The Open Graphics Library, OpenGL for short, was originally developed for professional applications, but is widely available today and is frequently used for games. In contrast to Microsoft's Direct3D, OpenGL is well-suited for non-Windows based platforms. The latest version is OpenGL 2.0. However, large portions of the OpenGL software available today are still based on OpenGL 1.5 or older versions.
Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena from ID Software has been around for some time, and is still very good for comparison testing. That is because Quake III Arena is very sensitive to changes in CPU and memory performance. We still use this program to rank the performance of a system, and to determine whether or not the computer is running as quickly as it should.
After installing Quake III we recommend you load Patch 1.16. Two parameters make testing easier: '+set s_initsound 0' deactivates sound, while '+set cd_nocd 1' allows you to start Quake III without inserting the original CD.
These parameters can be added to the Quake III shortcut.
Settings
Under 'Setup » System', we adjusted the settings as follows:
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Graphics settings:
Normal
Resolution:
1024x768
Color depth:
32 Bit
Benchmarking
By pressing the [^] key you can open the Quake III text. Entering 'timedemo 1' switches the program to benchmark mode. You start a standard benchmark process by entering 'demo demo001'. Demo001 is the name of the time demo used - which is nothing more than a recorded gaming sequence that can be re-played for test and demonstration purposes. You can also use other time demos, either those you've downloaded from the Internet or those you've recorded yourself. After the demo sequence has ended, you can open the text console again by pressing [^], which allows you to check the test results, which are measured in frames per second.
Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.
