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The StrangeMaze 3D v1.1 benchmark

In the PC world the buying customer is given important information about the PC: the microprocessor (e.g. Intel Pentium 4), the speed of the microprocessor (e.g. 2GHz), as well as a whole range of other specifications. These specifications help the customer make an informed choice, they give the customer an idea of the relative performance of one PC compared to another, and more importantly they give the customer an idea of how fast software applications will run on a particular PC.

Unfortunately this is not the case if you are buying a Java mobile phone. The customer generally does not know what processor is running inside the phone, what speed the processor is running at, how fast is the Java implementation and therefore the customer cannot get an idea of how fast Java games will run on a particular phone.

For this reason we have introduced the StrangeMaze benchmark, an indication of the speed in which each Java phone can run the StrangeMaze game. When PCs are reviewed they are sometimes tested with benchmark programs such as the Quake benchmark to give an idea of how Quake, a real 3D game, will perform on a particular PC. Likewise for Java phones the StrangeMaze benchmark will give an indication of how fast StrangeMaze, a real 3D Java game, will perform on the Java phone. The StrangeMaze benchmark is a good indicator for realtime 3D games in general since the benchmark tests many features that 3D games have in common, including maths calculations, opponent AI (artificial intelligence) algorithms, collision detection, texturing, offscreen and onscreen drawing, input, etc. all within the standard MIDP 1.0 Java implementation. The StrangeMaze benchmark does not give an indication of how 2D games will perform on different phones since these usually require less intensive maths processing and a different technique for screen rendering.

The benchmark speed measurement is called the framerate - i.e. the rate at which the frames or still images in a game's animation are calculated and drawn to give the appearance of movement - and this is measured in frames per second (FPS). As such, a higher speed doesn't mean that the game plays faster and is more difficult to play, but it does mean that the game delivers smoother flicker free animation and more responsive gameplay.

When a user launches the StrangeMaze game, a benchmark test is run in the opening animated splash screen. The results of the benchmark can be found at the bottom of the About menu's screen. The benchmark test is always run on the lowest graphics quality setting for standard comparison purposes. With fast phones, when the user plays the real game the framerate is slower because a higher graphics quality is used by default. On some of the fastest phones, the user will not perceive the high frame rate because the screen refresh rate may be lower then the framerate the game is running at. The benchmark also displays the game's screen size (which should also be considered when comparing benchmark results for different phones). If you want to check the benchmark on your phone it is worth running the benchmark a few times by exiting and relaunching StrangeMaze in order to get an average reading.

With version 1.1 and higher of StrangeMaze 3D, we have listened to user feedback and the benchmark has been improved. The new benchmark no longer attempts to run the framerate as fast as possible to off-screen graphics buffers, but runs the same as if the user is playing the game, displaying the screen updates and using the same threading. The new benchmark also runs for more frames to give a better average result, and slow results are no longer rounded to the nearest whole numbers. StrangeMaze 3D v1.1 has also been optimised further to improve the speed on slow colour Java phones. The overall result is that the new benchmark is more accurate and more indicative of the game's playing speed, the results for the slower phones have improved, and the results for the faster phones have been reduced to a more realistic level associated with the speed the user actually experiences.

Here are the results of the benchmark tests so far:

    Phone         Game display size*     FPS

    Sony-Ericsson Z500a (65536 colour)     128x128     100

    Sony-Ericsson K300i (65536 colour)     128x110     100

    Sony-Ericsson K700i (65536 colour)     176x176     83

    Blackberry 8700g (65536 colour)     320x240     59

    Nokia 6230 (65536 colour)     128x96     56

    Sony-Ericsson S700i (65536 colour)     240x266     54

    Motorola MPX220 (65536 colour)     176x208     46

    Nokia 3650 (4096 colour)     176x144     43

    Nokia 7650 (4096 colour)     176x144     43

    Sony-Ericsson P800 (4096 colour)     208x172     40

    Nokia N-Gage (4096 colour)     176x144     27

    Sony-Ericsson P900 (65536 colour)     208x173     23

    Sony-Ericsson P800 (4096 colour) (firmware 4.4.2004)     208x172     20

    Nokia 6600 (65536 colour)     176x144     18

    Nokia 3510i (4096 colour)     96x54     18

    Sharp GX25 (65536 colour)     120x130**     16

    Sharp GX20 (65536 colour)     120x130**     16

    Sagem MyV-55 (65536 colour)     128x128     16

    Nokia 8910i (4096 colour)     96x54     15

    Motorola V220 (65536 colour)     128x96     14

    Nokia 6310i (mono)     96x54     14

    Motorola V600 (65536 colour)     176x182     13

    Nokia 7250/7250i (4096 colour)     128x96     13

    Nokia 7210 (4096 colour)     128x96     13

    Nokia 6610 (4096 colour)     128x96     13

    Nokia 6100 (4096 colour)     128x96     13

    Nokia 5100 (4096 colour)     128x96     13

    Nokia 3300 (4096 colour)     128x96     13

    Nokia 3410 (mono)     96x55     13

    Sharp GX10i (65536 colour)     120x130     9.4

    Sharp GX10 (65536 colour)     120x130     9.0

    Motorola iDEN i95cl (4096 colour)     120x160     9.0

    Samsung C100 (65536 colour)     128x112     8.5

    Sony-Ericsson T610 (65536 colour) (firmware R3C002)***     128x127     7.2

    Nokia 9500 (65536 colour)     523x168****     7.1

    Motorola T720/T720i (4096 colour)     120x146     7.1

    Motorola iDEN i88s (greyscale)     111x100     7.0

    Sony-Ericsson Z600 (65536 colour)     128x127     6.4

    Sanyo 8100 (65536 colour)     120x112     6.0

    Sony-Ericsson T610 (65536 colour) (firmware R3B003)***     128x127     5.5

    Siemens S55 (256 colour)     101x80     4.7

    Siemens M55 (4096 colour)     101x80     4.0

    Siemens MC60 (4096 colour)     101x80     3.9

    Sanyo 6400 (greyscale)     120x96     3.8

    Samsung E705 (65536 colour)     128x143     3.5

    Samsung E105 (65536 colour)     128x143     3.5

    Samsung A500 (4096 colour)     128x131     3.0

    Samsung S100 (65536 colour)     128x144     3.0

    Sony-Ericsson T610 (65536 colour) (firmware R1A081)***     128x127     2.2

    GTran GCP 4000 (65536 colour)     128x144     2.0

    Siemens C55 (mono)     101x64     2.0

    Siemens M50/MT50 (mono)     101x64     1.9

    Siemens SL45i (mono)     101x80     1.6

* The "Game display size" is the size at which the game is displayed on the phone, not necessarily the phone's full screen display size. The game is designed to run at full-screen size, but on some phones this is dependent upon how Java is implemented and what portion of the screen is allocated for MIDP 1.0 Java applications to run in.

** Although on the Sharp GX20 the game plays internally at 120x130 resolution, the Sharp GX20 expands the game display on the screen to 240x320.

*** The Sony Ericsson T610 performs very differently depending on what version of firmware the phone has running. The third release of firmware from Sony-Ericsson introduced Java optimisations, and this is evident with the increase in FPS from 2.2 to 7.2. To find out which firmware is running on your T610 phone, enter the following: > * < < * < * (where > and < are joystick right and left), a Service Info menu will appear, select SW Information, at the top you should get a code like R1A081, or R3C002, etc where the first 2 characters denote the major version of the firmware. You can get your firmware upgraded by contacting your local Sony-Ericsson Service Centre, for instance the number to contact in the UK is 08705 237237, and you will be directed to a locally appointed company that can perform the flash upgrade.

**** This benchmark is mainly based on a 3D engine which has to calculate what needs rendering to each part of the screen, and the larger the screen the more processing is required. The raycasting engine is particlarly sensitive to wide displays since it works on a vertical column by column basis as it casts rays out, so with the Nokia 9500's 523 pixel wide screen that is nearly 3 times more raycasting than with a Nokia 6600's 176 pixel wide screen. If the 9500's screen was 3 times smaller in width the FPS would be 3 times faster, 3 multiplied by FPS 7.1 is around 21 FPS which is in the same region as the Nokia 6600's 18 FPS.

If you have a Java phone that is not on this list, or if you have different results, then please send your benchmark information to post@abstractworlds.com. Remember, you don't have to buy the full version of the StrangeMaze game in order to run the benchmark, just download the free 2 level trial version of StrangeMaze from our WAP site www.awjg.com.

It is important to reiterate that the StrangeMaze 3D benchmark test is a pure Java MIDP 1.0 test. The Nokia, Motorola, Siemens and Generic versions of StrangeMaze only use standard MIDP 1.0 and no vendor specific extensions. The benchmark does not measure speeds faster than 100 FPS.

Thu 09 Sep 2010