Testing Guidelines Optimal Performance Tips In order to get accurate and repeatable results please make sure you have done the following: Stop all other programs. Under the 32-bit Windows operating systems, other tasks can preemptively run during the tests, thus affecting the results. You will want to eliminate as many of these types of tasks as possible. This action also maximises your available memory. Disable any network connections and file sharing. Background network activity may affect results. Restart the computer before running the benchmark. Run the tests at least three times to verify that the results are reproducible. Follow a standard testing procedure each time you run the tests. For example, if you defragment the hard disk before one test, you should defrag the hard disk before running the second test. This helps to ensure that your results are consistent.

Optimal Performance It is also suggested that for optimal performance you: Free as much continuous space on your hard drive as possible Enable write caching in the software disk cache. Enable processor caches. Reduce memory usage by disabling processes such as automatic network connection utilities and application start-up utilities. The common instances include System Agent, Perfmon (a performance monitor), and display driver control panels. If you run the benchmark across a network, try to do so in an isolated test network or when the volume of network traffic is low.

 

Tips You can easily take screen shots for publishing or comparison by pressing F12 at any time when running the program. All screenshots are automatically captured and stored into your installation directory as sequently numbered .bmp files. For example: C:\Program Files\3DMark 99\shot0001.bmp More tips available at www.3dmark.com