This table displays the results of Video Performance tests on a 2mb Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 video card. The card was tested using S3's generic OS/2 driver v1.03.20, and IBM's Virge GRADD driver v0.077. It was also tested using the standard 66MHz bus speed, and overclocked to 75MHz.
Display was set to 800x600 and 65 536 colours (16 bit).
Tests were run several times - these are average values. Measurement unit is seconds.
VidPerf is part of Performance Plus v4.0 from Clear & Simple. It can also be downloaded for free from their web site.
| Test | S3 - 66MHz Bus | S3 - 75MHz Bus | GRADD - 66MHz Bus | GRADD - 75MHz Bus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spline | 1.66 | 1.55 | 1.70 | 1.53 |
| Line | 1.90 | 1.60 | 1.65 | 1.57 |
| Box | 1.88 | 1.63 | 1.68 | 1.59 |
| Filet | 1.76 | 1.69 | 1.76 | 1.55 |
| Bitmaps | 1.11 | 1.04 | 1.19 | 1.10 |
| Text | 3.18 | 2.66 | 1.54 | 1.38 |
| Solid Fill | 3.19 | 2.81 | 2.73 | 2.50 |
| Pattern Fill | 12.67 | 12.27 | 2.90 | 2.66 |
| Window Move | 3.48 | 3.36 | 2.79 | 2.70 |
| Total | 30.83 | 28.61 | 17.94 | 16.58 |
As you can see, the biggest difference is with the Pattern Fill score, but even apart from that the GRADD driver outperforms the S3 one in every test but one (and even that test is close.) It's also noticably better in practice, because some things which display incorrectly with the S3 driver (as one trivial example, the Star Office start-up screen) display correctly with the GRADD driver.
I don't know how well either of these drivers supports the VIRGE chip's 3D capabilities, but then I don't play many 3D games.