rec.autos.simulators

The actual in-game FPS counters are the best way to test the "speed" of your
3D card.  Winbench is not that great of a program.  As mentioned, several
card companies have been known to optimize their drivers for benchmarks.
Case in point, STB just recently did this to their TNT drivers for the
Velocity 4400 so it would be faster.  A lot of drivers now are WHQL (Windows
Hardware Quality Lab) certified.  Basically the drivers are tested for
"tweaking" and compatibility problems.

Another example of Winbench 98 problems is that I remember reading a review
of the Starfighter 3D card, it beat out a single Voodoo2 card in overall
score.  The marketing dept then used the winbench number (whatever it
represents, I don't know) in their adverti***ts.  Funny thing is, Voodoo2
is faster in every game I have seen (e.g. Quake2, Unreal, Forsaken, etc.).

I would stick to frame rate counters in games for the test of speed. That is
the only true test of a card and how it performs against others.

Tom

Problem with 3D Winbench is that it is so well known by the manufacturers that
they (well, many) aren't above "tweaking" their drivers to achieve better
performance on the test.  Meanwhile performing no better, and in some
documentated cases *worse* than previous drivers did, in actual software.  
Most gamers have learned to ignore 3D Winbench and instead favor benchmarks
found in games.  Quake and Quake2 have become standards due to the popularity
of the games and the availability of the demos.  Being the simulators group,
I'll mention that GPL (rendition and 3dfx/Glide support) has a framerate
counter as does CPR (D3D).  Flight sims with framecounters include FS98
(D3D), Jane's F15 (3dfx) and I believe F22 ADF.

And then PCComputing reviewed the Monster3D2 (Voodoo2) 12MB card and
reported that it was slower than the Intel i740-based Starfighter.   In
real game benchmarks the Monster will perform from double to up to
quadruple the i740.

Of course, Intel also owns part of Ziff-Davis publishing (PCComputing's
publisher) but I'm sure that had nothing to do with it...