be added to the selection list.

Baseline files can be exchanged via E-Mail, found on the Web or be created by yourself using the Save As Baseline option in the File menu.

Downloading Extra Baselines from PassMark

If you are a registered licensed user of PerformanceTest, additional Baselines can be downloaded from PassMark’s Web site ((http://www.passmark.com). PerformanceTest will not allow the use of these additional Baseline files unless the program has been registered !


Interpreting the results

If you don't have a lot of computer knowledge, interpreting the results can be confusing. There are, however, a few simple concepts that can help you.

•	The bigger the number, the faster the computer.

•	The test results are not a percentage figure. They are relative figures. This means, a computer with a result of 40 can process roughly twice as much data as a computer with a result of 20.

•	You can compare the result of your computer with other computers using the supplied baselines.

Test Name

The name of the test suite and the individual test within the suite.

Baseline Name

The name of the baseline. This corresponds to the name of the baseline file on the disk. In most cases this name will be the name of a particular computer or particular CPU.

Test Result

The result obtained from the particular test for the selected baselines and this computer. When the color scheme is set to two colors, the baseline results are shown in red. The results for this computer are shown in green. Each test is associated with a unit of measurement .

Percentage Difference

This value shows the percentage difference in speed between this computer and the baseline computer. A value less than zero indicates that the baseline is slower than the computer under test, and a value greater than zero indicates that the baseline is faster than the computer under test.

Measurement Unit (Scale)

This area displays the unit of measurement used for the suite. See Unit of Measurement for more information.

Bar Chart

The values obtained are displayed as a bar graph. The bars are scaled to the size of the window or the size of the paper when the results are printed. The color scheme of the bars can be selected using the color menu option. Above the bars, a scale is displayed. The scale has the minimum and maximum value. The maximum value of the scale is selected so that all the results can be displayed.

Result range

As the values obtained from the tests can vary enormously between different computer systems, PerformanceTest picks a range that enables the display of all the baseline results for a particular test. This means that the maximum possible value on the bar chart will always be slightly bigger than the largest result for that test. This maximum value is displayed at the right of the window.

Summary / Marks

For each test suite there is a “mark” value. This mark represents a summary of the test suite. These mark values only appear if all the tests in a particular suite have been run. They represent a scaled average of the individual results in the test suite.

PassMark Rating

For each computer displayed the "PassMark rating" is calculated. This is a weighted average of all the other results and gives a single overall result for the computer. It is only displayed if the results from all other tests are available. See the PassMark rating section

See also

The PassMark rating.

Interpreting disk performance graphs.


Menus
Menu Options

File

Save as baseline

Allows the current set of results, for the computer being tested, to be saved as a new baseline. Various additional information is saved with a baseline. For a complete description of this information see the baseline information section . It’s also possible to enter some additional words into the notes field.

Save as image

Allows the main window (or it’s contents) to be saved in one of 3 different graphics file formats. Bitmap (BMP), GIF and Enhanced Meta file format (EMF). See the save as image dialog box for more information.

Export (as text or HTML)

Allows the current set of results to be exported as text or HTML.

html

A set of exported results in HTML format can be immediately inserted into a Web page or transferred to a variety of other applications that support HTML

txt

This writes out the current results to a text file. Each column of information is separated by a tab character.

csv

This writes out the current results to a text file. Each column of information is separated by a comma character.

Print

Displays the print dialog to allow the current set of results to be printed.

Exit

Exits from the application.

Edit

Copy

Allows the current set of results to be copied to the clipboard in an Enhanced Metafile Format. The results can then be pasted as a graphical image into other documents that support this format, eg. Word, Paint Shop Pro. If you are using an application that doesn't support this format try the "Save as image" or "Export" menu options.

Clear

Clear the results produced so far.

Preferences

This option allows the user to customize some aspects of the way PerformanceTest works. See the description of the preferences dialog box for more details.

View

Show PassMark rating

Shows the PassMark Rating for this computer.

Show Read Graph & Show Write Graph

After the disk tests have been run it is possible to display the results as a line graph

Colors

Two color bar chart

Displays the results for your computer in green and all other baseline results in red.

Multi-color bar chart

A different color is used for each of the baseline results.

Test

Run all tests

Runs all the tests in all the test suites

Test suites…

The test details are described in the Test Descriptions section

Advanced Testing

Disk

Opens the Advanced disk test window

CD Drive

Opens the Advanced CD/DVD test window

3D graphics

Opens the Advanced 3D test window

Networking

Opens the Advanced network test window

Memory

Opens the Advanced memory test window

Multiple process

Opens the Advanced multiple process test window

Baseline

Select Baselines

See the section on the Select Baseline dialog.

Baseline information

See the Baseline Information section for more details

Install Baseline from file

This option copies a single Baseline file to the PerformanceTest installation directory and inserts the Baseline into the baseline selection list.


Contacting PassMark
Contacting PassMark Software

On the Web

You can contact PassMark on the web at

http://www.passmark.com

E-Mail

For technical support questions, suggestions

support@passmark.com

For sales & commercial issues

sales@passmark.com

See also, the Ordering information page.

For any other issues

info@passmark.com

FAQ

You may also want to check out the list of Frequently Asked Questions .


System Requirements

Windows 98, Me, 2000 Professional, XP Home, and XP Professional

(Windows 95, NT, XP 64bit and 64bit Itanium Windows 2003 server are not

supported)

(Windows 98 requires Internet Explorer V5.0 or higher)

800 x 600 pixel display

DirectX 8.0 or higher

32MB RAM

2MB of free hard disk space

(plus additional hard disk space to run the Disk test)


Ordering and License
Ordering information

Price

US Dollars:	$24  (single user)

 from the PassMark Software web site

You can also find details of special offers, multi-user licenses, site licenses and offline order options (Phone, fax and purchase order), on this web page.

What happens when you order

After the order is processed, a License Key will be returned (via E-Mail). This Key is then entered with the User Name into the initial window. At this point the program then changes permanently into the full licensed version.

What you get when you license the software

•	Free unlimited technical support via E-Mail and Web

http://www.passmark.com/support

support@passmark.com

•	Free minor upgrades & bug fixes as they become available

http://www.passmark.com/download

•	Free access to new Baseline result files on our Web site as they become available.

http://www.passmark.com/baselines

•	The removal of the initial shareware startup window and the time restriction associated with the shareware evaluation period.

Confidentiality

All personal details supplied when placing an order will be strictly confidential. Online orders will only be accepted over a secure, encrypted connection.

Multi-user & Site Licenses

PassMark software, has attractive rates for Multi-user and site licenses. Details are on our web page or you can E-mail us.

http://www.passmark.com/sales

Questions & more information

If you have any questions we would be happy to hear about them. Contact

sales@passmark.com


Copyright and License
Copyright & License information

Copyright & End User license

This End-User License Agreement (“EULA”) is for the PassMark PerformanceTest software.

EULA is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or a single entity) and PassMark Corporation for the PassMark software product identified above, which includes computer software and may include associated media, printed materials, and “online” or electronic documentation (“SOFTWARE PRODUCT”).  By installing, copying, or otherwise using the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, you agree to be bound by the terms of this EULA.  If you do not agree to the terms of this EULA, do not install or use the SOFTWARE PRODUCT.

1. GRANT OF LICENSE. This EULA grants you the following rights:

•	A license is granted only after the payment of the license fee.

•	If no license fee has been paid the product can be used for evaluation purposes for a maximum period of 30 days.

•	After the license fee has been paid, you may install and use one copy of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, or any prior version on a single computer, or on a single removable disk. The SOFTWARE PRODUCT must NOT be installed on a network where it could be used by more than a single computer.

•	The primary user of the computer on which the licensed SOFTWARE PRODUCT is installed may make a second copy for his or her exclusive use on a portable computer.

0	2. DESCRIPTION OF OTHER RIGHTS AND LIMITATIONS.

•	Limitations on Reverse Engineering, Decompilation, and Disassembly.

You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the SOFTWARE PRODUCT.

•	The shareware version of the software may be freely distributed provided that no fee is charged and the product is distributed complete and intact.

3. COPYRIGHT.

All title and copyrights in and to the SOFTWARE PRODUCT (including but not limited to any images, photographs, animations, video, audio, music, text, and “applets” incorporated into the SOFTWARE PRODUCT), the accompanying printed materials, and any copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT are owned by PassMark or its suppliers. The SOFTWARE PRODUCT is protected by copyright laws and international treaty provisions. Therefore, you must treat the SOFTWARE PRODUCT like any other copyrighted material except that you may install the licensed SOFTWARE PRODUCT on a single computer provided you keep the original solely for backup or archival purposes.

LIMITED WARRANTY.

PassMark warrants that (a) the licensed SOFTWARE PRODUCT will perform substantially in accordance with the accompanying written materials for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of receipt, and (b) any Support Services provided by PassMark shall be substantially as described in applicable written materials provided to you by PassMark, and PassMark support engineers will make commercially reasonable efforts to solve any problem issues. Some states and jurisdictions do not allow limitations on duration of an implied warranty, so the above limitation may not apply to you. To the extent allowed by applicable law, implied warranties on the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, if any, are limited to ninety (90) days.

No warranty of any sort of offered on the evaluation version of the software, until a license fee is paid.

Additional information

For questions regarding the copyright, end user license contact, multi-user licenses and site licenses, contact.

info@passmark.com


Precautions
Precautions for accurate measurement

For a measurement to be accurate and fair, several precautions need to be taken. Failure to take into account these factors will result in measurements that are inaccurate and misleading.

•	Stop all other applications before running PerformanceTest. This includes Internet connections, active desktops, stopping music CDs etc…

•	Turn off virus checkers when running the disk tests. Most virus checkers don’t have a serious effect on performance, but some might.

•	Once a test has been started, leave the test to run without starting or interacting with other applications. i.e. Don’t touch the mouse, Alt-tab to other applications, etc..

•	How full the disk is and its cluster size can affect the read / write performance of a disk. The position of the test file on the disk (inner cylinder or outer cylinder) can also affect the performance. The only way to avoid this problem is to only test newly formatted disks that have the same cluster size. To give an example, compare the following results (in MB / Sec).

Test Name	Drive C:	Drive D:
Disk Sequential cached read	1.9	3.9
Disk Sequential cached write	2.3	3.8
Disk Random Seek + RW	0.4	0.6
In fact both Drive C: and Drive D: are the same physical hard drive split into two different partitions. Drive C: is almost full. Drive D: is almost empty.

•	If the disk is fragmented this can badly affect performance (see the table above). Windows includes a utility for defragmenting the disk. Look up “defrag” in the Windows online help for more details.

•	Windows can sometimes fire a process that can interfere with the accuracy of a test. You may need to run a test a couple of times or over a longer period of time to get an accurate result.

•	Performance result can be dramatically worsened if Windows doesn’t have enough memory & needs to swap out to disk too often. Make sure you have enough RAM if you want to get a real indication of the system performance.

•	In general, higher color depths mean slower screen updates as more color information needs to be transferred. When you compare your results to the baseline results, try and use the same color depth. Otherwise you’re comparing apples and oranges, not apples and apples. Some video cards provide hardware acceleration at particular color depths and not others. Because of this, increasing the color depth (e.g. 24 to 32) can sometimes increase the video speed.

•	Don't expect these tests to run twice as fast on a computer with two or more CPUs.

•	Don't expect your expensive new server to wipe the floor with the competition. Servers are in general built for a purpose and don't have great 2D and 3D graphics (because they don't need it). Do pay extra attention to the Math and Disk test results however.


Problems and FAQ
Problems and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

The full list of frequently asked questions is now maintained on our web site.

http://www.passmark.com/support


Maths Tests suite
Test suite - CPU

This suite contains multi-process CPU tests.

The following tests make up the suite.

- Integer (32-bit addition, subtraction, multiplication and division)

- Floating Point (32-bit addition, subtraction, multiplication and division)

- MMX (matrix multiplication)

- SSE (128-bit SSE operations such as addition, subtraction and multiplication)

- 3Dnow! (3D transformation of an array of 32-bit vertices)

- Compression

- Encryption

- Image Rotation (Rotate image co-ordinates in memory)

- Random String Sorting

Integers are whole numbers such as 23, 459532, -26.  Floating point numbers contain a fractional part, eg. 1.003, 98394.2.  These two types of numbers are treated quite differently inside a computer, which is why PerformanceTest differentiates between the two.

For each of the integer tests, a large array of random 32 bit integers is processed using the particular mathematical operations listed below. For the floating point tests, single precision floating point numbers (32 bit) are used.


Graphics Tests suite
Test suite - Graphics

This suite contains a number of tests that exercise the standard Windows graphics functions. The results from this suite depend on the speed at which the video card can carry out 2D graphics operations and the color depth currently in use.

Line Drawing

Lines are drawn into window. The color is changed every 500 lines to enable the lines to been seen in the test window.

Painting Bitmaps

A bitmap image is painted into a window as quickly as possible. It should be noted that due to the queuing of display requests by hardware accelerated video cards, the duration of this test might be longer than expected.

Outline shapes

Two different shapes are drawn into a window

-	An ellipse

-	A square with rounded corners

The color is changed every 64 shapes to enable the shapes to be seen in the test window.


Disk Tests suite
Test suite - Disk

This suite contains a number of tests that exercise the mass storage units (hard disk or otherwise) connected to the computer. By default drive C: is used but this can be changed from the Preferences Dialog.

For each test a file is created in the root directory of the selected disk. The file size needs to be large in order to get an accurate measurement. In the case where a slow drive is used on a computer with a large amount of RAM this test can take some minutes to complete.

There are a few issues to aware of when interpreting the results of the disk test. These are covered in the precautions section.

Disk Sequential Cached Read

A large test file is created on the disk under test. The size of this test file is proportional to the amount of RAM available, which stops the entire file from being cached in RAM. The file is read sequentially from start to end. The amount of data read in each individual read operation is always 16KB

Disk Sequential Cached Write

A large file is written to the disk under test. The size of this test file is proportional to the amount of RAM available. This stops the entire file being cached in RAM. The file is written sequentially from start to end. The amount of data written in each individual operation is always 16KB

Disk Random cached Seek RW

A large test file is created on the disk under test. The size of this test file is proportional to the amount of RAM available, this stops the entire file being cached in RAM. The file is read randomly; a seek is performed to move the file pointer to a random position in the file, a 16KB block is read or written then another seek is performed. The amount of data actually transferred is highly dependent on the disk seek time.

Using small files results in inaccurate readings. Here's why..

This graph shows the MB/Sec disk write rate over the period of time required to write over 200MB to a hard drive. Cacheing allows the rate to start very high then drop off as the cache fills and the drive can't keep up. In fact, for writing large files cacheing can even cause a decrease in performance (compared to the uncached performance). The cache becomes an overhead in this case.

More detailed results

By using the advanced disk testing window it is possible to examine the performance of the disk in more detail.


Memory Test suite
Test suite - Memory

This suite contains a number of tests that exercise the memory sub-system of the computer. (Random Access Memory- RAM)

Memory - Allocate small block

This test measures the time taken to allocate & free small zeroed memory blocks (around 100KB block size)

Memory - Cached

This test measures the time taken to read a small block of memory. The block is small enough to be held entirely in cache (if one is present)

Memory - UnCached

This test measures the time taken to read a large block of memory. The block is too large to be held in cache.

Memory - Write

This test measures the time taken to write information into memory.

More detailed results

By using the advanced memory testing window it is possible to examine memory performance in more detail.


MMX Test suite
Test suite - MMX

MMX, SSE & 3DNow! are all sets of new CPU instructions that have been introduced into recent CPUs to enable blocks of data to be processed at higher speeds. At the moment only AMD chips support 3DNow! and only Intel chips support SSE. This may change in the future.

CPUs before the Pentium 100 didn’t support even the MMX feature and this means that these tests will not be able to be run on your system.

MMX allows 64bit Integer mathematical and logical operations. SSE allows 128bit floating point mathematical and logical operations. 3DNow! allows 64bit floating point mathematical and logical operations. By comparison, standard CPU instructions process only 32bits at a time. This means that throughput can, in theory, be almost doubled or quadrupled.

For each test a large array of random numbers is processed using the particular mathematical operations list below.

MMX Addition (64bits)

MMX Subtraction (64bits)

MMX Multiplication (64bits)

SSE Math (128bits, floating point addition, multiplication and subtraction)

3DNow! Math (64bits, floating point addition, multiplication and subtraction)

Definitions

MMX = Multimedia Extensions

SSE = Streaming SIMD extensions

SIMD = Single Instruction Multiple Data

3DNow! = The name that chip maker AMD gave to their new CPU instructions.


3D Graphics Test suite
Test suite – 3D Graphics

This test suite attempts to measure the performance of the 3D graphics hardware installed in the machine. This test suite makes use of version 8 of the Microsoft DirectX 3D graphics library. Without DirectX8.0 or above it will not be possible to run these tests.

Three standard tests have been defined. Simple, medium and complex.

	Simple test	Medium test	Complex test
Objects	10	20	40
Textures	1	7	20
Mode	Windowed	Windowed	Full screen (800x600x32)
Other features used	Wireframe	Alpha bending, Specular Lighting,	Alpha bending, Specular Lighting, Fogging, Multitexture
Each texture requires 256KB of video RAM.

Each object has 800 triangular polygons and 381 vertices.

More detailed results

By using the advanced 3D testing window it is possible to examine 3D graphics performance in more detail.


Preferences dialog box
Preferences

Disk/CD drive under test
This field allows the user to select the disk used for all of the disk speed tests. The user can test several disks by running the disk test then changing the drive letter. The system attempts to verify the disk is accessible when the user clicks on OK. When a new disk is selected the disk tests results, for the computer under test, are cleared.

CPU tests

Specifies the number of PerformanceTest processes that will be used for the CPU tests.

Test Duration

This is the base duration for which the tests will run. Values of 2 seconds to 60 seconds are accepted. In cases where a long test period is required to obtain a more accurate result a multiple of this “Test duration” value is used.

Suite	Test Duration Multiple
Math test suite	1
Graphics test suite (#)	1
Disk test suite (*)	N/A
Memory test suite	1
3D Graphics test suite	3

The time required to set-up a test is never included in the test duration or the calculation of the test result.

(*) The duration of the disk tests is not affected by this value. The duration depends on the speed of the hard drive.

(#) It should be noted that due to the queuing of display requests by hardware accelerated video cards, the duration of the Bitmap test may be longer than expected.

This computers name

When PerformanceTest is first started, the name of “this computer” is used to identify the results of the computer being tested. This name can be changed by entering a new value into this field. e.g. “Dell Dimension T800”. This can be useful for identifying the computer when publishing / exporting the results.

3D graphics

For the 3D tests, you can either select the maximum refresh rate or a refresh rate that corresponds to the monitor’s refresh rate. In general, it is better to have maximum refresh rate selected as this will show the true performance of the video card. Selecting the monitor’s refresh rate will limit the number of frames displayed so that it matches or is less than the monitor’s refresh rate. This option should only be used on video cards that exhibit a flickering or tearing effect.


Baseline information dialog box
Baseline Information

Using this Window it is possible to view the configuration of the computer under test and the configuration of the baselines. The name of the baseline is displayed in the title of the window. For more information about what a Baseline is, see the Baseline page.

The next and previous buttons can be used to view the result from each baseline currently displayed.

PerformanceTest Version

This is the version of PerformanceTest that was used to create the baseline file. Newer versions of PerformanceTest store more system information in the baseline file, contain more test results and, in general, contain more accurate results.

SYSTEM INFORMATION

Operating system

Display the operating system name.

BIOS Vendor, Version and Release date

Display BIOS information.

Motherboard Manufacturer, Name and Version

Display Motherboard information.

MEMORY INFORMATION

Total physical memory

Displays the total physical memory (RAM) installed, in Bytes.

Available physical memory

Displays the free physical memory when the baseline was saved. It should be noted that in many cases the disk cache uses a lot of the free available memory. This means that this figure will often be very low.

Total physical memory

Displays the total physical memory (RAM) installed, in Bytes.

Num. Mem. Device Controllers

Displays the number of Memory device controllers.

Number of Slots – Total and Used

Displays the total and currently used number of physical memory slots.

CPU INFORMATION

CPU Manufacturer

Displays the name of the manufacturer of the CPU. This text is extracted directly from the CPU itself, which is why it may seem a little strange.

Number of CPUs

Display the number of CPU’s installed in this system.

Hyperthreading

Displays whether the PC supports Hyperthreading and whether it is enabled.

CPU Type

Displays the CPU type in text.

CPU Model

Displays the CPU model number.

Estimated speed

Displays an estimate of the CPU(s) speed. Due to the method used to determine the speed, there can often be a slight difference between the reported speed and the real speed. For some processor types (e.g. The Pentium Pro 200) the reported value can be out by a significant factor. Portable computers which dynamically vary their speed to extend battery life can also report low figures.

L2 Cache size

Displays the size of the L2 cache.

DISK INFORMATION

Up to 4 disk drives are displayed.

Drive letter

The logical disk drive letter, eg C, followed by the physical disk drive number eg. 0. A physical disk may have more than one partition, and hence multiple drive letters.  Note: The physical drive number is not available in Windows 98 or ME.

Model number

Where available, this displays the disk drive model, e.g. IC35L040AVVN07-0. This can be used to determine the exact drive type used in a baseline result. Note: The model number is not available with Windows 98 or ME.

Disk size

The size of the hard disk in the computer, in Gigabytes. The amount of free space is also displayed.

Disk cluster size

Files on the hard disk are divided up into chunks of data called Clusters. This field displays the size of the cluster for the hard disk being tested. Cluster size can have some effect on disk performance and disk utilization efficiency.

File system

The file system is the standard used to store and index information on the disk. Microsoft standards include FAT, FAT32 & NTFS. The file system in use can have some effect on disk performance.

VIDEO ADAPTER

Description

A description of the video card.

Manufacturer

The manufacturer of the video card. This often includes the description as well.

Video BIOS and Date

The video card BIOS version and date of release.

Screen Mode - Video settings (Width, Height and Depth)

Displays the screen resolution and the color depth used when the test was performed. The correspondence between color depth and maximum number of colors is shown below. In general, higher color depths mean slower screen updates, as more color information needs to be transferred. The resolution of the screen doesn’t generally have a significant impact on the test results as all the graphics tests are performed in fixed sized windows.

Depth	Max Colors
8	256
15	32768
16	65536
24	16777216
32	4294967296

ONBOARD DEVICES

Where available from the PC’s System Management BIOS, this section provides a list of devices soldered onto (typically) the baseboard. Examples include: Audio and Ethernet devices on the motherboard.

SYSTEM SLOTS

Where available from the PC’s System Management BIOS, this section provides a list of the system slots. Examples include: ISA, PCI and AGP.

Baseline Notes

This is a free form text field that can be filled in when the baseline is created. Up to 300 characters can be entered in this field.


Save as Image

 This dialog allows the main window (or it’s contents) to be saved as an image file which can then be imported into other application or placed on a Web page.

Image format

One of 3 different graphics file formats can be selected.

•	BMP. Stores the image in Bitmap format. Many applications support Bitmaps but as no compression is used the file size is very large.

•	GIF Stores the image in GIF87a format. Fewer applications support GIF’s and only 256 colors can be used. Powerful compression gives small file sizes and it is one of the standard image formats used on the Internet.

•	EMF (Enhanced Meta file format). Saves a scalable vector image that can be resized within other applications. File size is very small but only limited support is available in other applications.

Option – Visible section only

If this option is selected, the Window (including menu bar, button bar, border, etc) will be saved.

If this option is not selected, only the contents of the window will be saved. This option will also save any part of the window contents that is not currently displayed in the Window.


The PassMark Rating

The "PassMark rating" is a weighted average of all the other test results and gives a single overall indication of the computers performance. The bigger the number, the faster the computer. For example, a typical old Intel 80486 66Mhz, has a rating of about 4.5, while a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 with 2GB of Memory may have a rating around 650.

The easiest way to compare your result with the results of other machines is to use the free baselines supplied with PerformanceTest. If you purchase PerformanceTest, then additional baseline files can be downloaded from the PassMark Web site.

The "PassMark rating" can only be calculated if the results from all other tests are available. The value is calculated as follows.

Test Suite	Weighting
Disk	20%
CD / DVD	9%
Memory	18%
3D Graphics	12%
2D Graphics	14%
CPU	27%
Total	100%
These weightings are based on the "average" computer usage and are intended to give the user of PerformanceTest an overall indication about how this computer will perform in general use. Needless to say, this weighted average will be inappropriate for some users. Game players will think 3D is more important, while Network admin types will be looking for disk speed. Feel free to roll your own ratings based on the individual test results.

As new versions of PerformanceTest have been released, additional tests have been added and several bug fixes have taken place. These changes have affected the way the PassMark rating is calculated. To compensate for this, baseline files that were created with older versions of PerformanceTest are re-scaled when they are loaded so that a valid comparison can still be made. It is, however, important to state which version of PerformanceTest you are using when comparing results.

More information

Have a look in the frequently asked questions (FAQ) section and the test precautions section.


Selecting Baselines

 This window is divided into two sections. In the bottom section all the available baselines are displayed. To display a baseline’s results, select a baseline in the bottom section of the window and click on the "Add" button. Multiple files can be moved at one time. (Use the Shift and Ctrl keys while selecting files with the mouse). The baselines can be sorted by clicking on the column heading.

Various information is listed about each baseline.

Name

This is the name of the baseline from the baseline file on the disk. The name will normally be the make and model of the computer or "Generic", if the machine was home built or not one of the internationally recognized brands. The CPU model and speed is also often included in the name.

CPU Speed

This is the estimated CPU speed of the baseline computer, as extracted from the baselines file.

CPU Type

This is the CPU type text extracted from the CPU itself.

Color

This is the color depth. This is an important factor when comparing baselines. To be fair, only compare the graphics performance of baselines using the same color depth.

Ver (Version)

This is the version of PerformanceTest that created this baseline. Older versions of PerformanceTest didn't have as many tests as this version. Baselines created by old versions of PerformanceTest can still be loaded but some results may be missing or distorted.

OS (Operating System)

The operating system under which the baseline was created. eg. Windows2000, NT4 etc..

RAM

The total amount of memory (RAM) in the baseline computer, in bytes.

Disk

The size of the disk in the baseline computer, in bytes.


Whats new - version history
What new in Version 5

A complete list of enhancements in all previous versions can be found on the PassMark Web site (http://www.passmark.com)


Installing and running from a CD or USB memory stick
Running PerformanceTest from a CD or USB memory stick

PerformanceTest was designed to have a small ‘footprint’. This means that it can be installed on a CD or USB memory stick (2MB or bigger); we recommend a USB memory stick as results may be saved. This may be useful for a number of reasons, eg.

•	You are out shopping for a new or 2nd hand PC and the shop owner will not let you install software on to the PC.

•	You’re a technician in the field and need to quickly test a PC.

•	You’re collecting results from many different machines and want to keep all the results together for later analysis (requires a write-able medium, such as a USB memory stick).

Here are the steps to follow to install PerformanceTest on to a USB memory stick or CD.

1.	Install PerformanceTest as normal on to the hard disk of a single machine

2.	Enter your user name and license key (if you have the registered version)

3.	Find the installation directory on your hard disk. This is usually,
c:\Program Files\PerformanceTest

4.	Copy all the files in this directory to a CD or USB memory stick

5.	You can now uninstall the version from the hard disk (using the Windows control panel, add remove programs icon)

6.	You can now run PerformanceTest on any machine from the CD or USB memory stick by double clicking on the “pt.exe” file. Baseline result files can also be saved to the USB memory stick.


Interpreting the performance graphs
Performance graphs

There are several different performance graphs that can be displayed. All graphs have the following items in common.

Vertical axis (Y axis)

The vertical axis displays a variable scale. Low values at the bottom, high values at the top. Depending on the graph type this scale will be measured in Megabytes / Sec or Megabits / sec.

Horizontal axis (X axis)

The horizontal axis typically shows either a time period or a number of categories (such as block size) depending on the test selected. In the case of the disk test it is possible to select the X axis unit to be either time or megabytes. Note that 1000 Milliseconds  = 1 Second

Instantaneous result

This is indicated by a red line. This line shows the result that was measured between two samples. Typically 100 samples are taken during the tests to produce the graphs.

Average result

This is indicated by a yellow line. This line shows the average result taken from the start of the test. In general the average speed gives a better indication of performance than the instantaneous speed.

Copy button

Copies the image to the clipboard in an EMF (Windows Metafile) format. This image can then be pasted into applications such as PaintShop Pro, Microsoft Word & FrontPage2000. If a GIF file is preferred, then use the export function.

Print button

Prints the image to a printer that the user selects. The image will be scaled to fit across the page in either landscape or portrait layout.

System information

Just to the right of the graph, system information relevant to the test is displayed (Disk size etc.). This information is the same as what is displayed in the Baseline information window and more details can be found there. The name of the computer, set by default to “This Computer” can be changed from the preferences window.

Disk graphs (Read and Write)

These graphs show details of the disk read and write performance. The graph shows the transfer speed (in MB/Sec) over a period of time or compared to the number of megabytes transfer to or from the disk. Depending on the disk test mode selected the Windows cache and hard disk controller cache can have a significant impact on the measured performance. If the file is transferred to or from the cache rather than the disk very high results will be recorded. The size of the cache and its contents are determined by the Windows operating system.

CD/DVD read graph

This graph is very similar to the disk graph, except that for the CD it is only possible to read information from the disc (and not write it). Once again the Windows cache can have a big impact on the results.

Memory graphs

These graphs show details of the memory read and write performance. The graph shows the transfer speed (in MB/Sec) compared to the block size or step size. Like all the tests, higher results are better. Reading or writing small blocks of RAM sequentially, 32 bits at a time, will generally result in the highest transfer speed.

Network graph

These graphs show details of the TCP/IP network transfer speed (in kilobits / sec) over a period of time. For dial up internet connections, speed will typically be limited by the modem and ISP. For local networks the speed may be limited by the LAN card, the CPU or network infrastructure such as firewalls and switches.


Command line parameters

There are a number of different command line parameters that can be used with PerformanceTest.

Test automation

The /ah, /ab, /ac and /at arguments can be used to auto-launch PerformanceTest and write the results to a file. The PerformanceTest window will close automatically at the end of the test run.

Syntax.

pt.exe <file_format> <result_file> <initialization_file>

<file_format>

/ah  = HTML format

/ab = Binary file format (the creates a new baseline file)

/ac = Text with comma separated values (CSV).

/at = Text with tab separated values.

<result_file>

The full path name of the output filename. It’s up to the user to specify the correct file name extension.

<initialization_file>

An initialization file that can be used to help with automated testing, see below or more details.

Example

pt.exe  /ah   c:\temp\results.htm

A new HTML file is created in the \temp directory.

Loading baselines

By placing the name of a single binary baseline file on the command line, it will be loaded automatically.

Syntax

pt.exe  <baseline_file>

Example

pt.exe  “Dell Pentium4.pt”

Initialization file

An initialization file can be used to help with automated testing. The name of this file appears on the command line as parameter 3. For example,

pt.exe /ac resultfile.csv "E:\test files\run1\test.ini"

Initialization file content

The file "test.ini" looks like this.

Dell Dimension L 8100

E

10

The 1st line is the machine name.

The 2nd line is the drive letter.

The 3rd line is the test duration in seconds.

Note1: Only 3 lines are accepted. The machine name can be up to 200 characters.

Note2: Don't include any extra space characters, tabs or comments.


CD/DVD speed testing
CD/DVD test suite

The CD/DVD test suite is made up of a single test, which reads data from the CD drive selected in the preferences window.

To use this test you need to have a CD in the CD Drive. The CD should, if possible, have mostly large files on the disc. Having many small files on the disc will lower the result, as the time required to seek between files is included in the result.


Advanced tests index
Advanced Test Windows

Advanced disk test

Advanced disk test window

Advanced CD/DVD test

Advanced CD/DVD test window

Advanced Memory test

Advanced memory test window

Advanced 3D test

Advanced 3D test window

Advanced Network test

Advanced network test window

Multiple process

Advanced multiple process test window


Advanced Disk Test

This test measures the data transfer speed when reading or writing data to one or more disks. The speed that data can be transferred between memory and a hard disk drive is one of a system’s most important performance aspects. There are a few factors which have a bearing on this speed and the Advanced Disk Drive Test attempts to allow the user to vary most of these factors and compare the results.

Firstly, there is the manufactured access time of a drive. Faster drives tested under the same conditions will simply record higher data transfer speeds. Drive access time is quoted in one or more of four different types - track to track, positioning, random, and full stroke. Consult your manufacturer’s documentation for further information.

Another major factor influencing the read and write speeds of a drive is the system cache. The cache is a high speed area of memory which Windows uses to store recently accessed data. If an application makes repeated requests for the same data, it can be taken directly from the cache very quickly, so it reduces the necessity to read from the disk drive each time. Caching is used by default, but an application may request uncached read and write operations.

Programmers have quite a few options open when choosing read and write methods. Windows exposes an Application Programming Interface (API), which allows a large amount of control over I/O factors such as caching and synchronous/asynchronous data transfer. Another choice is the ANSI C/C++ commands, which compile on any platform. Also of note is the method of writing  and reading raw data directly to and from the drive itself. This includes drive formatting data and file allocation tables. Different methods will lead to different access times from system to system.

During the test, a temporary file is created. Data is written to, and read from the file in chunks of data called blocks. The size of these blocks are a major influence on some test types, specifically the Standard Win32 API (Uncached) and Raw Disk Read tests. The other tests are cached. This means that the system determines the block size and the parameter in the Advanced Disk Drive Test dialog will not have a large impact on the results. The size of the temporary file is another factor. Smaller files may lead to incongruous results, as the cache plays a much larger part in the read and write operations.

The Advanced Disk Test allows multiple drives to be tested simultaneously. Performance Test launches a separate thread for each configured test.

The PassMark Advanced Disk Drive Test dialog.

Test Configuration

This section displays configuration information for all current tests. In this section you may Add, Edit or Delete test threads.

Add Thread

Launches the PassMark Disk Thread Settings dialog. This dialog allows the configuration of the test parameters before adding the new test.

Edit Thread

Launches the PassMark Disk Thread Settings dialog for the current thread and allows the user to edit the configured test parameters.

Remove Thread

Deletes the currently selected test thread(s). These threads will not now be run upon test execution.

Test Duration

The length of time in seconds the test will run for.

Status Section

This section is concerned with the current status and results of the test(s). The main status window displays the following information for each test.

Disk: The drive letter.

Status: The current status of the test – reading, writing, etc.

MB Written: The total amount of data in megabytes that the test has written to disk so far.

MB Read: The total amount of data in megabytes that the test has read from disk so far.

MB/Sec: The total transfer speed in megabytes per second for both read and or write operations so far.

Average WAR, WAW, RAW and RAR: These values display the amount of time a read or write operation has taken, where W=Write, A=After and R=Read. RAR and WAW tend to be quicker than WAR. Note that measurement of these values is only possible when using the Synchronous request mode because timing is not possible using the Asynchronous mode.

Time (Sec): The test time expired so far in seconds.

Blocks written: The amount of data blocks written to the disk so far. This also corresponds to the amount of write operations that have been successfully processed by the disk.

Blocks read: The amount of data blocks read from the disk so far. This also corresponds to the amount of read operations that have been successfully processed by the disk.

Seeks: The amount of seek operations carried out by the disk so far. Seek operations will be carried out either to emulate random disk access, or to return to the start of the test file.

Notes: This section is updated with extra diagnostic information upon certain error conditions.

CPU Load

The current percentage of the CPU that is being used.

Progress

Displays the progress of the test against the test duration.

View As

Allows the selection of four different modes to view graphs of the test results.

The modes are Speed v Time, Speed v MB, Ave Speed v Time, Ave Speed v MB. The difference between the “v Time” and “v MB” graphs is that the values of the “v Time” graphs are plotted against time on the x-axis, whereas the “v MB” graphs are plotted against the amount of data transferred on the x-axis.

View Graph

Displays a graph of the test results for the currently selected view mode.

Export

Exports the test results to a HTML page, including a graph for the currently selected view mode.

Go

Starts the test(s)

Stop

Stops all running tests.

Help

Launches this help information.

Exit

Closes the PassMark Advanced Disk Test dialog.

See also:

PassMark Disk Thread Settings


Adding a Disk Test Thread

The PassMark Disk Thread Settings dialog is used to add or edit the configuration parameters for a disk test.

Drive Letter

Select the disk drive you wish to carry the test out on.

Configuration

You may choose one of PassMarks predefined configurations or leave the default selection of ‘Custom’ to configure your own test parameters. The existing predefined tests use the following settings which are designed to emulate real world situations.

	File Server	Web Server	Workstation	Database
File Size	512 MB	RAM MB	RAM MB	2 GB
Block Size	16 KB	16 KB	16 KB	4 KB
Access Method	Win32 Uncached	Win32 Uncached	Win32 Uncached	Win32 Uncached
Request Mode	Asynchronous	Asynchronous	Synchronous	Asynchronous
IO Queue Length	128	64	NA	128
Read %/Write %	80% / 20%	100% / 0%	70% / 30%	90% / 10%
Seq %/Random %	0% / 100%	0% / 100%	50% / 50%	10% / 90%

File Size

The size of the temporary file used during the test. By default this file is set to the size of the system RAM. A file of this size will be large enough to prevent unrealistic results as the result of caching.

Block Size

This is the amount of data, in bytes, that the test writes in every write operation and reads in every read operation. The various block sizes are given in multiples of the drives sector size. It is permitted to chose other values, but some test modes require that the block size be a multiple of the sector size. Performance Test will alert you if you have selected an invalid block size.

Access Method

Standard C/C++ API:

This access method uses the C/C++ function calls ( fwrite, fread ). The I/O operations use caching. The maximum test file size supported using this method is 2 GB.

Standard Win32 API (Cached):

This method uses the native interface Windows exposes for file I/O. ( WriteFile, ReadFile ). You should notice a ‘peak’ at the beginning of the write portion of this test, where data is first written to cache.

Standard Win32 API (Uncached):

This method uses the same interface as the Standard Win32 API (Cached) test, however, it requests that the system carries out no caching. Tests with the same parameters should provide very similar results.

Raw Disk Access:

This method uses a low level interface to directly read from or write to the device, byte by byte, sector by sector. Caching is not used. WARNING: Writing raw data to a disk is extremely dangerous. It is most likely that the drives formatting information and/or the file allocation tables may become corrupted. As a result of this, the Raw Disk Access test is only permitted on empty drives. Even so, it is most likely that the disk will have to be reformatted after the test is complete.

The Raw disk access mode is only available in Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Request Mode

The Request Mode section allows the user to decide between Synchronous or Asynchronous mode.

Synchronous:

Synchronous IO operations are such that the application which makes the read or write request, “blocks”, or does nothing until the system has processed the request, then sends another request, waits for it to be processed, and so on.

Asynchronous:

Also known as overlapped. With these type of IO operations, the thread which sends the request continues execution. It is up to Windows to alert the application when the IO operation has completed. So we could send a request for 8 Megs of data, then continue to carry out some other tasks until the read request completes. It is also possible to send many Asynchronous IO requests at the same time. This is the value specified in the Queue Length field. If for example the Queue Length is set to 15, we initially send 15 IO requests. They will complete one by one and as Windows tells us a particular one has competed, we update our statistics and send it back into the queue.

Queue Length:

For a description of the Queue Length, see the Asynchronous section above.

Reading/Writing:

Use this slide bar to set the percentage of time the test spends reading and writing.

Sequential/Random:

Sequential access steps through the test file in a sequential or linear fashion, from the beginning of the file to the end. Random access reads or writes a block at a random location in the file.

This slide bar indicates how likely the test is to access the next sequential block of data or access a random block of data.

OK

Selects the current settings and closes the dialog.

Cancel

Ignores the current settings and closes the dialog.

Help

Opens this Help.

See Also:

Advanced Disk Test


Advanced CD/DVD test

This test allows the data transfer speed from a CD or DVD drive to be measured. The rate at which a CD Drive can read data from a CD ROM varies about many factors. Firstly, and most importantly, is the speed of the manufactured drive. Older drives list speeds of 2X or 4X, (1X = 0.1536 MB/Sec), whereas top end drives at time of writing are now advertised as having speeds of 48X and 56X.

Another large influence on the data transfer rate from CD is the system cache and the part it plays in storing frequently accessed data. The cache is a section of memory Windows uses to store data for fast access. The first time, for instance, a 10 MB file is read from a CD ROM, it is likely that Windows will copy it to the cache, recognizing that the data may soon be requested again. Upon subsequent requests for the same file, Windows will simply read the file directly from the cache and hence bypass the bottleneck of reading from the CD ROM again. After a certain period of time and/or a certain number of I/O requests, this data will have been replaced in the cache with more recent or essential data. Requesting the file at this stage, will mean Windows must go directly to the CD ROM once more.

NB. The cache size and management policies vary considerably from system to system and are very likely to vary constantly while the system is running.

This test requires that a CD or DVD be present in the selected drive. The file structure of the CD ROM is another factor influencing the data transfer rate. CD ROMs with very few, large files will give better results than those with many small files, as the overhead of opening, closing and seeking to the next file is reduced significantly.

The Advanced CD Drive Test has been designed to test various methods of reading data from a CD ROM.

The PassMark Advanced CD Drive Test dialog.

Drive Letter

Used to select the CD or DVD drive the test is to be carried out on. A valid CD or DVD must be present in the selected drive before beginning the test.

Block Size

This is the amount of data, in bytes, that the test requests in every read operation. A larger block may give a slight rise in performance on some systems.

Test Duration

The length of time, in seconds, to run the test for. Note that most CD Drives take around 3 – 5 seconds to ‘warm up’ if they haven’t been used in some time. This is a period where the drive accelerates to it’s read rotation speed and positions the read head. This time lag will definitely affect results for lower test durations and will be clearly evidenced in the graph (see below). To help eliminate this effect, choose a longer test duration, or run the test a second time after the drive has warmed up.

Access Method

There are four different methods in which the data can be read from the CD.

Standard Win32 API (Uncached)

This method uses the native interface Windows exposes for file I/O. It requests that the system carries out no caching. The results of this test typically shouldn’t vary enormously from test to test on the same CD ROM.

Standard Win32 API (Cached):

This method uses the same Windows I/O interface, but allows caching. The first time this test is run, it will most likely look quite like the Uncached test. However, upon subsequent runs, the cache data is first read, before going to the CD ROM. This will be evidenced by a higher average read speed and a peak will be seen at the start of the graph where the massive cache read takes place.

Standard C/C++ API:

This test is similar to the Standard Win32 API (Cached): test, except the programming method uses the C/C++ function calls rather than the Windows ones.

Raw Disk Read:

This test directly accesses the CD ROM reading all data sector by sector, including formatting information. No caching is used, and this test probably gives the most accurate system independent rating of the CD Drive device. The Raw disk read function is only available in Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Read Speed

Updated during the test to display the average read speed of the CD Drive.

CPU Usage

Updated during the test to display the CPU usage as a percentage during the test.

Go

Start the CD Drive Read Speed test.

Stop

Stops a currently running test. Note that results of an aborted test are not valid.

View Graph

Displays a graph of the test results.

Export

Exports a HTML document with a graph and a table of results.

Help

Opens the Help.

Exit

Closes the dialog.


Advanced 3D Graphics test

3D Graphics technology has come on in leaps and bounds over the last few years and this test measures how fast 3D images can be created and displayed.

Microsoft provides a set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) called DirectX, which allow developers to create games and other high-performance multimedia applications. DirectX provides support for two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) graphics, sound effects, music, input devices, and networked applications such as multiplayer games.

Hardware manufacturers are expected to provide support for the relevant DirectX technologies. For instance, in our case, manufacturers of graphics adapters must support the 3D graphics features of DirectX – fogging, various lighting types, texture mapping, etc. In this way, the same DirectX application will work on all graphics cards which properly implement this support. However, DirectX has evolved very quickly over the last few years and many of its newer features are no longer supported by older graphics cards. Also some cards may perform better when dealing with specific DirectX features. For example, card A may record very high frame rates when rendering wire frame 3D objects, whereas card B may not perform so well with wire frame, but may be particularly suited to textured objects.

The Advanced 3D Graphics Test has been designed to test the most commonly used features of DirectX. It renders a number of spheres to the screen in windowed or full screen mode. PerformanceTest requires DirectX version 8 or above.

Apart from individual graphics card speeds and abilities, the test illustrates a single card’s drop in performance as the rendered scene becomes more complex. A scene with more objects, more textures and more DirectX features implemented may well look more impressive, but will more than likely result in a reduction in frame rate.

Test Settings

This section is where you will decide what DirectX features you wish to test and set the complexity of the test. Some areas may be grayed out if your graphics card doesn’t support that particular feature set.

Texture 1

Indicates whither the spheres are rendered with the default texture, which is a simple grid. NB: It is recommended that this button be checked.

Texture 2 (MultiTexture)

Render the spheres with a second texture. The second texture used is a smaller grid. At time of writing, though DirectX supports up to eight simultaneous textures, virtually all graphics cards available on the market only support two.

Lighting

Light the spheres. This will give the spheres a more three dimensional appearance. The test uses a directional light.

Specular

Specular is another type of DirectX lighting. It corresponds to light reflected from objects. One can think if it as the ‘shininess’ of an object. Specular lighting adds further detail to the three dimensionality of the spheres. NB: Specular lighting can only be used when regular lighting is also enabled.

Fogging Vertex & Pixel

Fogging gives the impression of fog in an entire scene, or certain area of a scene. In the Advanced 3D Graphics test, you should notice the objects in the scene which are further away being fogged.

In short the difference between Vertex and Pixel fogging is that Vertex fog is implemented in the DirectX 3D lighting engine, whereas Pixel fog is implemented in the device driver. Pixel fogging should usually provide slightly better performance than vertex fogging.

Alpha Blending

Alpha Blending is the name given to the method of rendering pixels or objects with varying degrees of transparency. Each pixel, along with having a red, green and blue value has a fourth value called its alpha value or the alpha channel. The alpha of a pixel determines its opacity. With alpha blending enabled, the spheres will take on various degrees of transparency.

NB: On almost all modern graphics cards, lighting will override alpha blending. That is, with lighting enabled, alpha blending will no longer be apparent.

Wireframe Mode

Renders the spheres in wireframe. It is not unusual for wireframe mode to be slower than normal fully shaded rendering.

Show Device Properties

Displays information about the graphics adapter, the screen mode that the scene is being rendered in and the frame rate.

Rotate Objects

Rotates the spheres about their Y-Axis.

Move Objects – X, Y & Z Directions

Provides movement for all objects in the selected direction(s).

Number of Objects

The number of spheres in the scene.

Number of Textures

The number of unique textures used when Texture 1 is selected. For the purposes of this test, textures are checker designs, which vary in color and size.

Test Duration

The length of the test, in seconds.

Set All

Sets all checkboxes on.

Clear All

Clears all checkboxes.

Simple & Medium and Complex Tests

Provides a series of predefined tests. These are also the tests which are run from the main Performance Test menu and are useful for comparing the results of various graphics cards.

The tests are composed of the following settings…

	Simple	Medium	Complex
Screen Mode	Windowed	Windowed	Full Screen
Screen Resolution	640 x 480	640 x 480	800 x 600
Number of Objects	10	20	40
Number of Textures	1	7	20
Texture 1	On	On	On
Texture 2	Off	Off	On
Lighting	Off	On	On
Specular	Off	Off	On
Fogging Vertex	Off	Off	On
Fogging Pixel	Off	On	On
Alpha Blending	Off	Off	Off
Wireframe Mode	On	Off	Off
Show Properties	On	On	On
Rotate Objects	On	On	On
X – Direction	Off	On	On
Y – Direction	Off	On	On
Z – Direction	On	On	On

Result (Frame Rate)

This section contains information about the capacities and supported features of your graphics card. The data is obtained during the test, so the fields here will be blank until the test is run once.

Frame Rate

This is the amount of frames per second, the scene has been rendered. The more complex the scene, the longer it takes DirectX to render each frame and so the lower the frame rate.

EMBM Support

Indicates if your card supports Environment Mapped Bump Mapping. Bump mapping is a texture blending method that models a realistic rough surface.

DOT3 Support

Indicates if your card support DotProduct3 texture blending. This is a more sophisticated lighting mechanism which works on a per pixel basis and also supports bump mapping (see above). All recent and upcoming graphics cards should support Dot3.

Pixel Fog Support

Indicates if your card supports pixel fogging. Vertex fogging is available through the DirectX lighting engine, but most recent and upcoming graphics cards support fogging at a hardware level. This is referred to as pixel fogging.

TnL Support

TnL stands for Transformation and Lighting. Transformation and Lighting is a standard part of the DirectX rendering process, however some cards provide support for Hardware Transformation and Lighting which speeds up the rendering process further. This field refers to Hardware TnL.

Maximum Texture Stages

The maximum amount of textures which can be blended on the same object.

Vertex Shader Support

Like TnL, vertex shading is supported through the DirectX lighting engine. However some graphics cards support hardware accelerated vertex shading. This field indicates whether your card supports vertex shading and if so, the version of the vertex shader.

Pixel Shader Support

Another element of the process of rendering a 3D scene is pixel shading. This field indicates the version of the cards pixel shader.

Texture Memory Used

The amount of memory used to render all textures. If you increase the number of textures in the test, you will notice this number increases proportionally. Once all the texture memory on the card is used up, DirectX starts to use system memory.

Rendering Device

This section allows the user to choose between graphics cards if more than one is present in the system and select between device modes.

Adapter

Select the graphics card to test from the list.

Device

Choose between Hardware Accelerated and Software Emulation modes. Hardware Accelerated attempts to use the features and resources of the selected graphics card to maximize the frame rate. Software Emulation will not use the graphics card, but may be useful to test your machines native ability to render 3D graphics.

Rendering Mode

Here you will select the screen resolution the 3D Graphics Test will use.

Use desktop window

Select this option to have the test display in a window at a resolution of 640 x 480.

Fullscreen mode

Select this option to run the test in fullscreen mode. You may select the screen resolution and color depth from the list.

NB: Tests should run at a slightly higher frame rate in fullscreen mode, as DirectX has full control over the systems graphics interface.

Refresh Rate

By default, DirectX will attempt to run as quickly as it possibly can. This may at times be substantially higher than the monitor refresh rate. We have noticed cases with some cards where this behaviour has lead to a green or red flashing flicker on the screen. As a result the option to limit the frame rate to the monitor refresh rate is included.

NB: Most cards will run fine on Maximum Refresh Rate.

Maximum Refresh Rate

Render the scene at the highest frame rate DirectX can manage.

Default Monitor Refresh Rate

Limit the frame rate to the monitor refresh rate. This prevents a nasty flicker on some graphics cards.


Advanced Network Test
Advanced Networking test

Almost all computers these days have a network connection of some description. Whether it be a modem connection to an ISP, or an Ethernet connection to a corporate intranet, sending and receiving data to and from other computers is an essential part of day to day operations. A myriad of applications use networking technology – Email, Web browsers and games to name a few popular choices. In most cases, there is one performance factor the user is most concerned with – the speed or transfer rate.

The PassMark Advanced Network Test is designed to test the data transfer rate between two computers both of which must be running PerformanceTest. One of the computers must act as the server and will sit waiting for a connection. The other computer acts as a client. It connects to the server machine and sends data to it for the duration of the test.

The test sequence is as follows.

1)	Start the Advanced Network Test on the machine which is to be the server.

2)	Click ‘Go’ and the test will enter a state where it waits for a remote connection.

3)	Start the Advanced Network Test on the machine which is to be the client.

4)	Select the ‘Client’ option and enter the IP address or host name of the server machine.

5)	Click ‘Go’ to connect and send data.

Data will be sent from client to server at the highest transfer rate possible for the duration of the test (which is specified on the client machine).

Both sides of the test will end and the results will be displayed and can also be viewed in graph form or exported to an HTML report.

Mode - Server

This machine will act as the server for this test.

Mode - Client

This machine will act as the client for this test.

Transfer Protocol – TCP

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) over IP will be used as the network transfer. This is a connection-oriented protocol, which means it is a very reliable means of data transfer. The TCP layer carries out additional checking of the transferred and received data.

Transfer Protocol – UDP

UDP (User Datagram Protocol) over IP will be used as the network transfer. This is a connectionless protocol, which means it is an unreliable means of data transfer. UDP provides no checking of the transferred or received data. The Advanced Network Test client will send UDP packets to the configured server, even if the server is not ready to receive. As such extra care should be taken when running the Advanced Network Test in UDP transfer mode.

Remote Server IP Address or Name

The remote machine details. Note that this section is only enabled when the client option is selected.

Host

The IP address or host name of the remote machine.

Port

The TCP/IP port number to be connected to. This defaults to 1040 on both machines. The port may be changed to any relevant value, but if so, it must be changed to the same value on both machines involved in the test.

Send Data

The data is sent from client to server in many blocks. This section contains some extra options which allow the user to customize the nature of the data sent.

NB This section is only enabled when the client option is selected.

Fixed Block Size

Select this option to have the client use the default block size of 4096 bytes for all data.

Variable Block Size (Start and End block size)

Select this option to have the client send data using varying block sizes. At the start of the test, data will be sent using the ‘Start block size’ number of bytes for each send operation. During the course of the test, Performance Test will gradually increase this value based on the test duration. When the test ends, the block size will have reached ‘End block size’.

NB: If ‘Start block size’ is a larger value than ‘End block size’, the size of the block will decrease during the test.

Test Duration

The length of time in seconds the test will run for.

Status

This section is updated during the test to provide real time performance metrics. The first field provides a general description of the current test state.

Nb packets recv & Bytes

Only relevant for the server portion of the test. Displays the number of packets or data blocks received so far, and the size of the data in bytes.

Nb packets sent & Bytes

Only relevant for the client portion of the test. Displays the number of packets or data blocks sent so far, and the size of the data in bytes.

NB: When the test ends, the field ‘Nb packets sent’ on the client machine should be the same value as the field ‘Nb. packets recv.’ on the server machine.

Average Transmission

The current average transfer rate in KBits/Sec.

CPU Load

The current CPU load expressed as a percentage.

Note that for some slower machines on fast networks (100Mbit/s and greater), this test is often limited by lack of power in the CPU.

Go

Start the Advanced Network Speed test.

Stop

Stops a currently running test.

NB: Unless at least 10 test samples have been taken, the test results will not be valid. Performance Test takes 100 samples during the course of the network test.

View Graph

Displays a graph of the test results.

Export

Exports a HTML document with a graph and a table of results.

Help

Opens the Help.

Exit

Closes the dialog.

Network Test Notes

Ensure the server is waiting for a connection before attempting to connect with the client.

If the client cannot resolve the DNS name of the server, try using it’s IP address. You can obtain the IP address of a machine by typing ‘ipconfig’ at the DOS command line in the case of Windows NT, 2000, XP or Clicking Start -> Run and entering ’winipcfg’ in the case of Windows 98 and Me.

If you are attempting to connect to a machine from outside or inside a firewall, you may need to either change the port number to one accepted by the firewall or ask your network administrator to configure the firewall to allow the default port for the network test, which is 1040.


Advanced Memory test

The Advanced Memory Test is designed to test several factors which affect the speed which data is accessed in memory.

You can think of computer memory as a long continuous strip. The strip is composed of millions (sometimes billions) of slots. Each slot has a unique identifying value called its address. On 32 bit Windows platforms the size of each slot is 32 bits or 4 bytes ( 1 byte = 8 bits ). Windows moves data onto and off of this strip as required. For instance, running an executable file from a disk causes Windows to copy the file from the disk to memory and then run the executable from there.

One principle of memory design is known as Spatial Locality. It says that memory addresses which are near each other tend to be referenced close together in time. Memory is designed with this principle in mind and so, we should expect to see a decline in memory access time if we continually request addresses that are far apart from each other.

Memory Speed Per Access Step Size

The first test type, ‘Memory Speed Per Access Step Size’ accesses a large block, of memory in various sized steps. First, it runs through the block of memory sequentially, accessing every value. Next it runs through the same block again, except this time it accesses every second value. On this occasion, it runs through the block twice in order to access the same amount of data as the initial step. Next it runs through the same block again, except this time it accesses every fourth value and so makes four passes. And so on, until a certain maximum step size is reached.

The size of the block of memory used for this test is one quarter the amount of system RAM. The size of the steps vary from 1 (continuous sequential access), to one quarter the size of the block of memory ( i.e. one sixteenth of the system RAM ).

Memory Speed Per Block Size

When a computer program wants to use a section of memory to store data, it makes a request to Windows for the amount of memory it requires. Windows allocates the memory to the program ( unless system resources are very low ) and returns to the requesting program the address of the first memory slot in the allocated block. It is possible that some programs may request very large amounts of memory. The ‘Memory Speed Per Block Size’ test like the ‘Memory Speed Per Access Step Size’ test, is composed of many steps. During each step of the test, PerformanceTest requests a block of memory and runs through the block measuring the average access time. However on each subsequent step the size of the requested memory is increased, until finally a block close to the size of the system RAM is requested. In this way it is possible to observe the different access speeds for the different sizes of blocks.

Typically it is possible to see very fast memory access for blocks which are small enough to fit entirely into the L2 RAM cache, and slower access times for larger blocks accessed from main RAM. In the case where system resources are low, swapping to the disk may even be required for very large blocks.

Access data type

One byte is the smallest amount possible, which can be read from or written to memory. As the test runs through each block, the user can also select whether we access the memory one byte at a time, two bytes at a time, or four bytes at a time.

Name	Bytes	Bits
Byte	1	8
Word	2	16
Double Word (Dword)	4	32

Note: The results of this test are most meaningful if viewed in graph form or exported.

Block Read/Write

Each test can be executed in either read or write mode. In read mode data is copied from memory to Performance Test. In write mode data is written from Performance Test to memory.

Memory Speed Per Access Step Size:

See description of the ‘Memory Speed Per Access Step Size’ test above.

Memory Speed Per Block Size

See description of the ‘Memory Speed Per Block Size’ test above.

Access Data Type

Select the amount of data read or written in each operation of the ‘Memory Speed Per Block Size’ test.

Total Physical Memory

Displays the amount of system RAM in bytes.

Block Size

Displays the size of the block of memory Performance Test is currently carrying out operations on for the purpose of this test.

Progress

Displays progress information about the test.

Go

Start the Advanced Memory Speed test.

Stop

Stops a currently running test. Note that results of an aborted test are not valid.

View Graph

Displays a graph of the test results.

Export:

Exports a HTML document with a graph and a table of results.

Help

Opens the Help.

Exit

Closes the dialog.


Advanced Multi Process Test

The Advanced Multi Process Test is designed to run a series of standard benchmark tests in parallel to examine the performance under these conditions. Multiple processor machines should excel under this kind of environment, as the load is split between the various CPUs.

The tests include a number of the standard PassMark benchmarks along with some popular benchmarking algorithms and tests which emulate some day-to-day operations your CPU may be required to carry out which are particularly processor heavy.

As the tests are quite varied, as are their results, it unfortunately means that no graphing feature exists as is common amongst the other Advanced Tests. However, it is still possible to export the various results to HTML as usual.

The Tests:

Prime Number Search:

This test uses a simple brute force prime number finding algorithm. It begins at 3 and checks every integer to see if it is a member of the set of primes. (A prime number is one which is divisible only by 1 and itself). The test reports the amount of primes found and the largest prime. Note that for longer test periods, the rate of Primes Per Second found will drop as the distance between primes gets larger.

Sorting Random Strings:

The test uses qsort to continually sort 1000 strings of 256 characters. Once the test duration expires, the test reports the speed of the sorting in thousands of strings per second.

Compression:

The Compression test uses an Adaptive encoding algorithm based on source code from Ian H. Witten, Radford M. Neal, and John G. Cleary in an article called “Arithmetic Coding for Data Compression”. The system uses a model which maintains the probability of each symbol being the next encoded. It reports a compression rate of 363% for English text, which is slightly better than the Huffman method. This test reports its results in KBytes/Sec compressed.

Encryption:

The encryption test uses the Blowfish enciphering algorithm. It is based on the C implementation by Paul Kocher. Data is enciphered using a 16byte key in blocks of 4 KB. The test reports in KBytes/Sec.

Rotation:

The rotation algorithm is a PassMark developed algorithm using standard rotation mathematics. The test uses a 400 x 400 pseudo image with one byte of data per pixel. The image is rotated degree by degree, with each degree counting as one rotation. The test reports in rotations per second.

MMX Addition:

MMX Multiplication:

These are the standard PassMark benchmarks. See MMX Testsfor more information.

Maths Integer addition:

This is a standard PassMark benchmark. See Maths Tests for more information.

Whetstone:

The Whetstone benchmark is one commonly used to test floating point arithmetic. The algorithm is based on the original C source code written by Rich Painter. The benchmark is designed to test the speed of commonly used floating point CPU instructions. The test reports in MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second.)

Dhrystone:

The Dhrystone benchmark is one commonly used to test a machines integer arithmetic. The algorithm is based on the C source code for Dhrystone version 2 by Reinhold P. Weicker. The test reports in MIPS.

Memory Read:

Memory Write:

These are the standard PassMark benchmarks. See Memory Tests for more information.

Disk Access:

This test uses the same test engine as the PassMark Advanced Disk Test. The test uses a file size of the current available RAM, a block size of 4K, the Win32 uncached interface, a 50%/50% RW level, it is 100% Sequential and executed in Synchronous mode. The test reports its results in MB/Sec.

Test Selection:

Use these checkboxes to select which tests you wish to run. All selected tests will be run in parallel in separate threads. You should typically note a decline in results according to the amount of tests run, especially for processor intensive tasks. For example, if Compression and Image Rotation are run on their own, they may report results respectively of 400 and 8. If both are run together, the results should drop to around 200 and 4 on a single processor machine. You will have to run more tests in parallel if you wish to observe the same results on a multiple processor machine – at least one more than the number of CPUs.

Test Duration:

The length of time in seconds to run the tests for.

NOTE: Because of the optimized nature of the benchmarks, it would reduce performance to check for stop conditions. Therefore the tests cannot be stopped once begun unlike most other Advanced tests. Chose the test value carefully. A value of 60 seconds should be sufficient to get a realistic set of values for your machine.

Set All; Clear All:

Respectively, selects all, or de-selects all checkboxes in the Test Selection section.

Status:

The main status list shows the tests selected when running and their current state (Starting, Running, Error, etc). The test results are available here only when the tests complete.

CPU Load:

The current average CPU Load. You should see this number quickly approach 100% for most of the benchmarks.

Progress:

A progress indicator based on the test duration.

Go:

Start the tests.

Export:

Export the current test results to a HTML file.

Help:

Launches this help.

Exit:

Closes the dialog.


pcAnywhere compatibility

If you have received an alert about pcAnywhere being detected on your computer, this is because some pcAnywhere settings may conflict with DirectX, which PerformanceTest utilizes when performing 3D tests.

To ensure trouble free operation while running the 3D tests, please ensure that pcAnywhere is set to operate in "Compatibility" mode. To switch to "Compatibility" mode, please follow these simple steps:

1.	On the host computer, open pcAnywhere.

2.	On the Tools menu, click Options.

3.	On the Host Operation tab, in the Video mode selection list, click
Compatibility.

4.	Click OK.

Note: Some users may need to first select "Accelerator Enabled" in the Video mode selection list, click the apply button and then select "Compatibility" once again, then click the apply button and restart the
system.

More information regarding pcAnywhere can be found on the Internet at:

http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/consumer.html