CompuServe Messages

continued from last reply………. And now ladies and gentleman for my never ending CDK display pitch. I really think I should get a check (or at least a credit on my account) from Autodesk for as many time as I go through this. I have asked previously, and I do so again here for Autodesk to PLEASE put the display issue discussions into a paper or document of some sort to explain these things to those not involved in this technology yet. It should be posted in the CDK library. CDK is rendering independent. This means that it can use whatever display you want, even if it is not provided by Autodesk. Whoever writes a CDK app has the choice to use fast cards, fast renderers, slow cards, slow renderers, whatever they want. We at MicronGreen have chosen to use every possible solution available that we can implement. So far we have in DOS, the default VESA VGA display from CDK Rel 1, our own new SP3D VGA display, SPEA fireboard support ($1795), FVT Sapphire ($3500) support and the Division card set ($10,000) support. New cards are coming like the Sapphire 2SX (around $1000, Glint based) that will also already work with our software. In Windows we currently support the two shipping with CDK Rel 2 (WinG and Rendermorphics). The fastest software renderer we have seen that does everything we need it to do is Rendermorphics. I also happen to like SP3D from SPEA but it is a bit slower. RenderWare is very popular for games and seems faster, but it does not allow all the capability we need in NAVIGATOR such as copying objects, scaling objects etc. If you include these features by writing them yourself, the rendering library's functionality and speed becomes negated. At least that is my understanding. The fastest hardware card to date that we have worked with is the Future Vision Technologies Sapphire. There may be faster ones these days, but I have not yet used any yet. We get rates up around 18 to 25 fps on models that fly 1 to 3 fps on ISA VGA cards. I guess to get back to your suggestion….. NAVFlyer will work in true color with the Rendermorphics display, which we cannot distribute freely. So the free version can only be in 256 colors. We are in the middle of getting the contracts worked out with Rendermorphics for distributing their version, but they've been a bit busy lately while just being bought out by Microsoft. Hopefully, it will still come soon. The new DOS version of NAVFlyer and NAVIGATOR has 16 bit color available using the old VESA driver, but it is not a fast solution, very pretty though, while flying around in wireframe and pausing to render, for example. Of course the higher end displays look great and fly fast both, but they cost $$ although everyone has their new stuff coming out and prices are dropping. The new SPEA card with the GLINT chip is premiering this week at CeBit in Germany so it should get here soon………. The future looks fast……….hopefully the little guys like us will still be in the running since we are concentrating on the modeling techniques, user interface issues and environment definitions instead of rendering speed. David, I hope this answers some of your questions. We know it needs to be faster, but we are not going to get rid of functionality, colors or textures to get the speed they have in VIEW_I. Gus Grubba has given that to you already. VIEW_I serves a great purpose, but it does not create a Virtual Environment. I hope that you can see the difference and will continue to persue the Virtual Environment idea with us. I know the 3D Studio modeling community can build better flyable worlds than I can…if we can just get them to try. Look at it this way. If we build smaller worlds now, just think of how we can fill them up and fly faster later, when the speed picks up! Is there nothing that can be gained NOW from working together in a small world, for example in the StudioCity project, for flying interactively? Or am I still just dreamin………. Angela