SSSpeed
                              =========

                Supervisor Software Benchmark program
                       for all Amiga computers

                            version  0.56




This software is still under development but the benchmark results are
believed to be  reliable and accurate.   Any comments  and suggestions
welcome.

SSSpeed is  designed to  measure the system  performance  under normal
conditions.  That is, it uses the  default task  priority and does not
disable any interrupts.   All other tasks and processes are allowed to
run as usually.

SSSpeed contains  several  benchmarks which are all allowed to run for
five seconds.   The results  are reported  separately so that the user
can see what parts of his/her system perform well and which do not.

All the results  are  proportional to that  of a plain A1000 (with one
disk  drive  and 512K of CHIP RAM).  So, 100% means that the test runs
exactly as fast as on a plain A1000.

Some  accelerator  boards  without fast 32-bit RAM may even run slower
than a plain  68000-based  Amiga  unde r certain  conditions.   That's
partly  because  the 68020 and 68030 processors  fetch a long word (32
bits) from the memory even when  the program only requests for a byte.
One  32-bit  access means two  separate 16-bit  accesses on the 16-bit
Amiga data bus.

Additional  FAST RAM  improves  the benchmark  results, even if it was
a 16-bit RAM  board.  Using  heavy display DMA will slow down the CHIP
memory  tests  (and  the  whole  machine  if  there  is  no  FAST  RAM
available).   All hard disk partitions, external disk drives and other
devices  may slow the  machine a bit because their processes need some
CPU time even when there is no hard disk activity.

-----

Usage:

This version of SSSpeed  contains three different benchmarks which can
all be run separately.   The benchmarks are enabled individually using
options Benchmarks, IOaccess, and Memory.   The first executes several
different benchmarks and outputs the results relative to a plain Amiga
A1000.   The second  options  tests the access speed of CIA and Custom
chip registers and ExecBase  (memory location $4.L).   The results are
given in  nanoseconds (1E-9 seconds).   The last  option runs a memory
access test and outputs the access times in nanoseconds.

The access time tests are not very accurate in this version of SSSpeed
because the operating  speed of  different CPUs varies.   However, the
results are somewhat interesting when different Amiga models are being
compared.  For example, A3000 seems to have faster access to CIA chips
than the older Amigas (1317 ns on A3000/25 vs. 2727 ns on B2000/25).

The access time test tries to determine the minimum and maximum values
of the access times.   This is  because CHIP RAM  access times seem to
vary depending  on the other loading of the CHIP bus and synchronizing
of CPU/CHIP buses.   If the minimum and maximum times differ more than
10 percent,  they will both be printed.   Otherwise the average access
time is given.

All results will vary  depending on the loading on your machine.  Each
disk drive,  hard disk  partition etc.  has a process of its own which
takes up some CPU time even when the drive is not in use.   Moving the
mouse,  pressing any keys,  swapping disks etc. also consumes some CPU
time.   Leave the machine  alone while running SSSpeed to get the most
accurate results.

To see more information about the actual benchmarks performed use

SSSpeed ?<return>

 or

SSSpeed !<return>


##############################################################################

Finally,  some  benchmark  results from an A3000 with 8MB of FAST Page
Mode RAM and several hard disk partitions installed:

------

Fast1:Asm/Sources/SSSpeed 9> ssspeed b m io

NOTE: The following data is somewhat unreliable.

Memory access times (in nanoseconds):
               byte           word        long word    odd long word
CHIP         741-938        743-937        744-937          1409
FAST            79             79             80            120
ROM             79             79             80            119

NOTE: The following data is somewhat unreliable.

I/O hardware access speed (in nanoseconds):
               byte           word        long word
CIA            1317          -----          -----
Custom        -----         716-932         -----
ExecBase      -----          -----         629-938
CPU/FPU performance results:

        Integer        String    Float(FFP)   Float(ieee)    Trig(ieee)
CPU        955%          684%          490%         1331%        15102%
FPU       -----         -----         -----         2998%        24242%

Program execution speed:                  Memory copy speed:

       CHIP RAM      FAST RAM                    CHIP RAM      FAST RAM
CPU        204%          408%                        399%          741%

Test completed.


##############################################################################

GVP B2000-Combo 68040@33MHz, 16MB FAST RAM, FASTROM, DATA CACHE, NO BURST


CPU/FPU performance results:

        Integer        String    Float(FFP)   Float(ieee)    Trig(ieee)
CPU       2516%         2774%         1710%         8553%        17844%  
FPU       -----         -----         -----        24041%        18909%  

Program execution speed:                  Memory copy speed:

       CHIP RAM      FAST RAM                    CHIP RAM      FAST RAM
CPU        134%         1894%                        144%         1738%  

Test completed.

##############################################################################

------

NOTES:
~~~~~~
Memory  access  times are  affected by caches.   To see the actual RAM
speeds disable data cache using Dave Haynie's SetCpu or a similar prg.

Performance  values may be slightly different from those measured with
SSSpeed 0.25  because the benchmark timing has been changed to use the
timer.device.  The results should be more precise now.

------

Future:

I'm going  to build a small database in SSSpeed.   It will contain the
performance  results of  the most popular  accelerator  boards and all
basic  Amiga  configurations.   It will be  possible  to  see  all the
results  compared to any known  system by using a command line option.
For now, all results are proportional to that of an A1000.

New benchmarks will probably be added.




Please send any comments, bug reports and benchmark results to

    jmarin@messi.uku.fi

         or

    Jukka Marin
    Metsurintie 17 B 8
    70150 Kuopio
    FINLAND





Revision history

0.52	- no longer allocates hardware timer unless it is really needed
0.53t	- execution tests now run a 8KB loop to give correct results on
	  68040 machines using 4KB caches
0.54	- uses CacheClearU() to flush CPU caches after copying code.
	  Should now be fully '040 compatible.
0.56	- Now runs the FPUieee test on 68040 FPU and the FPUtrig test if
	  68040.library is present.

 PERMSSN    UID  GID    PACKED    SIZE  RATIO     CRC       STAMP          NAME
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
[generic]                 4342    7340  59.2% -lh5- 4d76 Aug 31  1992 ssspeed
[generic]                 2815    6991  40.3% -lh5- 6920 Aug 31  1992 ssspeed.doc
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
 Total         2 files    7157   14331  49.9%            Aug 31  1992