"Nature" Benchmark in 3D Mark 2001?

what does it bench?

I´ve recognized if I compare my system with others that have points ~11k - my scores @ "Nature" really su** !!

See it in my sig!

just look at the help files...


This scene depends heavily on DirectX® 8 features. The trees, grass and butterflies are animated, transformed and lit using vertex shaders. The movements of the fisherman are made by morphing, also using a vertex shader. The surface of the lake uses vertex shaders, pixel shaders and cube maps. Due to the pixel shader use, this test cannot be run without DX8 compatible graphics hardware. The scene only has a high detail run and affects the 3DMark score accordingly.


Technical details:

The leaf and grass movement is done using a vertex shader.
The fisherman animation uses morphing done with a vertex shader.
The butterfly flight and wing movements is done with a vertex shader.
The lake surface uses a pixel shader for per-pixel reflection and cube mapping (it uses 4 texture render states, which corresponds to 4 texture layers).
The small river has two separate water surfaces, both using two texture layers (color map and light map).
The landscape, the house and the bridge has two texture layers (color map and light map).
The leaves, grass and the fisherman have a single texture layer.


High detail statistics:

Rendered triangles per frame (min/avg/max): 55601/81722.5/180938
Rendered textures per frame with 16 bit textures (min/avg/max): 14.9/17.4/20.7 MB
Rendered textures per frame with 32 bit textures (min/avg/max): 28.4/33.4/40.0 MB
Rendered textures per frame with texture compression (min/avg/max): 10.4/12.0/14.6 MB
Rendered textures per frame with DXT1 compressed textures and 32 bit transparent textures (min/avg/max): 13.0/15.0/17.8 MB

Thank you for your illuminating answer!!!

Did you see my (compared to all other tests) crappy score??

Maybe I have messed up my DirectX - trying to install 8.1b and didn´t work properly .... trying to use DirectX Buster under WinXP .... installing German Version / English Version ... trying to bring back 8.1a and so on....

Is it possible to "bust" DirectX 8.1 completely out of WinXP and reinstall it properly???

i tried it only once with W98 and dx7 and i didnt like it at all.
dx was not meant to be removed, then you can figure out how well will those programs perform.
i would prefer to do a new os installation instead.

oTTO said:

i would prefer to do a new os installation instead.

Click to expand...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!! Sounds like about at least 12 hours work to get that system back with all those little proggies that I have to reinstall then....

What about DirectX9 beta??

Problem: it expires end of August - what then?

Bigsexy, most people will tell you (non-technically) that Nature relies heavily on your memory. Relaxed timings on your memory will return lower scores in Nature, while lower memory timings will give you higher framerates. At 1.8GHz (180x10) I can only run my memory at 2.5-3-3-6, and I get about 30FPS. At 1.75GHz (167x10.5) I can run 2-2-2-6, and my FPS go up to around 50.

Do a re-install, in the following order:

Clock down to stock speeds, and install Windows (minimum install, no language packs, networking, etc...just the basic files).

Install the drivers for you motherboard. Reboot.

Install the video drivers. Reboot.

Install 3DMark. Apply your CoolBits hack, and Reboot.

Boot into Safe Mode and defragment your HDD.

Clock back up as high as you can while keeping your memory timings as low as possible.

Reboot, set your D3D at Best performance, uncheck Enable Fog Table emulation, and set VSync to Always off. In OpenGL, check Use fast linear-mipmap-linear filtering, and set VSync to Always off again. Set your clk/mem to whatever you know is stable. Run any other tweaks you want to at this time.

CTRL/ALT/DEL, and kill any process that doesn't need to be running.

Run 3DMark.

Post your scores.

Thank you for your instructions, takiwa!

Since I have RDRAM - I cannot set 2-2-2-6 or s.th. - only thing is it runs @ fsb 138 1:1 = 1104 MHz and with "Turbo Mode (bios setting)"

I´m really not in the mood, now that everything runs to my satisfaction, to unistall WinXP and reinstall it!

I decided for installing DX9 beta. The installation succeeded! DX9 beta is now running on my system (will expire Aug 20).

Nothing changed at all I still have only 49.1 points in the Nature benchmark..... well must be some other prob with which I have to live maybe....

- I´ll now try the settings you told me for the display props - maybe they improve s.th. - unluckyly I can´t stop "Norton AV" which occupies 25 Megs of RAM - well I´ll let you know if anything got better...... -

to be continued............

uhh Bigsexy your low score on the nature test can be explained by one word: nvidia. They just always score lower on the nature test than radeons. Why i don't know. Here's a picture from Tomshardware i think:

Oh and that pic was of non-overclocked systems they were comparing. (hence the really low Ti 4600 FPS)

MAJOR UPDATE:
*************

Thank you so much, takiwa!!!!

Nobody ever told me before I had to do this settings in the display props - and they are like a book with seven seals to me (I hope this idiom exists in English - plz tell me if not!).

My 3D marks are up more than 200 points!!

See the 11.5k here !!

Now i reach more than 60 points in that Nature scene!!!

Cheers

skid said:

uhh Bigsexy your low score on the nature test can be explained by one word: nvidia. They just always score lower on the nature test than radeons. Why i don't know. Here's a picture from Tomshardware i think:

Click to expand...

Thank you for that research, skid!

But as you can read above I´m happy now

read the last topic about the refresh rate fix and the nature test:

oTTO said:

read the last topic about the refresh rate fix and the nature test:

Click to expand...

Thanx oTTO, but unfortunately I don´t get it.... I read it 3 times - and I don´t understand what they exactly mean (hmm - I´m supposed to understand that since I learned English for about 12 years - but sorry ).

I have installed RefreshLock - I love this tool and it works great! Means: My 3D Mark should have ran constantly @ 1024x768x32 @ 85MHz!

Tell me if I can improve my scores more

THX

that is very bad english. unwinder never intended to be a good english speaker anyway.
i hope my portuguese knowledge can help in this case.
the way i understand that, it is about the problem when directx needs to switch the display modes under any direct3d application. once there is the problem with the nvidia driver applying any other refresh rate than 60Hz, when the refresh rate fix program attempts to apply the one you chose, the D3D application will understand that it can skip the switch process resulting in the problem.

the way i understand the solution is about setting the resolution and refresh rate to the one youre gonna have 3dmark running later. lets say 1024x768 32-bit (default), then before running 3dmark you should set your desktop to 1024x768 32-bit 60Hz.

Thank you - I tried that - but no extra gain!

Well if I get you right, it´s about switching the frequencies during 3D Mark? He didn´t have to do that before - it all ran @ 85MHz and he didn´t have to do it in that try (all @ 60Hz).

I think 11.5k are respectable, by now

That was a very good explanation oTTo. And it will work for getting your oc. I get lost too so the K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) model works best for me.

unluckyly I can´t stop "Norton AV" which occupies 25 Megs of RAM

Click to expand...

If you want another 100 points or so you'll figure out a way to disable it from starting with Windows (*hint: try your options tab in NAV..look for the "Start with Windows" option and disable it)...

takiwa said:

If you want another 100 points or so you'll figure out a way to disable it from starting with Windows (*hint: try your options tab in NAV..look for the "Start with Windows" option and disable it)...

Click to expand...

I got that already - I only forgot to post!!! For some reason I could close it with the task manager, which was impossible I thought - but we will never know everything!

Thanks to you all again for your help!

Hey, I see you figured out a lot of stuff, but I just wanted to add something. When I start up 3DMark and run only nature, I get about 5-6 more fps. Then, if I run the rest of the tests, my scores are about 200-300 pts higher than if i ran the tests in order. Try running nature by itself like that and see what you get.

I've been wanting to figure out a way to reboot in between tests, but I can't save the results. If this was possible, everyone would have scores a couple hundred points higher...

When I start up 3DMark and run only nature, I get about 5-6 more fps. Then, if I run the rest of the tests, my scores are about 200-300 pts higher than if i ran the tests in order.

Click to expand...

It caches the test into memory...most people get higher scores the more they loop it, until it tops out