MadOnion's 3DMark 2000 is a popular Direct 3D benchmarking application which contains a variety of graphics benchmarks including:

• Game - Two simulated game tests each with low, medium, and high detail levels
• Fill Rate - Measures fill rate using single and multi-texturing
• Polygon - Measures number of triangles that can be rendered under different light sources
• Texture Rendering - Measures frame rates based on texture sizes
• Bump Mapping - Measures frame rates using hardware or software accelerated environmental bump mapping

Performance under 3DMark 2000 was positive for the GeForce2 GTS especially the increased performance of the high polygon count tests. With an increase of over 40% in 16-bit and 32-bit color with 4 light sources, and over 50% with 8 lights sources, the GeForce2 GTS transform and lighting under Direct 3D is significantly faster than the GeForce 256 DDR. This is due to the increased core clock speed of the GeForce2 GTS along with general optimizations made to the transform and lighting engine.

It's also interesting to note that the results for the GeForce2 GTS in 32-bit color exceeded those of the GeForce 256 DDR in 16-bit color. Of course these results have no impact on the final 3DMark 2000 scores as they are derived from the game tests only.

Also remarkable is the 150% increase of the GeForce2 GTS in the 16-bit color multi-texturing fill rate test. Ironically, the benchmark produced a result of 1189.2 MTexels/s which equates to over 1.1 Gigatexels/s. This may also be the reason why the GeForce2 GTS outperforms the GeForce 256 DDR by 49% (138.6 vs 92.8 fps) in the low detail adventure benchmark. Unfortunately, limitations of DDR memory keep the 32-bit color multi-texturing fill rate results closer between the two cards with an average increase of approximately 20%.

The remaining tests, which consist of texture rendering and emboss bump mapping, are about 20% faster on the GeForce2 GTS.

Benchmark Settings

• 1024x768 Resolution
• 16/32-Bit Color
• Triple Buffering
• 16/24-Bit Z-Buffer Depth (depending on color depth)
• 16/32-Bit Texture Format (depending on color depth)
• Vsync Disabled
• Direct 3D Hardware T&L

Overall 3DMark 2000 Results

1024x768@16bpp - GeForce2 GTS - 5813    GeForce 256 DDR - 4819

1024x768@32bpp - GeForce2 GTS - 4470    GeForce 256 DDR - 3806

3DMark 2000 - Game Results - 1024x768

Measured in Frames Per Second

3DMark 2000 - Fill Rate Results - 1024x768

Measured in MTexels/Sec

3DMark 2000 - High Polygon Count Results - 1024x768

Measured in KTriangles/Sec

3DMark 2000 - Texture Rendering Speed - 1024x768

Measured in Frames Per Second

3DMark 2000 - Emboss Bump Mapping - 1024x768

Measured in Frames Per Second

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