First post, by Great Hierophant
- Rank
- l33t
I tried benchmarking DOOM on my 486. The system specs are as follows :
Generic AT case w/3x5.25" & 3x3.5" bays (1 internal)
Intel 486DX/2 66
ASUS VL/I-486SV2G w/256KB Cache
16MB FPM RAM
Diamond Stealth 24VL w/1MB
Gravis Ultrasound ACE 1.0 w/1MB
Roland MIF-IPC-A & MPU-401
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Pro CT-1330
Kouwell KW-560D VLB IDE & I/O controller
2GB Compact Flash w/IDE adapter
Epson SD-880 Combo 5.25" & 3.5" Floppy
Generic 3-button Serial Mouse (Microsoft/Mouse Systems switch)
Roland CS-30 Stereo Micro Monitor
KDS VS-7p VGA Monitor 17/16"
IBM Model M Keyboard 1391401 w/AT cable
It seems that shareware DOOM 1.9 (The Ultimate DOOM) using -timedemo demo3 is the standard benchmark around these parts. Using the fastest settings I could muster from the board, the results are as follows :
Timed 2143 gametics.
realtics :
SB Pro 1 - 2723 (or 27.54fps)
GUS ACE - 3252 (or 23.06fps)
None - 2390 (or 31.38fps)
In both cases, the cards served as both the music and sound fx option, and 8 sound streams were selected.
I always thought that the GUS would be faster than a Sound Blaster (especially above two fx streams), as the GUS can mix the digital fx streams in hardware while the SB has to mix them in software.
I have also noticed that the ACE does not respond well to high ISA clock speeds in my system. I have to run the bus at CLKIN/6 to get the digital sounds from the GUS in any DOOM game to playback without clicking or scratching at the end of the sample. Is the DOOM engine simply not optimized for the GUS?
Also, using General MIDI for music can shave about 100 realtics off the score.
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