Talk:Glxgears is not a Benchmark

this leads to the obvious questions:

• what is a benchmark? please could someone provide a link..
• where can I get a list of benchmarks using something better than glxgears?

Rather depends on how you define benchmark..

Glxgears -is- a benchmark if you are comparing the same hardware before and after a change. People have been parroting the 'is not a benchmark' line irrespective of -what- is being measured for so long now that it is getting tedious. It is only 'not a benchmark' if you are comparing different hardware, or posting 'l33t' framerates on a forum. Glxgears is an excellent benchmark if you are doing a before and after test of your system when updating something like display drivers or Xorg, or if trying a config change that is supposed to improve 3d performance. Supposing you got 500fps before a change, and still get 500fps after. Then it is a sure sign that whatever you have done does not improve performance on your hardware (of course it may have additional benefits, stability etc..) If, however, you get 500fps before you upgrade the display drivers, and then get 700fps afterwards, then you have successfully used glxgears to benchmark your system and demonstrate a 40% speed improvement merely by upgrading some software. Of course that may not translate to a real-world improvement of 40%, but do you think it shows that nothing has changed?

How about saying 'Glxgears is not a benchmark for comparing dissimilar systems'

I found just what I was neeedd, and it was entertaining!