2D Performance
The office application performance of modern graphics cards is not as important as it used to be anymore. The office application performance of graphics cards as well as CPUs has nowadays reached a level that is higher than what the average user requires. The CPU as well as the graphical subsystem are today mainly busy waiting for a user input, the user is rarely waiting for the CPU or graphics cards anymore. Hence the pure Winstone score doesn’t really say it all anymore. What *is* important for people who sit in front of their screen a lot however is the quality of what they are looking at. What counts here is the speed and quality of the RAMDAC as well as the speed of the video RAM, which directly translates into the highest resolution at true color.
Let’s first have a look at the Winstone 98 results :
System
- Supermicro P6DBS BX Pentium II motherboard
- Intel Pentium II Deschutes CPU @ 400 MHz
- IBM DHEA-36480 IDE HDD, Intel bus master drivers 3.01
- 64 MB SDRAM Corsair PC100
- Windows 95 OSR 2.1 w/USB supplement
- screen mode 1024x768, 32 bit color, 85 Hz refresh rate
Drivers
- NVIDIA RIVA 128 and RIVA ZX 4.10.01.0242
- Intel i740, Real3D Starfighter, 4.10.01.0189
- ATI Rage Pro Turbo, 4.10.01.2318
- 3DLabs Permedia 2, Diamond Fire GL 1000 Pro, 4.10.01.2255 - 0198
- Matrox G200, 4.10.01.4000
- Matrox Productiva G100 and Millennium II, 4.10.01.3820
The leaders in 2D are the Fire GL 1000 Pro and the G200. Although the expectations were asking for a new miracle, the G200 2D performance is at the top level of current 2D performance, not above it. However the 2D picture quality is far from what the Fire GL 1000 Pro can deliver as are the supported screen resolutions at true color. Please also don’t forget that the G200 is still in beta.
