#Speed: Vipr/Grafite/Liqd
32 messages in this thread
For the past 8 months that I've been reading this forum, I've been
religiously clipping out all opinions and experiences referring to
graphic adapters, hoping to find a fast and well supported one.
A couple weeks ago when I finally sprang for a 486/66 (up from my
386/33–i.e., from down there, everything looks fast) I was offered a
good price on a Diamond Viper (2 Meg), and so bought it.
Unfortunately it did not completely support my monitor (requiring
interlacing at its highest resolution), so I picked up another, the
Hercules Graphite VLB (2 Meg).
Having both at hand I ran a little test. Screen redraws sap my
vitality sumpin fierce (far more than I ever realized until I
upgraded to the 486!) and so I loaded a 4,800 face mesh into a User
View, held down an arrow key and kept time for 72 redraws. The Viper
finished in 25 seconds, the Graphite in 29. Side-by-side like this,
the difference was noticeable, but I don't think it will be once I've
settled in with the Graphite. So the Viper was faster and cheaper,
too ($339 vs $375). But I also found that the traffic on the Diamond
forum was pretty heavy and HOT, compared to that on the Hercules
forum! So it's the Graphite for me.
Then yesterday I received my copy of Liquid Speed in the mail.
Running my same test, Liquid Speed finished in 20 seconds with the
Graphite. That is hardly the "twice as fast" that has been claimed
by Vibrant and several forum posters–it's more like half again as
fast. I'm curious as to how others measured the speed increase.
What I did to test the speed was to load a huge mesh (150,000 faces)
into the 3d editor and time a single redraw of all viewports.
Liquid Speed came in twice as fast as without it.
Possibly what you are seeing in doing many redraws on a small file was
more the overhead of 3D Studio than the pure graphics redraw speed?
I tested it on a Graphite (1 meg), a Diamond 24X and a few others with
similar results. Let me know what your results are on a BIG mesh!
>> Let me know what your results are on a BIG mesh! <<
Okay… I loaded PCACITY from the R2 CD-ROM (182,473 faces), pressed W (to
display all views), and hit Alt-~ to redraw:
With Liquid Speed: 14 sec. –
Without : 21 sec. –
Then, with Full Draw/All:
With Liquid Speed: 31 sec. –
Without : 51 Sec. –
Loading BOAT.3DS (123,473 faces):
With Liquid Speed: 18 sec. –
Without : 31 sec. –
The speed improvement with LS for these three cases is 1.5, 1.6, and 1.7,
respectively, pretty much what I got with the small mesh I posted before.
Any ideas WHY I might be getting this slower performance?
In which module are you doing these benchmarks? The keyframer only yields a
%25 increase, as claimed. 40-50% increase is in the 3D Editor.
Regards,
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
Yes, the 3D Editor. I do understand that the Keyframer increase is less.
I don't know why you're getting less performance increase. What system are you
running 3DS on?
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
My system: 486/66 VLB/EISA (JDR Microdevices, mfd. by Tyan) , Graphite
Pro VL HG720 (2 meg), NEC 3D monitor.
Weird. I've got an EISA '66, too (AMI Enterprise III) and I do get 40-50%
speed increase.
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
EISA 486/66 VLB, 50% in the editor here.
Are we talkin' the same thing here? Or do we have a semantic Timing Problem?
<g>
You say you "get a 40-50% speed increase" (I assume we're still in the 3D
Editor, not Keyframer). By that do you mean that you ALSO get only a 40-50%
increase? Because that's all _I_ get, too. But we're supposed to get a 100%
speed increase–i.e., twice as fast, right?
Oh man, semantics<g>. I do mean I'm getting close to twice the redraw speed,
but I don't have a stopwatch so I can't get a precise time for you.
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
Carl,
How do you have your drivers configured? If you are using the inline drivers
(3ds vibcfg) what card/chip have you selected?
Best Regards, Brian
Yes, I'm using the inline Vibrant drivers. For Main-Display I use
the "Hercules Graphite AGX, 1024×768 256 colors," corresponding to my
Graphite HG720–right?
Carl:
You've got me! You are in the 3D Editor, right?
Greg Pyros
Yes, the 3D Editor.
Hey Greg, just thought I'd toss in my results with the PCACITY mesh and Liquid
Speed.
3D Editor – All lines – full detail
with LS 15 sec
w/o LS 23 sec – a 35% increase in speed.
Edges only – full detail
with LS 11 sec
w/o LS 17 sec – a 35% increase.
Keyframer
with LS 9 sec
w/o LS 13 sec – a 30% increase.
Not 50% in the editor but definately a good enough improvement to
warrant buying it.
David, which version of r3 are you using? Are you, by chance, using
the B10 eval/developer release? How about when you boot 3ds and the
LS flag comes up, are ALL the little blocks yellow? I have reason to
believe (my own tests) that B10 will NOT run to full speed with LS.
I'm pretty sure, that in most cases, you need to run the shipping
release to get full speed. When you boot, the line of little boxes
should be ALL yellow to show that LS is operating at full speed. If
there are some blue ones, there is a problem. When running at full
throttle. LS *really* should show the 50% increase in the Editor as
advertised. If the thing is running at full throttle, and your speed
increase is that low, I would contact Vibrant.
-Alan
>> When running at full throttle. LS *really* should show the 50% increase in
the Editor as advertised <<
On Nov 3 Brian Massey posted a LS news release which "advertised": >>
Liquid Speed doubles the performance of 3D Studio's 3D Editor, and
accelerates the Keyframer by up to 33% << Thus LS *should* show a
_100%_ increase in the Editor!
I was using the 50% 'cause thats what was being accepted as "twice as
fast" on this thread at the time… A 10 second redraw now takes 5
seconds. You lop off half (50%) the time — I guess that is where the
50% number came from. I just like to say "half the time" or "twice as
fast", myself.
>> A 10 second redraw now takes 5 seconds <<
Righto–but for you and not for me! It takes me about 7.5 seconds. I only get
half the bene that you (and others, apparently) do.
Alan, I wasn't trying to quibble over your choice of words, only to figger out
if we were talking about the same thing–if my installation of LS was running
as fast as yours. It's now clear that it isn't. Thanks for your help in
verifying this (unhappy fact) for me!
Well, Carl, I certainly hope you can find the problem. If you own LS, then you
really deserve those half-the-time redraws. Hopefully, if you work with BrianM
at Vibrant you'll be able to straighten this thing out.
Best of luck,
-Alan
Carl,
We could say that 3DS runs 100% slower without Liquid Speed that with it. On
our tests, it took 9 seconds to draw PCACITY.3DS with Liquid Speed loaded.
However it took twice as long (100% longer) to draw PCACITY without it.
I think that we can agree that it would NOT be ethical to say that the above
scenario represents a 100% performance increase. However you slice it, we DO
cut in half the time it takes the 3D Editor to draw — we DO double the
performance of the 3D Editor. You are free to call it 50% or 100%. We think
you'll agree that the end result — a big time savings — is where the value
lies with LSpeed.
Best Regards, Brian
Brian, I'm reeeally not trying to quibble about this! I simply DO NOT get the
double speed increase that you and others get. And if you saw David Mennenoh's
message #67990, he didn't either (he and I get similar results).
I had hoped that you could determine why certain systems (like David's and
mine) get only about half the benefit that others get.
Alan,
I am running the shipping version and all the dots are yellow. Maybe I'll give
vibrant a call and see what they say. Thanks for the info.
Dave Mennenoh
Looks like BrianM is on the job, David. I hope he can improve things for you.
-Alan
The speed increase in the keyframer is as claimed by all: 25%. The
50% increase is only in the 3D Editor (which is slower to begin
with).
I paid $240 for a Hercules Graphite 2MB just two weeks ago. Who's
ripping you off?
Regards,
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
John,
>> I paid $240 for a Hercules Graphite 2MB just two weeks ago. Who's ripping
you off?
_Where_ are you finding them for that?? That's way under what it costs
us as resellers to get them from the distributor. If it's really the
current 2 meg version, I think your source made a pricing error,
fortunately in your favor! (I have seen the older 1 meg versions,
not upgradable to 2 meg, for around this price.)
I got it from NCA peripherals, down in Sunnyvale. Perhaps they billed
me for a 1meg version, but that's what I paid. Lucky me (for a
change!)
>> I paid $240 for a Hercules Graphite 2MB just two weeks ago. Who's ripping
you off? <<
More importantly, where did you buy it for $240?! As to who's
ripping me off, do you want that chronologically (or or by category)
from 1950 when I began to keep records?
I got the Graphite from NCA peripherals, where I buy most of my
hardware. They're in Sunnyvale, but do mail order. Their number is:
(408) 739-9010. John Schmidt told me the price was below distributor
wholesale, so they may have undercharged me. But they do have
excellent prices and are a large volume dealer of high quality
peripherals.
re $240 at NCA for Graphite Pro VL (HG720)…
NCA is one of the companies I phoned. If I remember correctly, they
quoted sumpin like $450 (as did a couple other South Bay
companies)–most didn't even have a price on it.
I do believe they undercharged you. You might want to give them a
call to set things straight–lessee, got it somewhere here–(408)
739-9010 <G>
Yeah, right! I'm on the phone to them now… oops, there's no answer. Hmm….
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)