Stefan Dösinger wrote:
We shall discuss the requirements in more exact manner.
1. Define demo packages
I think for a start we don't need the ability for users to add new demo
packages. A fixed set of test packages which is modifyable by raw database
access would be enough. Otherwise we end up with everyone adding new apps,
then we are flooded with loads of junk data.
2. Define testing environment configurations
Yep, thats needed for sure.
The resulting infrastructure shall be human independent in following terms:
human will
prepare a test 'package' (one application)
prepare test units (individual tests)
I'm rather thinking about preparing a set of downloadable test packages. That
should be modularized though.
machine will
run the test units per package
interpret the results if possible
store the results and run logs (with screenshots)
The machine running the tests and the machine storing the results and
interpreting them are different in my planning. Also I think we don't want to
take screenshots when doing performance tests, since taking screenshots is an
expensive operation. Simmilar for verifying the rendering(which IMHO we
shouldn't) - that would have to be a secound pass.
I must admit that I never looked very detailed at cxtest, but I thought a bit
about a possible data model. We would roughly need the following tables:
Users: A username, and whatelse is needed for authentication. We don't want
anonymous access I think.
Configurations: Testing environemnt(hardware, operating system, etc). Has to
be creatable/modifyable by the user. One user should be able to use different
configurations(like 2 different computers running the tests). The configs
have to be editable without invalidating previous results, but whenever a
config is edited a test has to be run before and after the modification with
the same wine version. A possible reason for a config modification is a
driver update.
Tests: A set of test apps. Can be admin editable only, I'm also happy with
setting that up with raw database access. A test specifies the application
and the settings of the app, like 3Dmark2000 800x600, 16 bit color depth. The
test also has to know what sort of results are returned. Maybe we split this
table up into base apps(3dmark2000, half life 2, ...) and configs(different
resolutions, etc).
Concrete Test(or some different name): A configuration + a test + a test
configuration. It should store some reference result value uppon which we
decide wether the app should generate a regression warning. Also an optional
windows comparison value can be stored.
Test result: The result of a test run. An application can provide more than
one result, like the various tests performed by 3dmark or different hl2
timedemos. Test results are provieded by the users. Test results have to know
the wine version used to run the tests, the test and the configuration they
were run on(ie the concrete test).
Ideally users would download the test packages and run the tests daily, thus
providing a constant flow of information about our d3d performance, but we
should also be able to handle manual runs.
Thats just my thought about the requirements. If cxtest has something slightly
different I'm sure we can adjust the requirements a bit.
Hi Stefan,
CxTest has simpler data model than one described above. For a long time
CxTest is general framework for testing applications not games.
We (people around CxTest) think that extending CxTest is better approach
to achieve your goals rather than writing new application or modifying
existing. It could be done with smaller effort (in opposite of
AutoHotkey, AutoIt, ...) because CxTest is specialised for testing Wine
and CrossOver and it can deal with wine's specifics. One of big
advantages is that result's web page exists and it is collecting reports
from nightly tests.
For the start we can set up new evaluation page on the CxTest's page
http://www.cxtest.org/evaluation. System under test (SUT) will send
report which will be interpreted by server as game performance results.
For achieving this SUT will also send XML file with processing
instructions. For example: attachment result1.raw contains data for 2D
graphs and so on.
CxTest core needs some modifications because it is extensively using
screen shots to detect responsibility of tested application.
Implementation of new functions for test scripts is also possible.
Note, if you are experimenting with cxtest, I strongly recommend to you
to use cvs version of CxTest because cxtest.sh script is not often
updated. And I have checked 3DMark package from you. It is OK, but for
better reliability of tests use --window "window name" parameter for
send_keystroke. In cvs version fvwm is used instead of metacity and
--window parameter is essential to achieve best results. For ID's of
windows, buttons, ... you may use wpickclick/pickclick from utils directory.
--
Michal Okresa
