#Graphics boards
25 messages in this thread
From reading in this section I've picked up that the Matrox Impression+ is a
good board to use with TS. Forgiving please what is maybe an obvious question,
could someone tell me what this board does for TS that others do not; and
whether it helps with animation or with rendering (or both)?
Or is there a FAQ somewhere that helps?
thanks for any help
David
From reading in this section I've picked up that the Matrox Impression+ is a
good .board to use with TS. Forgiving please what is maybe an obvious question,
could >someone tell me what this board does for TS that others do not; and
whether it >helps with animation or with rendering (or both)?
>Or is there a FAQ somewhere that helps?
>thanks for any help
>David
The Matrox board has a 3D graphics accelerator. It will manipulate 150,000
polygons in real time. It also supports real time grouad shading.
With this board modeling and animating are made easier by working with objects
in shaded mode instead of wireframe with real time redraws. This way you don't
have to wait for your video card to catch up to you and your ideas.
This board will NOT make raytracing or phong rendering any faster. It does not
support real time texture mapping. But the next accelerated boards to come to
market will.
I have it, I like it. (Matrox board)
If you have Win NT, upgrade to versions 3.51, it's drivers are more stable.
If you have Win 3.x, the drivers that come with it are great and so are the
utilities.
Also if you have NT, check out the OpenGL pipes screen saver with the Matrox
board, it jams!
Well, I hope this helps
Alan
Many thanks for the info
David
What in the heck is the "Pipes Screen Saver"?
Steve
Hi,
I just heard that there is a newer board with some texturing real time
redering. It also has faster 3d performance. It will be out this summer. If I
were you , I will wait for it.
Ken
Hi,
I just heard that there is a newer board with some texturing real time
redering. It also has faster 3d performance. It will be out this summer. If I
were you , I will wait for it.
But will the software support the texture mapping? I already have a Matrox
Impression plus. It makes the pipes screen saven in NT jam, but until truespace
2.0 come out it won't do me much good. Also TS 2.0 only renders real time on
solid modeling and not texture. So I don't see how the new board will help.
But you are right about new boards. With new chips like GLint and REAL3D coming
out real time rendering with texture maps will be here soon. It will make
things difficult for those who try to justify the price of an SGI. (althought
SGI will always have some new gimick upp their sleve)
Alan
>>But you are right about new boards. With new chips like GLint and REAL3D
coming out real time rendering with texture maps will be here soon. It will
make things difficult for those who try to justify the price of an SGI.
(althought SGI will always have some new gimick upp their sleve<<
SGI is a different world Alan.
I had a long talk with the Evens & Sutherland rep recently, their Freedom board
will do around 300k polygons per sec, and you can add up to a 16 meg simm for
texture mapping.
A SGI reality2engine is rated at around 2 million polygons and 358 million
textured and shaded pixells per second mind you the prices are not quite the
same, still this year I am going to get a _REALLY_ big Xmass tree just in case
Santa decides to call.
Ken
SGI is a different world Alan.
I had a long talk with the Evens & Sutherland rep recently, their Freedom board
will do around 300k polygons per sec, and you can add up to a 16 meg simm for
texture mapping.
A SGI reality2engine is rated at around 2 million polygons and 358 million
textured and shaded pixells per second mind you the prices are not quite the
same, still this year I am going to get a _REALLY_ big Xmass tree just in case
Santa decides to call.
Ken
I realize SGI has alsome4 hardware and can do tremendios things in real time.
BUT, their are many companies who bought SGI's because they were the hottest
thing on the market. But do you really need a base $40,000 machine with
software starting at $7,000 to $50,000 to make games? NO! Especially if you are
not doing real time games or simulations. As far as film or video goes there is
excelent toaster work out there.
Also as far as real time goes, you should get a look at Martin Marrieta. Their
real 3D chip will truely close the gap. I admit not shut the door, but close
the gap.
Also remember this SGI may be the big bad machine out there, but the bottom
line is price and production cost. And when it comes to non-real time work an
SGI does not make sense. And low-end real time work will also not be cost
effective on an SGI IMHO
Alan
I do not disagree with your analaysis Alan, there is indeed a lot of really
cool work done on other platforms, but to pretend that the first generation of
real time 3d acellerators will make the PC comparable with an SGI box is I feel
a bit premature.
However I am _really_ looking forward to tS 2 which will run in solid, shaded
mode with my Impression + and I expect that I will upgrade the card to
something more powerful, probally at the end of the year, when we have seen a
couple of real shipping products and can work out what is the best…..
Ken
>I do not disagree with your analaysis Alan, there is indeed a lot of really
cool >work done on other platforms, but to pretend that the first generation of
real time >3d acellerators will make the PC comparable with an SGI box is I
feel a bit >premature.
I will use a case study to show my point. My former employment was with a phone
company who wants to be in the interactive content market. Right now they
aretrying to make a MYST style game. So the play does not need real time
acceleration. They bought 4 Indigo 2's, Alias Power Animator, and hired a Unix
guy just to help them get arround. At the time the investment made sense,
because they want to develop quickly to get to market. But after being at least
$180,000 in the hole, they better hope for a few good games to recoup thier
investment. So far thats not happening (no fault of the SGI's. Dumb iedas and
bad at making deadlines) But does it not make sense that for the same price a
company could buy three times as a many pentiums. Model scenes in realtime. And
while they are rendering, you could work on another machine. All for less than
$180,000.
Now what about real time games. According to Lockhead Martin games like Virtura
Fighter, Racer, Cop, are rendered at 300,000 polyons real time. L-M calims
their Real 3D chip can do 700,000 textured poygons real time. Almost half of
what you quoted me about an SGI. If thats what a pc can do, then why should it
not be able to invade territory formilly dominated by the SGI boxes. Yea, SGI
will always out preform, but you alway have to justify your cost and SGI's may
not always be cost effective with this kind of competition.
In one sense, who ever thought 10 years ago IBM would lose market share
( maybe a bad senario but makes my point).
I just think that not everyone can justify the fastest machine out. Sometimes
good enough will pay even better. Thats the case I am making about approching
SGI territory.
Thank you for your comments, it been a good discussion so far.
Alan
>> According to Lockhead Martin games like Virtura Fighter, Racer, Cop, are
rendered at 300,000 polyons real time. L-M calims their Real 3D chip can do
700,000 textured poygons real time.<<
700k textured polys in real time, that is amazing. The fasted I have heard
about so far was the Evans and Sutherland Freedom Series, which they claimed
will do 300k shaded polys, but if you wanted texture as well then you had to
drop in a 16 meg simm and the poly count went down to 260k. Which at $3000 for
the board + $500 for the simm, I figured that the MGA Impression + w 4 meg at
$500 for 100k of shaded polys was a better buy, plus the E&S rep here in France
had not actually seen a board as of 6 weeks ago, let alone have one to sell.
I was expecting the second generation boards to get up to the 500-750k mark,
competition in the PC world being as fierce as it is. Any idea what sort of
price L-M are talking about? Is it actually shipping yet?
As for you comments on purchasing, I am afraid that my experience is that
companies either spend too much, and buy a lot of wizz bangs because that is
what the salesman says they should have, or the cheapest available and wonder
why everything takes so long. I have a friend who is trying to edit 40-50 meg
AI files on a 486/66 w 16 meg. and everytime he complaines they say that it is
the most powerful computer they have ever bought………….
TTYL…….Ken
>I was expecting the second generation boards to get up to the 500-750k mark,
>competition in the PC world being as fierce as it is. Any idea what sort of
price >L-M are talking about? Is it actually shipping yet?
The price will be "competitive" A video board will most likly be under $300.
It is not shipping yet. But they are making big deals now. Also getting lots of
press on CNN, NextStep, etc.
>As for you comments on purchasing, I am afraid that my experience is that
>companies either spend too much, and buy a lot of wizz bangs because that is
>what the salesman says they should have, or the cheapest available and wonder
>why everything takes so long. I have a friend who is trying to edit 40-50 meg
>AI files on a 486/66 w 16 meg. and everytime he complaines they say that it is
>the most powerful computer they have ever bought………….
>TTYL…….Ken
Ha Ha Haaaaa, LOL. I know the feeling. It seems as if few know how to get a mix
of high tec, and good enough. At the same time, those who can afford expensive
machines with a moderate setup, rarely spend instead on a highly soupped up PC.
Based on $46,000 entry level price SGI Indigo 2 I can buy 2 duel pentium/100
PCs with and E&S Freedom G-card, with 1/2 Gig ram per machine each with 20"
monitors. This may not be the best setup for simulations using OpenGL, But its
more than enought to model and render using 3DR. Plus for non-real time, while
one machine is rendering, a person can still model on the other machine. A
single SGI is fast, but you still need to plan your day arround rendering in
raytracying.
Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
Thanks for your comments.
Alan
Can you please get me a contact at L-M? Thanks..
>Can you please get me a contact at L-M? Thanks..
Here is the number for Lockheed-Martin (or Martin Marietta)
Real 3D chip 1(800) 393-7730
Alan…
I'm one of those lucky guys to have access to a SGI. We have an Indigo 2 with
Extreme Graphics, a 150 MHz CPU and we're running Alias Studio v.6.0. In my
experience, I'm pretty sure we can continue to work on other stuff while the
SGI is rendering (raycasting or raytracing). As far as comparison goes
(Pentiums vs SGIs) I don't think they (PCs) are there yet. SGI is now selling a
base Indy for around $5495 (list) with a 100 MHz CPU. You can bump that to 150
or maybe 200 these days.
Put it this way, if you're going to invest over 20K in a business machine for
the video game business, the route seems to be SGI. Our video game development
division in the UK uses a combination of 60 Indigos and 3 or 4 ONYX's to
develop our games, and it still takes quite some time to develop a complete
Nintendo cartridge. They also use PCs with emulators to actually punch code…
but definitely not for graphics. I don't do game programming so I can't really
answer those questions, but I do model a lot and also do some animations of
those models (mostly toy mechanics).
My advice to anyone considering spending 20K or more on a system is to have an
SGI/Alias (or Wavefront/SoftImage) rep visit your facility, set up a hands-on
demo. Usually, an applications engineer will be there to demo any facet of the
hardware and software, and you'll be amazed. We went this route and after
seeing a AD "expert" try to create an animated, raytraced sample toy project
(he gave up after an hour), we knew that the SGI was the way to fly. BTW, the
Alias AE had the same exact toy done and animated in just about an hour and a
half… fully raytraced. Of course at about three or four times of a couple of
dual P90's, we have to keep the blue box busy to justify it's purchase. So
far, so good.
All this said and done, I am really keen on trying to use tS 2.0 at home and
maybe importing some work into the SGI. There are two of us using the SGI now,
and both of us would like to have one at home <BG> but we know that's
impossible! tS looks like a possible alternative if we can get proficient with
it. If you can get to SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles later this Summer, I would
heartily suggest that you spend a couple of days there and make sure you sit
with a good software rep and try _ALL_ the SGI software options. Again, no
knock on tS, as I bought it on the spot last SIGGRAPH because I was amazed.
Unfortunately, it's tough learning two systems, and I confess that most of our
attention has gone to the Alias/SGI combo :(!
\\\.
========================= >-==<MIKE(>=– >-==*-
/
the price
Thank you for your replies Mike
I will take an issue with cost estimates.
Here is a quote from 3D Artist magazine.
"The entry level machine is the Indy2 100MHZ 8-bit color workstation at $6,995.
This is really a stripped down machine requiring additional purchases of
accessories to make it operational. An Indy outfitted to run with drives,
adequate RAM, necessary graphics card is arround 13,000 without software. A
fully loaded 150MHZ 24-bit color Indy2 can cost $21,000. The drawback of this
machine is that there is little or no room for expansion insideits tightly
packed case."
So the cost of an Indy has hidden supprises. That is why companies like Blue
Sky (former division of SEGA) also use Amigas, PC's and other computers like a
Raptor. (same processor as an SGI lower cost).
Also Brouderbund uses Autodesk 3D studio. LucasArts uses 3DS also because of
"target market" which is the PC plattform.
I still don't question SGI's always being faster. I just question there cost
effectiveness for many applications. Realtime SGi's are still king. And in
movie they are still king. But TV production is for Sci Fi programs are rulled
by Amigas and rapidly gaining ground are PC's.
Also The company you describe sounds like they already have big resources.
It may be cost effective for them. But it seems to me, That SGI is realistic
about the competion. Which is why they are forming Keystone and consolidated
with Alias and Wavefront.
But summing up my origional point. If what you are doing is not real time, and
modeling with a v-card accelerating 300,000 – 700,000 polygons doesn't make
much difference with the SGI doing 2 Million Polygons, because both modelers
will be fast. Yea, the SGI will render faster, but for the same cost, I can buy
extra pc to render to.
In the real time market, the games are at most right now 300,000 polygons even
in arcades.
So if your target market is only that much then again what advantage does and
SGI have unless you are doing highly technical enginering or Hollywood
graphics?
Thank you for suggesting I should see a salesman. I use to work for a
Distributer of SGIs and the last company I worked for and 4 Indigo 2s. That is
how I formed this opinion. Before then I thought SGIs were the only game in
town.
I agree with most of what you're saying, but game development for PC systems is
really moving back quite quickly to development on the PC itself.. (Graphics
wise) Just ask Ian! <g> Sure, you can get the $5500 SGI, but then how much is
your software going to add to that? Does that make up the rest of the $20k? (I
know Alias is a ton o' cash, and I've been through demos from SGI/Alias.) Then
again, the machines are faster, you have some nice options for video in/out,
etc, etc.. All I'm saying here is that you probably have a new door opening for
more and more people to develop high-class games, because now they can actually
afford it. You no longer need a "movie budget" to make a game, and in some
cases, by keeping the team small (one person, or very few anyway), you *might*
get stuff out quicker.. (Overhead, etc..) PC's aren't at the level that the
SGI's are at for real-time graphics, but with the infusion of these new 3D
based, double-buffering video cards (sub-systems), dual (or more) CPU machines,
and even alternative (RISC) processors, they're moving in the proper
direction.. Plus, the software is at the right price.. (Now that you don't have
to drop $4k for a descent 3D package.. <g>)
Just my $0.02
>>
But will the software support the texture mapping? I already have a Matrox
Impression plus. It makes the pipes screen saven in NT jam,<<
That is using the software implementation of OpenGL…. Matrox does not support
OpenGL under NT on their hardware _yet_….
FWIW,
Rob
>That is using the software implementation of OpenGL…. Matrox does not
support >OpenGL under NT on their hardware _yet_….
>FWIW,
>Rob
If it doesn't then I don't know how to explain how many 486/33 isa bus can
viusally draw the pipes faster than my friend's pentium 66 PCI bus diamond
stealth card.
How is my 486 able to do this without the MGA acceleration?
Alan
>>If it doesn't then I don't know how to explain how many 486/33 isa bus can
viusally draw the pipes faster than my friend's pentium 66 PCI bus diamond
stealth card.
How is my 486 able to do this without the MGA acceleration?<<
Good question! I just know that, as of this date, Matrox does not offer any
OpenGL hardware acceleration….
Rob
>> But will the software support the texture mapping? I already have a Matrox
Impression plus. It makes the
>> pipes screen saven in NT jam, but until truespace 2.0 come out it won't do
me much good. Also TS 2.0
>> only renders real time on solid modeling and not texture. So I don't see how
the new board will help.
You see, the Matrox products don't do texture mapping. If you get a board (ie:
3Demon, etc..) that supports accelerated hardware texture mapping, and if it
comes with (initially) an Intel 3DR Windows driver, then trueSpace2 will also
do the solid modeling with texture mapping. So when you say that trueSpace
doesn't do it, it's only because you don't have the hardware to back it up..
>You see, the Matrox products don't do texture mapping. If you get a board (ie:
>3Demon, etc..) that supports accelerated hardware texture mapping, and if it
>comes with (initially) an Intel 3DR Windows driver, then trueSpace2 will also
do >the solid modeling with texture mapping. So when you say that trueSpace
doesn't >do it, it's only because you don't have the hardware to back it up..
Can you confirm that the modeling with texture maps is in real time. My
understanding was it would only model solids in real time. At least thats the
only promise I have heard them make.
I agree the 3Demon, and GLint chip and other boards will be great, I just want
to make sure neither of us are expecting something that was not stated or
actually supported.
Michael and Konstantin have both told me that it's just a matter of the boards
catching up with the software. Since Intel's 3DR handles it and Caligari wrote
to that spec, I don't see the problem. Maybe what you heard was either someone
saying "today, the Matrox (or whichever board they mentioned) doesn't do
texture mapping", or "software-only (no "3D hardware") will only do solid
modeling.
That's my understanding, and in close talks with Omnicomp (3Demon), and 3D
Labs, they say that it'll work with trueSpace when they get the drivers in
gear..
It was probably the software only.
I know a lot of boards could handel the texture maps, I just didn't know 3DR
was written for that.
Thanks for the info.
Also, be on the lookout for boards with the Real 3D chip from Lockhead Martin.
I just heard they will render 700,000 textured polygons in real time.
As stated earlier, its closing in on SGI territory. It won't put them out of
business but the cost justification will get more difficult.
Alan