Quake II

quake 2 follows in it's predecessor's footsteps by being incredibly easy to benchmark in, for much the same reasons. syntax has changed a bit and is a bit more complicated imo, but otherwise it works p much the same. the demos i'm using here are demo1 (included with the game and a good baseline), massive1 (a long multiplayer demo that has a tendency to crash the software renderer), and crusher (a full multiplayer lobby in a tiny arena, lots of action and effects). tests are run at maximum quality, at 1024x768, except for systems that can't output that resolution on their integrated displays, in which case 800x600 was used.

the software renderer is obviously nowhere near as fast as the hardware option, but it does display some interesting comparisons. for example, i wouldn't have expected carrotjuice to pull ahead by such a margin, and the repeated crashes on massive1 on machines that far surpass the computers this game was designed for makes me wonder about what's going on in the depths of this game.