SolidWorks 98Plus Benchmark 1.0

The SolidWorks 98Plus Benchmark is a program that was written in Visual Basic and C that runs on the Windows NT and Windows 95 OS platforms. It was developed by SolidWorksand later enhanced by the APC. The SolidWorks 98Plus Benchmark provides an application benchmark for the mechanical design user (CAD/CAM). It represents the day in the life of a typical SolidWorks user.

The benchmark loads some standard models into SolidWorks 98Plus. The models loaded are of small to large-medium size (top line assembly has about 276,000 polygons.) The benchmark then does I/O, CPU, and graphics timings on operations to these models. The scores reported are a geometric mean of the time in seconds to do all the tests, a geometric mean of the individual graphics timings, the I/O timings, and the CPU performance timings in seconds normalized to a  reference machine decided on by the APC.

The APC project group maintains a single source code version of the SolidWorks Benchmark code that is available to the public.

Changes since SolidWorks 98 Benchmark

This benchmark was made to be used with the newest version of SolidWorks called SolidWorks 98Plus.  The major changes are listed below:


Menu


Installing

Make sure that you have SolidWorks 98Plus installed on your machine with at least date code 1999:005.  Download the self-extracting .exe file from the SPEC ftp site.  Run this executable.  The typical install installs everything except for the source code.  The custom install lets the user choose which components he/she wants to install. This program will install all the files to "C:\SW98PlusBenchmark". PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT A CURRENT INSTALLATION IS NOT ALREADY THERE. IF THERE IS, PLEASE REMOVE THE OLD DIRECTORY BEFORE RUNNING THIS INSTALL. ALSO NOTE THAT THE BENCHMARK HAS TO INSTALL TO YOUR C DRIVE (required space: ~24 MB): PLEASE DO NOT ALTER.

NOTE: IF NT OR 95 IS INSTALLED ON ANOTHER DRIVER OTHER THAN C: THEN YOU MUST ALSO COPY THE C:\BenchmarkSW DIRECTORY TO THE DRIVE WHERE THE OPERATING SYSTEM IS ON;  OTHERWISE, SOLIDWORKS WILL HAVE TROUBLE LOADING MODELS.

WARNING: MAKE SURE THAT YOU SAVE YOUR OLD SOLIDWORKS REGISTRY INFORMATION BY USING THE SOLIDWORKS REGISTRY WIZARD.  IF YOU DON'T, THE BENCHMARK WILL REARRANGE YOUR DISPLAY SETTINGS AND OVERWRITE ALL OF YOUR OPTION SETTINGS.
 
 
 

Uninstall

Make sure that you have deleted the info.txt file from the "c:\SW98PlusBenchmark" directory and have deleted all other html files (or other files) that you may have created in the "c:\SW98PlusBenchmark" directory or any of its subdirectories.  Then unsinstall "SolidWorks 98Plus Benchmark"  by using "Add/Remove Programs" in the control panel.
 

Machine Requirements

You must have an installed registered copy of SolidWorks 98Plus on your machine using date code 1999:005 or later.

The benchmark must be installed on the C: drive under the directory C:\SW98PlusBenchmark.

The test should be run on a machine that has just been rebooted.

There should be no other applications running on the machine during the test.

While the test is running, ensure the status window is not over the graphics area in the SolidWorks window.

You must have 160 Meg of RAM or more.

Make sure that SolidWorks is not already running.

Make sure that the Windows toolbar is NOT set to "always on top."

Set the screen resolution to 1024x768.

DO NOT MOVE THE MOUSE DURING THE BENCHMARK.

Running the benchmark

WARNING: MAKE SURE THAT YOU SAVE YOUR OLD SOLIDWORKS REGISTRY INFORMATION BY USING THE SOLIDWORKS REGISTRY WIZARD.  IF YOU DON'T, THE BENCHMARK WILL REARRANGE YOUR DISPLAY SETTINGS AND OVERWRITE ALL OF YOUR OPTION SETTINGS.

The executable to run is called SW98PlusBenchmark.exe and is located in "C:\SW98PlusBenchmark\Exe" There are two ways to run the program: one is in batch mode and the other is in GUI mode. BEFORE RUNNING PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT SOLIDWORKS IS NOT ALREADY RUNNING. In either case, when the program is run a dialog box will come up saying that it has modified the registry settings. Just hit OK and continue. On the first run after an install, a dialog box is going to come up querying the user about some information that it cannot get from the system. Please enter the appropriate values for the text boxes. This file will be saved to "C:\SW98PlusBenchmark\info.txt". As long as this file exists, on the machine you are trying to run on, you will not be asked this information again. If for some reason the information you were queried about changes, delete the file info.txt and run the benchmark again.

Note: Results may vary between the first run and subsequent runs due to caching.  Please run the test multiple times to get the best results.

Note: If you get in the html page or in the gui box the following "Invalid (Mouse Moved)" then please rerun the test and make sure not to move the mouse during the benchmark run.

Batch Mode

Batch mode consists of giving the command-line parameter /B (i.e. from the run window in Windows type "C:\SW98PlusBenchmark\Exe\SW98PlusBenchmark.Exe /B"). This causes the benchmark to run in a batch mode where the only user input will be to say OK to the dialog box that comes up saying that it has modified the registry settings. Here are the command line options:

/B - Run in batch mode
/F name - Specifies an HTML file to save to. (If /F not specified, saves to results.htm)
/R n - Specifies number of times "n" to run the benchmark. (If /R not specified, runs once)
/A - Runs all the tests. (default)
/G - Runs only the graphics test.
/P - Runs only the CPU performance test.
/I - Runs only the I/O test.

Some valid command line would be:

SW98PlusBenchmark.exe /B
This would run all the tests once saving to the file results.htm.

SW98PlusBenchmark.exe /B /F graphics.htm /G
This would run the graphics test once saving to the file graphics.htm.

SW98PlusBenchmark.exe /B /F IO.htm /I /R 2
This would run the I/O test twice saving the results to the file IO.htm.

GUI mode

GUI mode consists of asking the user through a user's interface what options she/he wants. A window will come up displaying 4 radio buttons. Select which test you want to run (Complete Test, Graphics Test, CPU Intensive Test, and I/O Intensive Test). Then click on the "Run" button. This will cause the program to run the test the user chose. At the end of the test, the results will be shown in the text boxes. At this point, the user can select to save the file by clicking on the "Save file" button and typing in a file name to save.

The Tests

Complete test

This test is a geometric mean of all the tests below.

CompleteTest = ((A'/A)*(B'/B)*(C'/C)*(D'/D)*(E'/E))^(1/5)
where
A = Graphics test: rotating the bottom case in shaded mode
B = Graphics test: rotating the assembly line in shaded mode without transparency
C = Graphics test: rotating the assembly line in shaded mode with transparency
D = I/O test's results
E = CPU test's results
A' = Graphics test: rotating the bottom case in shaded mode on the reference machine
B' = Graphics test: rotating the assembly line without transparency in shaded mode on the reference machine
C' = Graphics test: rotating the assembly line with transparency in shaded mode on the reference machine
D' = I/O test's results on the reference machine
E' = CPU test's results on the reference machine

Graphics test

This test will load two models: the BottomCase and the Assembly Line. Both models will be rotated and timed. The Assembly Line will also be rotated in transparent mode. Please note that alpha transparency is used rather than screen door transparency. The individual tests for the graphics will be reported in seconds.  The total of the individual graphics results will be computed as

TotalGraphics = (A'/A)^(1/3) *(B'/B)^(1/3) * (C'/C)^(1/3)
where
A = Rotate bottom case in shaded mode
B = Rotate Assembly Line without Transparency in shaded mode
C = Rotate Assembly Line with Transparency in shaded mode
A' = Rotate bottom case in shaded mode on the reference machine
B' = Rotate Assembly Line without Transparency in shaded mode on the reference machine
C' = Rotate Assembly Line with Transparency in shaded mode on the reference machine

I/O Intensive Test

This test will load some files and save them, reporting a time in seconds normalized to the reference machine.

CPU IntensiveTest

This test will load some models and do CPU intensive operations. The time to do so will be recorded in seconds normalized to the reference machine.

Results

The reporting of the times will be written to an HTML file that contains the results and the configuration information for your machine. NOTE THAT IF YOU DECIDE TO SAVE TO AN EXISTING FILE THAT THE RESULTS WILL BE APPENDED TO THE END OF THE EXISTING FILE. If you want a completely new file, then save to a different file name or delete the old file. The scores will be reported for the Graphics, the I/O, and the CPU performance with the complete time being the geometric mean of these aforementioned timings. Also, for the Graphics test a sub-list describing the timings of each individual test will be reported. In addition to these timings, the system information will be displayed. Here is a typical output run for a complete test run once (the system information is the normalizing machine that was used):

APC SolidWorks 98Plus Benchmark results
© Copyright 1998, Standard Performance Evaluation Corportation

Date: 01\21\1999
Time: 11:59
Submitted By : 
Geometric Mean Graphics CPU Intensive I/O Intensive
1.00 Graphics Mean 1.00 1.00 1.00
Bottom Case 1.00 
Assembly Line  1.00
AssemblyLine w/ Xparency 1.00
GRAPHICS HARDWARE CONFIGURATION  SYSTEM HARDWARE CONFIGURATION  SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION 
Graphics Accelerator Generic 
Permedia 2
Processor Type Pentium II 300 MHz OS Microsoft Windows 95 
Graphics Driver Version 2.12-0593  Number of CPUs OS Version Version 4.10 (Build 67766222: ) 
Total graphics memory 8 MB Floating Point Integral OpenGL Vendor 3D Labs
Color Depth 16 bits Primary Cache (KB) 32 OpenGL Version 1.1.25
Overlay/Underlay Buffer VM Secondary Cache (KB) 512 OpenGL Extensions GL_EXT_vertex_array GL_EXT_bgra GL_EXT_paletted_texture GL_EXT_texture_object GL_3DLabs_Driver_State GL_EXT_polygon_offset GL_WIN_swap_hint GL_EXT_shared_texture_palette GL_3Dlabs_Lock_Texture GL_KTX_buffer_region
DepthBuffer 16 bits Tertiary Cache (KB) 0 SolidWorks Version 1.00 
Accumulation Buffer VM Memory (MB) 127  SolidWorks DateCode 1999005
Auxiliary Buffer VM Disk Size (MB) 4.3 GB SolidWorks98 Plus Benchmark Version 1.0
Other Buffer 0 bits Disk Manuf/Model Western Digital/AC24300 Window Width 1024 
Display List Memory VM Disk RPM 5400 Window Height 768 
Texture Memory  VM Disk Interface EIDE (Ultra DMA)
Display Manufacturer / Model Viewsonic/ Disk Controller (opt)  Integral
Display Resolution 1024 X 768  Page Size (KB)  4096 
Display Size/Type 21" Comments 
Display Refresh Rate 75 Hz
Swap on Vertical Retrace Yes
List Price
Test Date 01\21\1999 
Availability
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