#Glint ?
32 messages in this thread
From the Press Reslease (text version):
>> Through Heidi, 3D Studio MAX supports a wide array of
>> graphic display devices, including the GLINT(R) chip set
>> from 3Dlabs, which can provide TrueColor performance at
>> two to four times MAX's 8-bit dithered performance.
>> Using the Heidi technology, 3D Studio MAX drivers will
>> also work with Open GL-based graphics cards.
What I read is that Glint support is via Heidi. Should this be taken that
Glint has been given special status for some reason and included in the basic
product? Or has the Glint maker already made a pre-release plug-in like those
who provided BIPED? Or should I just not ask stupid questions?<g>
It was my understanding that Glint could be an Open GL product.
Hi Albert,
We have worked with Autodesk and the Yost group during the past few months to
get direct Heidi drivers for GLINT under Windows/NT. As well as being a good
OpenGL product GLINT supports the widest variety of 3D APIs in the
industry,including Heidi. We are very impressed with Heidi and the guys at
Autodesk have done an excellent job.
A lot of the 3D Studio Max demos at Siggraph were actually shown on the GLINT
boards which provide improved visual quality and between 2-4 times speed up
compared to software only rendering.
Osman Kent
3Dlabs
Hi! Excuse me for jumping in-could you recommend some good Glint
boards/manufacturers? I'm looking around for a good board for 3dsMAX!
Thanks,
-Bill
While there are several card options don't overlook the BUS – you want it as
wide as possible (i.e. PCI).
– Phil
Try OmniComp, William, at 713/464/2990.
Their boards were used at Siggraph to demo MAX.
-Alan
<<Try OmniComp, William, at 713/464/2990.
Their boards were used at Siggraph to demo MAX.>>
Thanks alot Alan,
-Bill
>> We have worked with Autodesk and the Yost group during
>> the past few months to get direct Heidi drivers for
>> GLINT under Windows/NT.
I take it that you are working on (or have completed) Heidi drivers for your
Glint graphics board? So any board maker using Glint will be including Heidi
drivers? Will that cost extra?
I have seen books on Open GL at my technical book store. Can I expect to see
some documentation on Heidi? Or is it proprietary and will only be available
to authorized developers?
Do you also have (or will have) a development kit for Glint software
development? If so, can you describe it a little?
Thanks.
Hi Osman,
I missed LA95 so I also missed all the demo's, but your comments bring up some
interesting points which I hope will be discussed over the next few months.
Just how good will the proformance of 3DS MAX be on an UNACCELERATED video
system. According to YOST posts, it should be OK. I wonder though when I see
how slow the FAST PREVIEWER is on my Pentium 90 with the current 3DS. I can't
even do wireframes at 30fps.
My fear is that MAX will want Dual 120 Pentiums and GLINT chips.
MAX looks incredible and I guess we'll all have to pay a certain price for
this power, but I sure hope this dosen't mean all new hardware for us SMALL
FISH.
Thanks,
-David.
>>>
A lot of the 3D Studio Max demos at Siggraph were actually shown on the GLINT
boards which provide improved visual quality and between 2-4 times speed up
compared to software only rendering.
Osman Kent 3Dlabs<<<
-David Robert Swoboda
Hi David,
<< Just how good will the proformance of 3DS MAX be on an UNACCELERATED video
system? >>
At siggraph, the main stage had Glint acceleration. At the Press Showing at
Sony and at the other private showings for the press and developers in private
suites, the computers were not using acceleration. This allowed the press and
developers to compare the two.
Glint allows you to work in full screen and in true color while the built in
software acceleration provides similar performance at 256 colors and in a 1/4
screen viewport.
jonas[adesk]
Thank you for the info, Jonas.
Sounds like GLINT is the way to go so I'm dusting off the piggy bank to start
the process. .
Looking forward to seeing the final product in '96. Just curious but did
MicroSoft show any version of SoftImage at Siggraph?
Thanks again,
-David.
-David Robert Swoboda
Hi David,
<< microsoft? >>
I didn't get out of our booth much :-(.. Someone else will have to answer this
one.
jonas[adesk]
Jonas,
From what I can gather, The Autodesk booth was the ONLY PLACE to be and you
got to be there for free…
>>I didn't get out of our booth much :-(.. Someone else will have to answer
this one.
jonas[adesk]<<
-David Robert Swoboda
>> Looking forward to seeing the final product in '96. Just curious but
did MicroSoft show any version of SoftImage at Siggraph? <<
Supposedly, they were showing it by appointment only after signing NDAs, but
I talked to them too late to see one (Thursday am). They expect to ship in
October.
– Dan / n-Space, Inc.
Hi Dan,
Weird that they wouldn't show a product due out in October!!
>>Supposedly, they were showing it by appointment only after signing NDAs, but
I talked to them too late to see one (Thursday am). They expect to ship in
October.
– Dan / n-Space, Inc.<<
-David Robert Swoboda
>> Weird that they wouldn't show a product due out in October!! <<
Kinda what I thought, too. The MicroSoftImage guy I was talking to said that
Microsoft had a "strict" 90 day limit between the time a product is
officially announced and that product hits the street. <insert cynical
comments here>
Don't bash me for this, I'm just telling you what that bozo told me. <G>
– Dan / n-Space, Inc.
Thanks for the info, Dan. The near future promises to be interesting in the
world of low cost 3D stuff.
-David.
>>Kinda what I thought, too. The MicroSoftImage guy I was talking to said
that Microsoft had a "strict" 90 day limit between the time a product is
officially announced and that product hits the street. <insert cynical
comments here>
Don't bash me for this, I'm just telling you what that bozo told me. <G>
– Dan / n-Space, Inc.<<
-David Robert Swoboda
>> Thanks for the info, Dan. The near future promises to be interesting in
the world of low cost 3D stuff. <<
I don't know how "low cost" Softimage NT is going to be. The people I talked
to at their booth at SIGGRAPH said it was going to be the same price
structure as their SGI products $8k base/$15-16k complete.
– Dan / n-Space, Inc.
My guess is that it will come in a a bit less than SGI version. They will be
competing on a platform unfamiliar with $20K programs. $10K would be low
enough if it does a whole lot more than 3DS and rest of competion. ADesk has
not announced a price for MAX yet, but I bet it won't be $3K. Maybe $4-5K is
more likely. We'll have to see what happens….
-David.
>>>I don't know how "low cost" Softimage NT is going to be. The people I
talked to at their booth at SIGGRAPH said it was going to be the same price
structure as their SGI products $8k base/$15-16k complete.
– Dan / n-Space, Inc.<<<
-David Robert Swoboda
>> My fear is that MAX will want Dual 120 Pentiums and GLINT chips.
I just showed MAX to our developers this morning on a P90 with a nonaccelerated
card using a PCI bus and the performance impressed the entire room (even those
that had seen the Siggraph presentations).
It does NOT require unreasonable hardware to be VERY useful – Ithaca is doing a
great job with their HEIDI drivers.
– Phil
Phillip,
This is very good news. If we can at least get going on our old hardware then
in 6 months when Dual Pentiums sell at Single prices we can really scream.
Thanks,
-David.
>>I just showed MAX to our developers this morning on a P90 with a
nonaccelerated card using a PCI bus and the performance impressed the entire
room (even those that had seen the Siggraph presentations).
It does NOT require unreasonable hardware to be VERY useful – Ithaca is doing
a great job with their HEIDI drivers.
– Phil<<
-David Robert Swoboda
If it means anything to you, our team has been using single P5/66's with no
hardware acceleration until a couple of months ago, and we all had absolutely
no problem with performance. Because of some of our "tricks", we get faster
interactive rendered performance than anyone else will. We spent an incredible
amount of time in the early stages of coding to make sure that MAX is fun to
use on any Pentium-based system, all the way down to a 66.
– G
Thanks, Gary!
You know I am always surprised by stories like your guys using
less-than-cutting-edge hardware to make cutting edge software, and all us users
can do is SCREAM for MORE POWER SCOTTY!!!!
Same thing with lightwave, Alan and Stu were writing it on machines far less
powerfull than the typical power user. Of course, if you guys had clients who
gave you RIDICULIOUS deadlines and less-than-adaqute (SP) budgets, you guys
would have rooms full of P5/133 machines to make deadlines too.
You know the down side of techical progress is that the typical client has no
comprehension of what it takes to do this stuff. Finished product looks easy.
If only the average guy knew what goes into the making of a high-end commercial
product. Remainds me of a friend at Sony who worked for months on just six
shots……….
Say now that MAX is out of the bag, I hope your going to give us juicey
tidbits once in a while so that we all don't start chewing on our leashes and
acting like animators-in-heat!?
Chow,
-David.
>>>If it means anything to you, our team has been using single P5/66's with no
hardware acceleration until a couple of months ago, and we all had absolutely
no problem with performance. Because of some of our "tricks", we get faster
interactive rendered performance than anyone else will. We spent an incredible
amount of time in the early stages of coding to make sure that MAX is fun to
use on any Pentium-based system, all the way down to a 66.
– G<<<
-David Robert Swoboda
David, from everything I've been able to surmise, 8-bit color software-only
rendering is *extremely* fast.
While the amount of simultaneous objects being rendered in real time may be
limited without hardware acceleration, basic modeling needs should be covered
quite well, I think.
-Alan
I was at the 3DSMAX press conference that Jonas mentioned. They were showing
MAX on a dual pentium machine without hardware acceleration. It was very fast.
Interactive screen updates in shaded perspective views with no noticable lag.
The dancing chocolate kiss with the purple haze soundtrack playing did not miss
a beat. I'm sure that a more complex animation would be improved by hardware
acceleration, but MAX out of the box is a screamer.
I saw the same demo done the next day using a GLint card and I couldn't tell
any difference.
Obviously this was not a bechmark; only general impressions. I'm sure a side
by side comparison would reveal differences and a real benchmark using a more
complex scene would highlight the strengths of the GLint board. The point is:
HEIDI and the new graphics pipeline are fast in software and even faster in
hardware. This is not r13 <g>.
Terry Gilbert
Forcade & Associates
Terry, the basic differences between the two machines you saw were:
– The non-Glint machine could only keep up in real time if I played the
animation\sound back in a 1/4-screen viewport.
and
– The non-Glint machine was 8-bit dithered (Diamond Viper card), and the Glint
machine was 15-bit double-buffered (24-bit Z), and could've been 24-bit
double-buffered at the same speed with some more memory on the card.
– G
Yes, you are right. I remember that now. I suspect there are a lot of other
things that I've forgotten about Siggraph, too. Maybe I should stick to
drinking tea?………nah!
Terry Gilbert
Forcade & Associates
Terry,
In your early opinion would it be better to think about a Dual Pentium upgrade
or the GLINT hardware graphics card. If the software is really fast then maybe
the Dual processor would be better a route because of the increased
multi-tasking for Dual-aware programs. What are your thoughts having seen it
running live. Pentium prices are really falling fast. It's right around $500
for a 90Mhz Mama board which is less than HALF what I paid last summer!! Duals
will drop also as they are feed into the marketplace. GLINT Cards may stay
high for quite a while…….
-David.
>>>I was at the 3DSMAX press conference that Jonas mentioned. They were
showing MAX on a dual pentium machine without hardware acceleration. It was
very fast. Interactive screen updates in shaded perspective views with no
noticable lag. The dancing chocolate kiss with the purple haze soundtrack
playing did not miss a beat. I'm sure that a more complex animation would be
improved by hardware acceleration, but MAX out of the box is a screamer.
I saw the same demo done the next day using a GLint card and I couldn't tell
any difference.
Obviously this was not a bechmark; only general impressions. I'm sure a side
by side comparison would reveal differences and a real benchmark using a more
complex scene would highlight the strengths of the GLint board. The point is:
HEIDI and the new graphics pipeline are fast in software and even faster in
hardware. This is not r13 <g>.
Terry Gilbert
Forcade & Associates
There is 1 Reply.<<<
-David Robert Swoboda
>> Terry,
In your early opinion would it be better to think about a Dual Pentium upgrade
or the GLINT hardware graphics card. If the software is really fast then maybe
the Dual processor would be better a route because of the increased
multi-tasking for Dual-aware programs. What are your thoughts having seen it
running live. Pentium prices are really falling fast. It's right around $500
for a 90Mhz Mama board which is less than HALF what I paid last summer!! Duals
will drop also as they are feed into the marketplace. GLINT Cards may stay
high for quite a while…….
-David. <<
David,
I haven't had actual hands on experience, so I can't speak with much authority
on this. Perhaps Jonas, Jack, or Gary have opinions on this. My feeling is
that you should at least get a dual pentium motherboard so that you can the
second processor when you can use/afford it. Then you can work on getting a
GLint board. The GLint boards will speed up previews. A dual pentium system
will speed up everything. Of course, don't forget to budget for lots of RAM,
too.
Terry Gilbert
Forcade & Associates
Hi Terry,
Thanks for your comments. I have a Pentium board that won't fit the PVR, so I
think I'll look around for a Dual that I can run the PVR and plug a 2nd
processor in later.
Man you just have to love the way the market is going…
Pentium 90 Mother board $ 500.00
64 MB RAM $3000.00
^^^^
ouch!
-David.
>>>I haven't had actual hands on experience, so I can't speak with much
authority on this. Perhaps Jonas, Jack, or Gary have opinions on this. My
feeling is that you should at least get a dual pentium motherboard so that you
can the second processor when you can use/afford it. Then you can work on
getting a GLint board. The GLint boards will speed up previews. A dual
pentium system will speed up everything. Of course, don't forget to budget for
lots of RAM, too.
Terry Gilbert
Forcade & Associates<<<
-David Robert Swoboda
David,
You'll be able to find RAM for a substantially lower price for a while
yet, although supplies seem to be continuing to tighten. It does seem to be
the system component that's the highest cost factor though.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
Kevin,
For awhile now I have been thinking that I am in the wrong business. RAM is
really high when you think about the parts that go into a hard disk. How many
steps are in the process of building a hard disk, not to mention all the parts
from various suppliers. Now just exactly what the hell is inside one of those
bloody RAM SIMMS!? At least 17" plus monitors have come down in the last year.
Those prices were just RIDICULIOUS back in the old days.
Bye
-David
>>> You'll be able to find RAM for a substantially lower price for a
while yet, although supplies seem to be continuing to tighten. It does seem to
be the system component that's the highest cost factor though.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates<<<
-David Robert Swoboda
Hi Albert,
OpenGL and Heidi are both graphics APIs. The GLINT chip supports both. Heidi
will be able to interface through it's own device driver interface to a piece
of hardware (like the GLINT chip), or Heidi will talk to OpenGL (among other
options, I'm sure).
Hope that helps.
Sincerely,
Tom