Express performance 1100 Vs 1200

[Kano]

Hmm maybe it was -four then.

[Thetargos]

Will try that. Thanks.

[damentz]

I noticed that you are underclocking the cpus, which creates a cpu bottleneck while benchmarking. You should run the cores at their full designed speed otherwise your benchmarks are worthless.

For all I know, one laptop's motherboard and processor combo could be more efficient than the other, thus the source of incorrect benchmarks.

If you really need to test them, run the games at the highest resolution possible and disable features that are cpu intensive, such as shadows and other software powered doodads.

[Thetargos]

The idea to lock the CPUs was precisely to create that bottleneck. As the bottleneck would yield more representative figures of raw graphics performance. Also one CPU is faster than the other, hence it helps to test with a common CPU speed. Both systems share even the system's chipset and memory type, brand and speed. So creating that bottleneck actually rules out any CPU aid.

[Thetargos]

Rather than opening a new thread about this very same issue, I thought I'd add a bit more information here and hopefully have some feedback from John or anyone else knowledgeable.

I ran 'lspci -vvnn' on my laptop and here's the output from it. Maybe this can tell something to someone about the lousy performance of fglrx on this setup...

01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RS690M [Radeon X1200 Series] [1002:791f] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Unknown device [1179:ff1a]
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 64, Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
        Region 0: Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
        Region 2: Memory at f8100000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Region 4: I/O ports at 9000 [size=256]
        Region 5: Memory at f8000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
        Capabilities: [80] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
                Address: 0000000000000000  Data: 0000
        Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci
        Kernel modules: fglrx

At this point I'm pulling my hair off at how lack luster performance is with the fglrx drivers on this machine and how fast it is on "less capable" hardware (I'm starting to assume that the less capable hardware is actually orders of magnitude more capable than this hardware). However it does strike me as surprising that all in all Compiz-Fusion performance is not THAT bad, and is actually rather good... However, for anything else it is really bad, be it real-time rendering for games, or for visualization purposes (which I need for work). To top it off, I can't even run Compiz all the time due to the XVideo issue with it (even though at least fullscreen works).

The fact that some users besides me have also reported similar performance issues with allegedly the same graphics chip (I assume there may be slight configuration discrepancies depending on how the manufacturers actually integrate the chips into the rest of the system), I think that identifying what is causing this reduced performance will eventually help other users as well. So anything I can provide to help narrow down the issue?

[Melcar]

That's some really low performance. This is what I get in glxgears running in a window on a 200M:

5066 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1013.075 FPS
5459 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1091.701 FPS
5422 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1084.331 FPS
5462 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1092.340 FPS
5422 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1084.242 FPS
5460 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1091.860 FPS
5415 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1082.974 FPS
5464 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1092.792 FPS
5418 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1083.551 FPS
5408 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1081.471 FPS

.. and this are my Graphics scores.

[Thetargos]

That's some really low performance. This is what I get in glxgears running in a window on a 200M:

5066 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1013.075 FPS
5459 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1091.701 FPS
5422 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1084.331 FPS
5462 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1092.340 FPS
5422 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1084.242 FPS
5460 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1091.860 FPS
5415 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1082.974 FPS
5464 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1092.792 FPS
5418 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1083.551 FPS
5408 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1081.471 FPS

.. and this are my Graphics scores.

My numbers are actually very similar, but with an RS690M (X1200). If I lock the CPU to 800MHz, at most I get 525fps in glxgears. Will have to install PTS and Nexuiz and Doom3 on this laptop to check the performance of the benchmarks.

[Melcar]

This is glxgears with the CPU capped at 800MHz:

3156 frames in 5.0 seconds = 631.086 FPS
3445 frames in 5.0 seconds = 688.851 FPS
3469 frames in 5.0 seconds = 693.660 FPS
3405 frames in 5.0 seconds = 680.977 FPS
3497 frames in 5.0 seconds = 699.376 FPS
3673 frames in 5.0 seconds = 734.493 FPS
3803 frames in 5.0 seconds = 760.547 FPS

I believe that both IGPs share similar specifications. Despite the PTS scores, this laptop can game at low settings rather well (AA 2008, Urban Terror, Nexuiz). Compiz ran fine when I used it (except for the more demanding plugins and effects) and runs decently with the KDE transparencies (a bit on the sluggish side when I start moving windows around, though). Back when I bothered to keep Windows on this laptop I used to run opengl benchmarks and starting with the 7.12 drivers performance got pretty close between the two, so I doubt the problem is the drivers not performing, but rather the chip itself (it's an IGP after all).

[Thetargos]

My fianc?'s laptop is an Acer with an RS485, aka eXpress 1100. However, in that setup, it actually makes little difference whatosever if the CPU is locked to 800MHz or set to on-demand. In that setup on-demand yields almost 1800FPS in glxgears, in 800MHz it yields 1200FPS. On my setup performance is almost cut in half if I lock the CPU speed to 800MHz, unlocked it gives 1070FPS at most.

[Thetargos]

Here's the lspci -vvnn VGA section of the machine with the Xpress 1100:

01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RS485 [Radeon Xpress 1100 IGP] [1002:5975] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Unknown device [1025:010f]
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 255 (2000ns min), Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 21
        Region 0: Memory at c8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
        Region 1: I/O ports at 9000 [size=256]
        Region 2: Memory at c0100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at c0120000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
        Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci
        Kernel modules: fglrx, radeonfb

Hope this is helpful.