Windows Vista: WinSat and Windows Experience Index

[poldopunk]

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I have made an earlier post regarding Windows Experience Index which is a very helpful tool in determining what aspects of your computer you need to improve. The results of the tool are posted in numbers ranging from 1 - 5.9 where 5.9 is the highest. Simple, yet easily understood.

For those of us who wants to know how windows came with these calculations, this is where the 'winsat' command comes in. Windows Experience Index is actually a result from WinSat (Windows System Assessment Tool) giving users the simplicity they need. Now, how to check out the technical details when Windows rates the computer?

Open a command prompt with elevated permission (run as administrator) or type 'cmd' then Ctrl + Shift + Enter to grant elevated permission to cmd. You can then type in 'winsat /?' to access the parameters which looks like this:



As you can see, there are 9 parameters available, but only 7 are component-specific; cpu, mem, dwm, d3d, media, mfmedia, disk. The formal parameter is the overall test (runs all 7 tests) while the features, shows you your hardware. When you click 'Rate Your Computer', you are actually running "winsat formal".

The additional parameters indicated below are like 'show-all-details' test. Adding a -v to any winsat test performed will give you details of the test while adding a '-xml <filename>' will save the test as an xml file.

Let's get into details, shall we? For starters, we'll work with 'winsat cpu', this command would require 2 additional parameters of how you want to run the cpu assessment; -compression, -encryption. I will not go into details for these parameters as their name speaks for themselves. This is how its gonna look like:



On the compression test, you'll see that my E4500 can compress a data of 110.83 MB/s while on the encryption test, it can process 56.93 MB/s. As for how windows sets the benchmarks with number 1 - 5.9, I do not have that information .

The next test is the memory assessment, this one has special parameters but to keep it simple, we'll leave the parameters alone and get to the results.



My system has 3GB of DDR2-667 RAM and is running in single-channel mode. Take note that you will see quite a difference if the RAMs are running in dual-channel mode. I tried this on a Dell Inspiron 6000 with 2GB DDR2-667 and it resulted with a 3000+ MB/s result.

Next, we have 'winsat dwm', again this has parameters of its own but for the sake of simplicity, let's not discuss it here. Desktop Window Manager, in my opinion, is Windows Aero and this one is measured similar to most games -- frames per second (fps) which looks like this (higher is better) and MB transfers per second in as far as your video memory is concerned.

This test was made on an 8600GT 512MB DDR3. Take note, running the DWM would restart your windows aero (flickr, unresponsive desktop) but once the test is done, windows aero will restart on its own.



The 'winsat d3d' is the ultimate test for your graphics card on how it would handle 3d games. D3d has numerous parameters which even allows you to generate objects and manipulate them as discussed on this article.



This is by far the only test I've encountered that doesn't provide information as easily as the other assessments. You would have to add additional parameters and generate object then add a verbose (-v) command to see frame rates and data transfers in MB. For the complete list of parameters for d3d, go here.

Next, we have 'winsat media'. This analyzes performance during video playback and encoding. You need to specify an input file to encode through the parameters. Again, go to the link above to review all available parameters. 'mfmedia' is pretty much the same as above but uses Media Foundation while the test above uses DirectShow.

Last but not least is the 'winsat disk' which measure performance of your storage device. The following parameters are required: -seq (sequential seek), -ran (random seek), -read, -write, -drive <drive letter here>. The result would give you an average(?) on all test, IMO.



So, there you have it, the tests performed by winsat during 'Rate your Computer'. To run a complete test, do a 'winsat formal', this would also update your Windows Experience Index.

Resources:

x64bit.net > WinSAT Command List
Winsat

[luwid]

thanks.. very helpful

[poldopunk]

A very nice 'WINSAT D3D' example:

winsat d3d -totalobj 20 -objs C(20) -totaltex 10 -texpobj C(1) -alushader -noalpha -fullscreen -v -time 10

[obor]

Wow, such details. Somewhere along the way I got lost by too much technical tems. XD Thanks.

[poldopunk]

unsa diay nga generation sa windows imong naabtan bro? nagstart man gud ko sa 3.1 mao na familiar ko gamay sa cmd.