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Reporting
Submission data is aggregated into the following reports to help you analyze and compare results.
The three top factors that influence results are:
- Video Card: as technology advances are made, newer video cards generally outperform their existing counterparts; video cards also tend to come in various performance groups, some of which are better than others.
- Screen Resolution: lower screen resolutions tend to perform better, but at the sacrifice of fitting less on screen.
- CPU Speed: while the benchmark attempts to primarily exercise your video card, many tests will inevitably also depend on your CPU speed to prepare data to send to your video card; newer and faster CPU’s can give better results, even on the same video card. Please note, however, that CPU speed is not necessarily the most reliably way to gauge a CPU’s power, but should still prove useful for isolating similar systems.
Most of the reports below group results by these factors to help you compare similar systems. CPU speed is grouped by 500 MHz chunks to create larger groupings. Unless otherwise noted, all aggregate results are averaged over only the primary screen in each submission.
Common reasons for poor performance:
- Out-of-date graphic card drivers: it is strongly recommended that you check the website of your computer vendor or graphic card manufacturer for the latest updates to the drivers for your graphics card.
- Microsoft IntelliPoint mouse drivers: Certain versions of the Microsoft Intellipoint 6.x mouse drivers interfere with the operation of MicroStation on Windows XP (this problem does not happen on Windows Vista). If you are experiencing unpredictable slowdowns or crashes on Windows XP, and are using a Microsoft mouse, you should make sure you have the latest Microsoft IntelliPoint driver.
- Degraded performance on non-primary screens: this is a known problem. Under Windows XP (one or multiple video cards), or Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 (only multiple video cards), screens besides the primary screen can suffer from significant performance degradation. While there is no universal workaround for this known issue, some video drivers provide a "spanning" option to make two screens appear as one to the operating system, thus working around the problem.
- Background processes: all software currently running on your computer can be utilizing resources that MicroStation and the benchmark rely on (e.g. CPU and RAM); running many programs at the same time can reduce MicroStation’s performance and affect results.
Reports
- By-System Configuration
This is the broadest report, and breaks results down by screen resolution, video card, and CPU speed, showing averages for each category of test (drawing tests, copy buffer, element dynamics, shadows, and the walkthrough diagnostic).
- By-Video Card
This is report breaks information down per video card, showing the screen resolutions, CPU speeds, and video RAM amounts collected. It shows results in two groups: per-test, and per-driver/screen resolution/CPU speed.
- By-Submission
This report lists all submissions individually, allowing you to search by video card name, system model name, and user comments.
- Failed Submissions
This report lists submissions that were forced to run under software rendering. This can severely impact the performance of MicroStation XM and later, and can be used as a diagnostic indicator.
- By-Test
These reports show information for each test, and show results in two groups: per-system configuration, and per-video card/CPU speed.
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