CompuServe Messages

Wow Greg, quite a few questions. Here's a stab at them: 1.) R5 under NT should really cook. Considering what the Yost Group has managed to do with Pharlap and Dos, their NT code should really fly. As to performance specs Pentium vs R4400. I think the SGI machines ala Onyx level may be a tad faster due in large part to the design of the machine itself. Redraw speed on the PC will most likely still be inferior to a SGI machine due to the fact that SGI designs their machines from the ground up with Graphic performance as an end goal. 2.) IPAS routines for the most part don't yet exist for the SGI machine and quite frankly with most Adesk developers gearing up for the NT port of their stuff, SGI IPAS code may be a long way off. 3.) You mentioned the time frame it would take a 3DS user to convert to SGI usage. The first thing they have to learn is IRIX so that they can move around. This in itself is an uphill battle if you don't know UNIX. Luckily, I had a fairly vast background in UNIX and IRIX was a breeze, but I know of a couple of 3DS users who have made the move to SGI and after a year of struggle, they still get lost trying to move around IRIX. They tend to call to call up needing help every month or so. As to becoming proficient on an SGI based SW package like 3DS, In general you'll be faced with the same learning curve and time period that any other package would take. Obviously if you're well adapted to working in a 3D animation environment, then alot will be similar in function, but a change in interface will take the average user a month in itself to get fully adjusted, and after watching a number of 3DS'ers move to SGI based packages, I would say 6 months is a more reasonable period of time to gain a decent level of proficiency. Hopefully this helps. Paul