![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Monday , November 04, 2002
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
UT2K3 Benchmarking
The full version of UT2K3 is here and we have put together a utility that will allow for apples to apples benchmarks and this time it has a GUI and is super-simple to use.
Our Turn
As I said earlier, there are two quality settings already included in this game to use for benchmarking: MaxDetail.ini and MinDetail.ini. While these files are very sufficient, I felt there were a few minor changes that needed to be made to their 3D settings to make them represent more of the High Quality and Low Quality end. While the changes I made are minor, they do cause a performance difference if you compare ours to the ones included with the game.
For the MaxDetail.ini under [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice] I set DetailTexMipBias to -0.8 and DefaultTexMipBias to -0.8. I felt that slightly more aggressive LOD would both sharpen image quality and increase the demand slightly for the highest detail quality setting. Continuing under [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice] I set UseTripleBuffering=True to enable triple buffering. And lastly I set UseCompressedLightmaps=False so that the lightmaps would be displayed more accuretly for the highest image quality detail setting.
For the MinDetail.ini file I changed the following settings. Under [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice] I set DetailTexMipBias to 0.8 and DefaultTexMipBias to 0.8. This positive LOD bias would give it a slightly more blurry texture but would help to increase performance. I also disabled triple buffering and set UseCompressedLightmaps=True.
We also included a CPU Test INI file that has lowered quality settings to test and compare CPUs and motherboards using Unreal Tournament 2003. Only one map was used, Inferno, and only at 640x480 resolution. We have also set all quality settings to their lowest levels and turned off detailed settings. The two main settings we've disabled to make sure the CPU is doing as much as possible are UseHardwareTL=False and UseHardwareVS=False. This ensures that the video card will have less effect on the game's performance, putting the entire burden on the CPU for a comparison test.
We feel that our slight modifications represent a better highest quality setting and a better lowest quality setting for comparing video cards. Now we just have to tell the batch files to use our INI files instead of the built-in ones.
Instead of just running each batch file separately, what we did was make just one batch file that included everything we needed in it for that quality setting. This is the core of what our utility is made of. When you run the batch file it will first go to the registry to find the install path for UT2003. In this way our program will work no matter where you have installed UT2K3. It can be on any drive in any folder. Because of the way our program reads the registry commands, it currently only works in an NT environment for Windows 2000 and XP support only at this time.
Here’s an example of our script to run one of the flyby tests:
“%UTLOC%\\System\\ut2003.exe" dm-antalus?game=engine.gameinfo exec=%UTLOC%\\Benchmark\\Stuff\\flybyexec.txt -benchmark -seconds=77 -nosound ini=%UTLOC%\\Benchmark\\Custom_MaxDetail\\Custom_MaxDetail.ini userini=%UTLOC%\Benchmark\\Stuff\\MaxDetailUser.ini -1600x1200
%UTLOC% is simply our variable to describe where the path to UT2K3 is. You can see we're calling the same ut2003.exe file with the same execution of dm-antalus and engine.gameinfo. We are also executing the same flybyexec.txt file for those commands. The same –benchmark, -seconds, and -nosound are also there. What's different about ours is the ini= line, which tells the scripts to use our Custom_MaxDetail.ini file that the batch file has copied into its own folder called Custom_MaxDetail. Now our INI file is not going to overwrite or mess up anything in your game settings of UT2K3! That's what makes this very safe; all of your settings in the game when you go to play it will be untouched. The -1600x1200 switch tells this flyby to run at 1600x1200 resolution. We've created 21 of these sets of code, which will run through all seven maps in three different resolutions.
Our Utility
Above are pictures of our benchmark utility so that you can follow along with how to use it. It's incredibly easy.
- Unzip the folder anywhere on your computer. It doesn't matter where you put it, it will find the location to your Unreal Tournament 2003 installation.
- Open the folder.
- Double click the [H]ardOCP UT2K3 Benchmarker.exe
- Select which resolution(s) you want to test.
- Click on which Quality Setting you want to test.
(Note: You do need to have the CD1 in your drive to run the tests, this is a limitation of the game)
The benchmark will then begin to run through the tests. Seven maps will be tested in the High Quality and Low Quality settings. Depending whether or not you chose just one resolution or all resolutions, the test could take a very long time to run. Thirty minutes to an hour to run one quality setting may not be uncommon if you chose All Resolutions, especially on a slow system. The CPU Test will run at 640x480 no matter what you have the resolution set to. It will only run one map, Inferno.
When the tests are done, a pop up window will come up displaying the results for you. It will list the resolution and map name under the Level column. It will list Low FPS, Average FPS, and High FPS for each test; just scroll down to see them all. If you wish to have a TXT file of these results, you'll find that a TXT file in the main directory of the folder has been created for whichever test you just ran. If you wish to save this TXT file, it's important to do so immediately because as soon as you run the same quality setting again it will overwrite the TXT file. You need to save it somewhere else if you want to save the results in the text file before you run the next test.
If you choose to run just one resolution in one quality setting, the pop up window will show the results accordingly. It will show you the Level that was tested, the Low FPS, the Average FPS, and the High FPS for that one resolution. Just as it is with All Resolutions, you can also go into the TXT file and save it somewhere else if you want to save it. As before, as soon as you run that same quality setting again the TXT file will be overwritten in the folder.
That's it in a nutshell!
You can download the [H]ardOCP UT2K3 Benchmark Utility HERE. Feel free to mirror or distribute the file.
Here's a more detailed explanation of what exactly the script is doing. When the EXE is first launched, it will search for your location of Unreal Tournament 2003. When it finds it, the buttons will then be available for you to control. When you press which quality setting you want to test, the program will make a new directory under your UT2003 folder and copy our custom quality setting INI file into that folder. It will then automatically run the tests one after the other without user intervention. After all tests have been run, it will copy the corresponding quality setting results TXT file into the folder and generate a pop up window showing you those results. At that point, it will clean up after itself and delete the custom INI file and folder from your UT2003 directory leaving it just like it was.
With this utility you have 3 different tests: High Quality, Low Quality, and a CPU Test. You can use each one accordingly combined with IQ features such as anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering and should test your system thoroughly with this game. This utility does only work in Windows 2000 and Windows XP at this current time. Once we have 9x support we will update the utility and put it up for download.
This benchmark will run the same on the original build of the game as well as the new 2136 patch. The patch does not effect 3D performance.
If you have any questions at all regarding this benchmark or benchmarking with the game, please feel free to send me an e-mail. We rely on end user feedback. I want to give a special thanks to all those that helped in the creation of this benchmark: Devin C. Dupree, Ira Snyder, Jason Katterhenry, and Brian Burke of NVIDIA. Thank you all very much! And, of course, special thanks to Epic for making this game happen!