Performance

Benchmark 1

This benchmark checks if the graphics card is capable of refreshing more than one viewport in 3ds max simultaneously. There is some animation played in all viewports, and to load the graphics accelerator even more each viewport is displayed in a different mode: from Wireframe to Smooth + Highlights.

• Polygons: 40088;
• Light source: 2;
• Mode: Wireframe, Smooth + Highlights, Smooth + Highlights + Edged Faces.

Benchmark 2

Here the graphics cards have to work with animation in a single viewport. During the test the camera is flying above the rocks and hills of the moon surface landscape, which is built by 400 thousand polygons displayed in Smooth + Highlights mode.

• Polygons: 400008;
• Light source: 1;
• Mode: Smooth + Highlights.

Benchmark 3

This test is none other but the same moon surface picture from the previous benchmark. However, besides the landscape itself, we now have some flying objects, like pace crafts or planes.

• Polygons: 742128;
• Light source: 1;
• Mode: Smooth + Highlights.

Benchmark 4

This benchmark deal with the processing of multiple light sources. Since most graphics cards do not support more than 8 light sources, this test as well as the next two work with 8 lights of different types. Here we will have 8 SpotLight light sources, which move and light some geometrical object.

We should point out that imitating the effect made by SpotLights is a much more resource-hungry process than the imitation of Omni or Directional lighting.

• Polygons: 60500;
• Light sources: 8;
• Mode: Smooth + Highlights.

Benchmark 5

Here we have the same object, but this time it is lit by 8 Directional lights. Directional lights in 3ds max 5 are the fastest unlike the previous package version.

• Polygons: 60500;
• Light source: 8;
• Mode: Smooth + Highlights.

Benchmark 6

Again we've got the same object and 8 light sources. But this time these are all Omni lights, which involve average resources between SpotLight and Directional lights described above.

• Polygons: 60500;
• Light source: 8;
• Mode: Smooth + Highlights.

Benchmark 7

This scene boasts "easy" geometry and a couple of light sources. It is displayed in a single viewport on the entire screen thus being an excellent test of the rasterizing speed in Smooth + Highlights mode.

• Polygons: 40088;
• Light source: 2;
• Mode: Smooth + Highlights.

Benchmark 8

This test is intended to show how fast the graphics cards are when it comes to multiple textures processing. The file contains a lot of textures and very little geometry.

• Polygons: 224;
• Light source: 2;
• Mode: Smooth + Highlights.

Benchmark 9

This benchmark emulates the work on the game level, as it contains both: sufficient geometry and numerous textures. The animation is arranged in such a way that the entire scene could be displayed completely.

• Polygons: 12548;
• Light source: 5;
• Mode: Smooth + Highlights.

Benchmark 10

This test reveals the ability of the graphics accelerators to display textures on the deforming geometry.

• Polygons: 5048;
• Light source: 1;
• Mode: Smooth + Highlights.

Benchmark 11

This test is aimed at showing what the graphics cards are capable of in terms of transparent textures processing.

The new 3ds max 5 features not only the transparency remaining from the previous version, which is imitated by dithering:

But also the 'real" transparency implemented by blending the pixel color of the overlapping objects:

You can shift between the transparency modes in the viewport control panel:

Of course, you can guess that the more correctly implemented transparency will be slower.

• Polygons: 39940;
• Light source: 2;
• Mode: Smooth + Highlights.

Simple Transparency



Best Transparency

Benchmark 12

Here the camera flies through the rocks and hills of the moon surface landscape built of 400 thousand polygons, i.e. the scene is the same as in Benchmark 2, actually. However, the picture is displayed in the Wireframe mode.

• Polygons: 400008;
• Light source: 1;
• Mode: Wireframe.

Benchmark 13

This is the Benchmark 3 scene in wireframe mode:

• Polygons: 742128;
• Light source: 1;
• Mode: Wireframe.

Conclusion

As we see from the test results, Quadro FX 2000 is simply destined to be used in 3ds max 5. High working frequencies and high quality drivers do not leave even a single chance to the competitors. And in fact, the seemingly low core efficiency per megahertz in case of heavy animation loaded with the whole bunch of effects (games) doesn't matter that much: the professionals work in wireframe mode or in primitive smooth + highlights mode. By the way, it looks as if NVIDIA marketing guys understood that their engineers occasionally created a not very powerful gaming solution and just an excellent professional accelerator. What we hear from our sources gives us every reason to suppose that a considerable part of NV30 based graphics cards will be professional ones.