Workload Characterization of 3D Games

—The rapid pace of change in 3D game technology makes workload characterization necessary for every game generation. Comparing to CPU characterization, far less quantitative information about games is available. This paper focuses on analyzing a set of modern 3D games at the API call level and at the microarchitectural level using the Attila simulator. In addition to common geometry metrics and, in order to understand tradeoffs in modern GPUs, the microarchitectural level metrics allow us to analyze performance key characteristics such as the balance between texture and ALU instructions in fragment programs, dynamic anisotropic ratios, vertex, z-stencil, color and texture cache performance.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: IISWC
• Authors: Jordi Roca, Victor Moya Del Barrio, Carlos González, Chema Solis, Agustin Fernández, Roger Espasa
• Keywords: IISWC 2006, Microarchitectural Level, Microarchitectural Level Metrics, Modern 3D Games, Operating Systems