GEM Bench II V1.0 ½ Ofir Gal 14.2.93 ------------------- This is the first release of GEM Bench, so you may be wondering why it's called GEM Bench II... There was an earlier version which I wrote for my own use and was also used by Tony Kaye for his articles in ST Review. --------------------------------------------------------------------- This program is Shareware, if you like it and use it you are required to pay for it. Please send œ5 to the address below. If you enclose a blank disk and an SAE I will send you a registered version of GEM Bench and a selection of my other programs. About the program: I wrote the program because I was never sure what other benchmark programs were exactly testing. Even when the information was available I didn't think the tests were unbiased. Most benchmarks for the ST come with screen accelerators like NVDI and Quick ST, while the results are not tweaked I can't say the same about the tests. The NVDI benchmark GEM_TEST tests the VDI text routines by displaying various font sizes and effects as well as a 20 point font. This is something NVDI is very good at (large fonts) but not necessarily used much. Warp9 and Turbo ST are not that good at large fonts and do not give a high score at the text test. I am sure GEM Bench is not perfect either, but I wrote it without any particular bias, I truly wanted to see how effective the blitter chip was and which screen accelerator was the fastest. The subject was discussed on CIX and I took the advice of users and programmers while writing the program so hopefully we now have a definitive test for the ST. I am open to suggestions so please write in if you have any. Ofir Gal 3 Downs Road Beckenham Kent BR3 2JY United Kingdom ogal@cix.co.compulink.uk ============================================================================= User Manual ----------- The main dialogue box shows the test results on the left, these will initially be zero, and the various options on the right. To start the tests click on the Test All button and leave the mouse. When the tests are completed the results will be displayed in the format: Test time took in seconds ratio If you run the test on a basic machine you should get 100%, this means your ST is running in its normal, terribly slow state. In addition you can run a single test by clicking on its name. On the right you will see a box with the buttons marked ST - STE - Mega STE - TT - Falcon Initially one of the buttons will be selected according to your machine. Note that the old Mega ST is considered an ST. You can click on any of these buttons to compare your ST to the other machines. Below is the Blitter button, you can use this to switch the blitter on and off, you will be surprised to see the difference it makes. If your ST has no blitter this button will be disabled. On the Falcon it is not possible to switch the blitter off so the button will be disabled. The other buttons can be used to print or save the test results to disk. A small box will appear where you can type in details of the test. The program will automatically enter the machine type, blitter state and TOS version. The statistics box is for a quick evaluation, the graphics entry is simply an average of all graphics test. The math/memory entry is a simple average of the other tests. The bottom result is an average of all tests. It is important to note that these results do not necessarily reflect reality. It is much better to look at the specific tests and see which ones matter to you. For example you may get an excellent result with the VDI graphics test which will affect the statistics. If all you use your computer for is plain text this result is not relevant to you. Instead, you should look at tests like VDI text and scrolling. Testing GDOS ------------ To test GDOS you must have GDOS in your auto folder, the provided assign.sys file in the root directory of your boot disk and the provided font file - ANSI10.FNT in a folder named FONTS in your root directory. Atari GDOS slows down the system, and you will get slower figures for most tests. You should get 100% for the GDOS test if you run it on a bare machine. Technical Info -------------- This is a list of all the tests and how they are perfomed as well as information for the non-programmer. Dialogue Box - A complex dialogue box is drawn to screen. All form_dial calls are used. VDI Text - This is the standard v_gtext call which is used by most programs to display text on screen. Text Effects - This test displays text using v_gtext while changing text attributes using vst_effects. You should note that this function is not used unless you are displaying bold, italic or similar. Small Text - This test displays the small system font. The size is changed using vst_point, the text is displayed using v_gtext. VDI Graphics - The test draws a rectangle and circle, changing their position, fill pattern and colour before each draw. The VDI primitives used are v_bar and v_circle and attributes changed are vsf_color and vsf_interior. GEM Window - This test creates a window then displays it. Uses the AES calls wind_create and wind_open and opens a window 640*400 pixels regardless of resolution. The window is then closed. This allows to compare an ST to a TT without having the TT open a larger window if a large monitor is used. I am already working on a version which will work in all resolutions (except ST Low) which will cover the True Colour mode on the Falcon. Integer Division - Simply divides integers. Something every program does at some point. Float Math - Multiplies and divides single precision numbers. RAM and ROM access - Simply reads from RAM and ROM. Useful to show the benefits of FastRAM. Blitting - The test draws a black box on screen then moves it along by saving the screen area to memory then writing it back with a slight offset. VDI Scroll - Uses the standard vro_cpyfm to scroll text in a window. This function is used by most text editors and word processors. GDOS Fonts - If GDOS is installed you will be able to compare various releases of GDOS, G+PLUS and NVDI's GDOS. You must have the font ANSI10.FNT installed. The test uses v_gtext. VDI Enquire - This runs through various system enquiries, again most GEM programs use this calls. ============================================================================ Thanks to Graeme Rutt, Roger Davies, Eric Northwood, Joe Connor, John Eason, Ian Laskey, Andrew J Lee, Don Maple, Alistair Bodin and Mark Webster for their help.