Media Encoding and Gaming Benchmarks

Media Encoding

One area where Intel processors have enjoyed an advantage over Athlon 64 is Media Encoding.  Many have expected that Media Encoding with 64-bit extensions would erase that advantage.  We ran the latest XMPEG 5.0.3 with the latest DIVX codec 5.1.1 to compare encoding performance in a common 2-pass setup.  

Media Encoding - XMPEG 5.0 with DIVX 5.1. 1

 

32-Bit

(Windows XP SP1)

64-Bit

(XP64 Preview Edition)

% Change

32 to 64-bit

XMpeg 5.03/Divx 5.1.1

2-Pass

58.7 fps

67.8 fps

+15.5%

Keep in mind that the software we used is not really written for 64-bit operation.  Even so, we found 64-bit encoding to be 15.5% faster than 32-bit.  With 64-bit versions of the encoding software we would expect even higher performance.  Keep in mind that this is a preview version of XP64, hampered by very early drivers, running an encoder optimized for 32-bit.  It certainly appears that Media Encoding under Windows XP64 will be a totally different animal. 

Gaming

The Athlon 64 quickly distinguished itself as the Gaming CPU with its outstanding performance in almost every 32-bit game.  With that kind of 32-bit advantage, we fully expected 64-bit gaming to fly.

Game Performance - Athlon 64 FX51

 

32-Bit

(Windows XP SP1)

Frames Per Second

64-Bit

(XP64 Preview)

Frames Per Second

% Change

32 to 64-bit

Halo DX9.0b

1024x768

55.0

44.5

 -19.1%

Splinter Cell

1024x768

57.52

40.10

-30.3%

X2

1024x768

 135.9

 130.1

 -4.3%

Quake 3

1024x768

 482.0

235.0

-51.2 %

Unreal Tournament 2003 - 1024x768

Flyby

291.85

233.52

-19.0%

Unreal Tournament 2003 - 1024x768

Botmatch

112.46

88.21

-21.6%

GunMetal 2 - Bench 2

DX9 1024x768

49.14

30.63

-37.7%

GunMetal 2 - Bench 1

DX9 1024x768

39.93

26.50

-33.6%

Comanche 4

1024x668 4AA

71.24

52.35

-26.5%

Gaming is the one area in the preview that is a disappointment.  As you can see, the standard benchmark games under XP64 Preview were 4% to 51% slower than 32-bit, with the average speed about 20% slower.  It is far too early to reach any conclusions in this area, but there is a lot of driver optimization to be done to make up this kind of delta.  With the CPU and memory providing faster 64-bit performance, we have to believe the drivers play a big part in this disappointing gaming performance.

Epic was demonstrating UT 2004 64-bit at the release of the Athlon 64 last September, and by all reports the performance was amazing.  Perhaps we will only see the promised advantage of 64-bit in games written or compiled for XP64.  As we have already said, it is too early to draw conclusions;  We are only asking questions.  nVidia, ATI, Microsoft, and chipset manufacturers really need to improve drivers to the point where 64-bit is at least on par with 32-bit when running 32-bit games.  AMD has argued all along the advantages of backwards compatibility with 32-bit games.  This will still be a 32-bit world for a while and competitive gaming performance running 32-bit games is extremely important.  We fully expect gaming to improve as we move toward the release of XP64.  ATI has no published drivers for 64-bit, and nVidia's release drivers now are nearly 3 months old.  As we have seen over and over in the past, drivers are what make the difference in games.  With the release of XP64 Preview we should now see ATI and nVidia making giant strides in 64-bit graphics drivers.

Aquamark 3 would not run under XP64 preview, but the rest of our gaming benchmarks would run.  X2 has always had problems with image tearing on nVidia cards and the image tearing is even worse in XP64, but the benchmark does complete and provide believable results.

Content Creation and General Usage

To our complete surprise the Winstone 2004 benchmarks would not install under Windows XP 64-bit.  Until these benchmarks are updated we cannot run comparisons with XP64.

System and Memory Benchmarks Final Words
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  • Staples - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link

    I really hope those game scores are due to premature video drivers. As you see, Halo did almost as well as the 32bit platform and as you should know, DX9 games are almost solely based on the GPU. So if Halo did almost as well on both platforms, it says that the video drivers can't be that premature, either that or explanation 2 is that we can expect a huge increase in DX9 games.
  • Corsairpro - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link

    Too bad there weren't any decent video drivers. Every one who just glances at the numbers is going to claim "The message is clear x86-64 has failed" when it comes to games. Oh well, more supply for me to buy!
  • buleyb - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link

    Not that I'm not excited, but you should point out Wes that this isn't just a 64bit OS, but an AMD 64bit OS, meaning that the performance improvement has a lot to do with the new general purpose registers and such. I don't want people thinking that 64bit is a pure performance improvement, because it really isn't by itself.

    But still, nice work :)
  • KristopherKubicki - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link

    Skol. Well done Wes.
  • saechaka - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link

    boy am i glad i just bought this athlon 64 notebook. huurraaayy for me
  • Wesley Fink - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link

    There are times editing would be useful in this comments section. XP, and not Halo, had about the same performance.
  • Wesley Fink - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link

    Halo was the game that was close to the same performance in XP and XP64, and not Halo as #4 pointed out. Since X2 is DirectX 8.1 with heavy use of transform and lighting effects, it has little relevance to the Halo performance. Corrected in the article.
  • Emma - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link

    "It is very interesting that the DirectX 9 game Halo is already very close to 32-bit performance at only 4% slower than 32-bit performance. This means the newest 32-bit games, or at least the newest games from Microsoft, may be as fast on 64-bit as 32-bit at the launch of XP64, or possibly even faster."

    Can you clarify this please. The table shows there being a -19.1% change...
  • Boonesmi - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link

    by the way ive read in several threads of guys using pcmark 2004 and getting incredible fps in divx encoding
  • Ecmaster76 - Saturday, February 7, 2004 - link

    Very interesting. That 15% increase in media encoding should have the AMD execs laughing maniacally. That might end up getting them a 15% increase in market share.