Hydra is a QuickDraw demonstration and timing program for 32-bit QuickDraw video cards. The name Hydra is from the mythical Greek creature with many heads. Similarly, the Macintosh II can have many heads (monitors) and Hydra (the program) runs QuickDraw operations on each of these monitors. Choosing the File menu command ‘New for each GDevice’ opens a 600 by 400 window centered in each monitor. The name of the video card is used for the window title. QuickDraw operations can be selected from the Test menu or the Selections submenu and those operations are then performed in each window by choosing the ‘Do Selected Tests’ menu command. The time in ticks (1/60 th of a second) is displayed in large numbers at the end of each operation and is written to a TEXT file “HydraLog” (in the same folder a Hydra) in tab separated text suitable for loading into a spreadsheet.
Hold the option key down when selecting any of the tests to get a description of that test. Choose ‘Select Color’ to choose the forecolor for drawing. Some of the new color QuickDraw cards, such as the Apple 8•24GC, return control to the Macintosh before QuickDraw is finished with the command. If you choose the ‘Wait for QuickDraw to Finish’ menu command, it waits until QuickDraw is actually finished drawing before the timer is stopped.
The cloud picture was created with PixelPaint Professional™ 1.0 by SuperMac Technology and ColorStudio™ 1.0 by Letraset USA. The pyramid of balls picture was created with StrataVISION™ 3d 1.0.2 by Strata, Inc.
For offscreen images, Hydra uses Donoho Design Group’s OSImage. OSImage is an offscreen image allocation package written to allow you to easily use offscreen bitmaps in your programs as easily as you use windows and grafports. With OSImage you can temporarily allocate a bitmap for a subrectangle of the grafport and draw into it rather than to the screen. When you finally copy the bits into the screen, the user sees them “appear” in one instant. OSImage is the perfect solution when you want to cleanly display rapidly changing “real time” graphics in your application without flicker. OSImage also adds several graphics primitives that are twice the speed of QuickDraw and can be up to 20 time faster. OSImage extends Apple’s bitmap support to cover all members of the Macintosh family. OSImage is usable from MPW C or Pascal, MacApp 2.0B9, Think C or Pascal.
Hydra was first developed as a demonstration program for 32-bit QuickDraw video cards. Version 1.0 was presented at the December 1989 meeting of the Austin (Texas) Macintosh Developers Association and gained some national publicity. Version 2.0 of Hydra expands on the capabilities of the original, adding numerous tests, automatic window opening and logging of results. It is now the most complete set of timing tests for QuickDraw operations.
Raw timings such as these do not, of course, tell the whole story of how a user perceives the speed of operation of a display. Some operations or much more important than others. Speed of scrolling (the ScrollRect test) is very important as is CopyBits. But these results can give an indication of the relative speed of QuickDraw operations.
Suggestions for additions are welcome and should be directed to the author of the program (see the About Hydra ... command).
The following describes a series of tests on video cards that was performed using Version 1.0 of Hydra.
The Great 32-Bit Video Card QuickDraw Shootout
[Reprinted from the Austin Macintosh Developers Association Newsletter (January 1990)].
In the past several months, both SuperMac and RasterOps have come out with a cheap (< $1000.00) 32-bit video cards capable of driving the Apple Color Monitor or its equivalent. In fact, SuperMac also offers an optional daughter-board QuickDraw accelerator to complement its color card. We were curious how well these boards performed. How do they compare with standard 8-bit performance? And how do they compare with each other?
The Competition
So at our last meeting we had a QuickDraw contest between five separate systems. Vincent Parsons wrote a C++ MacApp program named Hydra which he designed to compare drawing performance on several monitors in sequence. At the meeting we had a Standard Apple 8-bit color card, a SuperMac ColorCard/24, a second SuperMac ColorCard/24 with the optional accelerator, a RasterOps ColorBoard 264, and an older model Truevision card: the NuVista. All cards were driving their own Apple Color Monitor except the Truevision which was driving a Sony Monitor. The MacApp program simply ran a selected QuickDraw activity, such as CopyBits or FillRect, on each monitor in succession and displayed the time required on each monitor. The user could select the QuickDraw command from a menu.
The Results
For those who want to see all the gory numbers, the results are tabulated below. The numbers represent tick-counts
Apple NuVista AccSM SM24 RasterOps
Rect:
PaintRect 212 1378 117 958 717
MonoFillRect 212 3028 118 2510 2197
Color Fill Rect 583 3027 2524 2519 2207
Oval:
Paint Oval 236 1276 242 792 582
Mono Fill Oval 527 2812 272 2312 2115
Color Fill Oval 628 2838 2391 2390 2167
RoundRect:
Paint RRect 244 1561 236 949 676
Mono Fill RRect 603 3501 271 2879 2595
Color Fill RRect 728 3526 2959 2959 2674
Arc:
Paint Arc 224 1048 252 665 494
Mono Fill Arc 451 2290 289 1915 1720
Color Fill Arc 536 2302 1948 1949 1770
Lines & Text:
Lines 1300 1196 1228 1171 1134
Text 100 318 292 294 268
BitMap Throwing:
DrawPicture 922 716 710 710 701
ScrollRect 797 4889 446 3598 2643
CopyBits 374 2415 231 1784 1298
CBits Shrink 298 730 684 685 641
CBits Enlarge 212 605 551 551 499
What It Means
A hardware junkie can have a field day with these numbers, making comparisons to determine what the boards are doing on the inside. But a few major points stand out. First, and most obvious, the Accelerated SuperMac card is an incredibly impressive performer; on many operations, it outperforms the Apple Video Card which runs in 8-bit mode. Second, while a lot of data is presented here, it’s important to remember that actual performance as perceived by a user performing normal tasks is most affected by the speed of CopyBits and ScrollRect operations. These are the operations required when a user scrolls through a document or screen redraws are performed. Once again, the Accelerated SuperMac card far and away outperforms the other 24-bit cards in ScrollRect and 1:1 CopyBits. In fact, it outperforms the Apple 8-bit card!
Although the RasterOps card was slightly faster than the unaccelerated SuperMac card, the two are roughly equal performers. And while the Truevision card came in at a very solid last place, it is an older card. Truevision has come out with several newer cards which may be much better performers. One disadvantage of the SuperMac card is its large power draw. The ColorCard/24 draws 2.5 amps and the accelerator draws 1.5 amps — well in excess of the two amps allocated per NuBus slot. This could cause problems in ‘low-power’ Macs such as the Mac IIcx. The RasterOps ColorBoard 264 draws only a little over one amp.
What the Manufacturer’s Think
The day after our meeting, Ron Parsons took our compiled results and sent them to both SuperMac and RasterOps. He received a very strong response. SuperMac, in particular, is interested in the nature of the test program we used and is interested in enhancements. Macintosh News has since called to obtain more information on the tests. RasterOps has taken the position with Macintosh News that acceleration is unimportant since, CopyBits of offscreen bitmaps to the screen is the predominant operation that affects performance and this operation is already optimized. But this position ignores the fact that scrolling (ScrollRect) is a separate important operation that has a significant impact on performance. Quite aside from the benchmark tests, if a user simply tries each video card with a common program such as Microsoft Word, the difference in speed between the Accelerated and unaccelerated SuperMac cards is quite substantial.
Obviously, factors beyond raw performance enter into the purchase of a card. Price, reliability, warranty, etc. are all important factors which we haven’t touched on. For example, the accelerator adds several hundred dollars to the price of the SuperMac outfit. However, these numbers may be a useful as a starting point towards a decision.
