Final Reality™ Interface Help
Section 1: How do I?
Perform an Unofficial Test
From the main dialog, ensure that sound is set to 16 bit 22KHz (DirectSound sound card required) and click "run benchmark". Final Reality™ will run each test once but with full sound and all test links.
Perform an Official Lab Test
Official System Test: From the main dialog, click "advanced options". On the advance options dialog box, click "Reset all options to default", select your rendering platform and and then click "Run advanced benchmark". Final Reality™ will run each test five times without sound and links.Official 2D image processing test
From the main dialog, click "advanced options". On the advanced options dialog box, click "Reset all options to default", deselect all the 3D tests and then click "Run advanced benchmark". In order to produce an official result, the component benchtests must be performed on VNU Labs benchmarking PCs to ensure consistency of results.Official 3D performance test
From the main dialog, click "advanced options". On the advanced options dialog box, click "reset all options to default", deselect all 2D and bus options and then click "Run advanced benchmark". In order to produce an official result, the component benchtests must be performed on VNU Labs benchmarking PCs to ensure consistency of results.Official Bus Transfer rate test
From the main dialog, click "Advanced options". On the advanced options dialog box, click "reset all options to default", and deselect everything else except the Bus transfer speed tests. In order to produce an official result the component benchtests must be performed on VNU Labs benchmarking PCs to ensure consistency of results.Official AGP Test
From the main dialogue click "Advanced options." On the advanced options dialogue box, click "Run AGP test." In order to produce an official result the component benchtests must be performed on VNU Labs benchmarking PCs to ensure consistency of results.Setup Final Reality™ for a demonstration
On the main dialog box, click "Continuous Loop" then click "run benchmark".
If you wish to enhance the benchmark with your branding, name your own graphic file "logo.jpg" and place the file in the benchmark directory. The jpg file must be in 640 x 480 resolution.
Section 2: Home Run (Main Dialog)
Run Benchmark
This button will run the Final Reality™ benchmark program in full multimedia mode. This mode is designed for use at home. It provides a full soundtrack and runs each test component (3D, image processing and bus transfer) once. It provides a good indication of the performance of a PC. Please note: For more accurate results see "Run Advanced Benchmark".Rendering Platform
The Direct3D hardware accelerators in your computer are automatically detected and displayed here. Final Reality™ always selects the best available platform first. You may wish to change this if your computer has more than one Direct3D accelerated graphics card. If you do not have any Direct3D hardware accelerators in your computer there will only be an option to run the 2D parts of the benchmark.Advanced Options
This button will take you into the advanced option mode. This mode is needed if you want to run a more accurate benchmark, or wish to perform a diagnostic run.Display Results
This button will take you to the results section, where you can compare your system to others.Exit
Quits Final Reality.Help
Loads your default web browser and displays the Final Reality help index.Options
Continuous Loop
If you want to run the benchmark continuously (or until the escape key is pressed) then check this box. The "credits" section is omitted from the test. Final Reality displays a 640 x 480 true color image "logo.jpg" between every run for fiveteen seconds if such a file is found in the FR directory.Turn off 2D tests
Final Reality™ is primarily a 3D benchmark, checking this box will prevent the 2D tests form being run.Sound Settings
The music quality can be selected or the music can be disabled altogether. If you do not have a sound card, make sure you have "No Sound" selected. Sound settings do not affect the running time of the benchmark but affect the results somewhat (Higher sound quality means worse results).
Section 3: Advanced options
Run Advanced Benchmark
This runs the lab standard benchmark. It is accurate to within a three percent margin of error. Each test is run five times with the option selected. Sound is omitted, as are non-benchmark transitions.Run AGP Test
This runs the AGP test, which is separate from the rest of the benchmark. This test has been specially designed for the AGP standard and uses over 8 megabytes of textures.Display Results
This button will take you to the results section where you can compare your system to others and export the measured results. (See section 5).Rendering Platform
See section 2.Back
This returns the user to the main dialog box.Help
Loads your default web browser and displays the Final Reality help index.3D Graphic options
3D graphic options shows what 3D features your hardware supports. The visual appearance factor is based on these features.Clear all tests
Sets all test selections off.General Options
Run all tests 5 times
This option is set at "on" as a default in order to produce accurate benchmarking to within three percent margin of error. Unchecked, this option will run all the tests once.Reset all options to default
The default sets the benchmark ready for a full official VNU Labs test. Click this button, then click Run Advanced Benchmark to proceed.Sound on
The check box is grayed out as this option is not available for official runs.2D Image processing tests
Checking these options determines whether the 2D image processing tests are run.In the 2D tests only the graphics calculation time is taken into account. The graphics card speed does not affect the results but only the "visual speed".Radial blur
The radial blur test measures the computer’s performance in image processing. Radial Blur is a standard filter found from many image processing programs, although the actual implementation style varies. This effect utilises Intel MMX™ technology if it is available. The result is displayed in rendered frames per second.Chaos zoomer
The chaos zoomer is the second image processing test. It uses a relatively large amount of memory and gives some indication of memory speed. This effect utilises Intel MMX™ technology if it is available. The result is displayed in frames per second.3D tests
Checking or unchecking these options will determine which tests are to be run.25-pixel test
The 25-pixel test will measure the amount of 25-pixel sized polygons your computer can draw to the screen per second. The polygons are drawn using texture mapping, gouraud shading and z-buffering.Robots
The Robots test will show the computer’s performance in a real-world game application. The result is in rendered frames per second, indicating how many times your computer can update the screen each second. Frame rates above 20 are generally acceptable for good game play experience.Fill rate
The fill rate test will measure the speed at which your computer can draw pixels to the 3D accelerator memory. The result is in megapixels per second.City scene
City scene will measure your computer performance in a complicated 3D scenery with lots of textures, transparency effects and shading models, particles and 2,000-10,000 polygons on-screen, simultaneously. The result is in rendered frames per second, indicating how many times your computer can update the screen each second.Bus transfer rate tests
Checking these options determines whether the bus transfer rate tests are run.2D transfer rate
2D transfer rate is measured by transferring an image from the main memory to the graphics card's memory. The result is indicated in Mb/sec.3D transfer rate
3D transfer rate test measures the speed with which your system transfers a texture to the hardware accelerators' memory with Direct3D. The result is indicated in Mb/sec.
Section 4: Disclaimer Dialog
If you do not agree with the terms of the license, select "Quit". If you wish to proceed, select "Accept". It is important to read and understand all the terms of the agreement.
Section 5: Results Dialog Boxes
Compare to
Clicking the drop-down arrow will bring up a list of systems already tested. Select the system with which you wish to compare your system.Close
This closes the results dialog and returns to the main dialog.Component and Overall Scores
Each test area is presented as a weighted overall of the individual tests within each of the sections. The Overall score is the VNU weighted score of all the components and provides a balanced view of graphical performance.Delete from database
This deletes an entry from the results database.Add to database
Your system results are added to your Final Reality™ database for comparison purposes at a later date.Save to file
This option allows your test data to be saved to a comma-separated ASCII text file. This option is mainly for labs staff, so that they are able to use the data in other programs.Reality mark or R mark
Reality marks are a scoring method used by VNU European Labs. Final Reality is a complex benchmark and it records many different types of measurements. These measurements are weighted according to each tests level of importance and normalised to create an overall score.In order to calculate a Reality mark, a piece of hardware, which is considered to be entry level is benchmarked and weighted. This result is then given a Reality mark of 1.0. All other results are then compared to this and scored accordingly.