Direct 3D Performance

3dMark has long been the standard in synthetic benchmarking using Microsoft's API, Direct 3D. With each succeeding version, it seems that benchmark gets more and more resource intensive. 3dMark 2001, in particular, is as much dependent on the brute power of the CPU as it is on the video card. The results in the games benchmarks were taken from there "low" setting, since at the higher setting values for the cards were in the teens and rarely varied, hinting that the Duron 700@6.5x146 ( 950 mhz ) used, wasn't enough for the benchmark.

It is also important to note, that 3d Mark is considered "ahead of its time".

3dMark 2001 run in the default settings: at 1024x768x32bit. The Geforce2 Ti leads ( by 34% ) in the overall 3dmark benchmark, which is represented by a "3dmark score". It really is hard to imagine what several thousand of 3dMarks mean in terms of performance. Games 1 ( Chase ) and Games 3 ( Lobby ) which are part of the 3dmark2001 run are used in the following charts to represent a little more than just synthetic numbers.

At 640x480x32 the Geforce2 Ti manages to gain a small lead ( less than 10% ) over the MX400. Both are pushing frame rates pretty good, considering how much intesive this benchmark is. Going up a notch, at 1024x768x32, the MX400 suffers a 31% decrease in its performance, delivering a fair 47.4 frames per second. With 70.6 frames per second. Geforce2 Ti has a lot more power to spare dropping only 6%, beating the MX400 by almost 50%.

Firing up 2X FSAA, the MX400 loses 27% of its original frame rate at 640x480x32 ( 69 -> 50.1 frames per second ), while the Geforce2 Ti suffers less "damage" with a 14% loss. At 1024x768x32 with 2X FSAA turned on, the MX400 loses half of its frame rate, dipping to just 24 frames per second. The Geforce2 Ti gets a beating too, losing 30% of its performance, although 41.4 frames per second is still playable.

When 4X FSAA is used both cards really come to a crawl. At the lower resolution, 640x480x32, the MX400 plunges 52%, deliviring only 32.7 frames per second. Pushing close to 60 frames per second the Geforce2 Ti, still provides very good frame rates, even though it has already dropped 26% of its performance. Finally at 1024x768x32 the MX400 simply "fails" as it refuses to do 4X FSAA at this resolution. The Geforce2 Ti too, isnt offering much at this setting.

The same goes for Game 3 ( Lobby ), which resembles the lobby scene in the movie, Matrix. Frame rates are a tad smaller in this demo than in the car chase.