Glint/openGL cards?
24 messages in this thread
Could someone more informed than I tell me (and others I'm sure) some of the
current manufacturers and boards that support glint and/or openGL 3d
acceleration. I know that I would like to purchase a card for 3dsmax support.
Thanks for any advice.
Doug
Doug:
I don't know if you got a reply to your querry about accelerator cards for use
with MAX. MAX was demo-ed on Omnicomp's 3Demon card. The Gloria card from
Elsa professes compatibility as well as the Fujitsu Sapphire. I haven't tried
any of these cards myself so I can't endorse any of them.
– Bob Ritger
Thanks so much for your response Bob. I hadn't heard from anyone else, but saw
a few references in other messages. Do you know the price range for these
types of cards?
Doug
Doug:
I'm going to be shopping around for a Glint based card soon so I may come up
with better numbers. The low end (cost-wise) seems to be in the $300 range and
the high end is somewhere above $2000. Decent performance cards like the ones
I mentioned are about $1500-$2000 list price. There are more entries into this
niche everyday and the prices are falling quickly. If a Creative Labs enters
the fray I suspect I may be able to actually afford one of these boards myself.
– Bob Ritger
Bob,
I asked Hercules if they were developing a GLINT based board and they said they
were going to have a 3D board but they could not now say which chip the board
would be based on.
Alec Jason
Bob,
Creative Labs just announced (saw it in Executive News Service yesterday
when checking the stocks) a 2D/3D accelerated board for games – no mention
though if it is Glint-based.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
The new CL board _is_ glint-based, but it's a special glint chip made just for
video games (awww…).
– G
Gary,
I had my doubts that the Creative Labs board would be particularly
useful. While I've got your ear, can you shake loose an answer to the
following? 3DS MAX was demonstrated on, and takes advantage of 2-processor
Pentium systems running Win NT. Will it support (and is there any benefit to)
more than 2 (ie: Integraph offers up to 6 Pentiums), and would their dual P6
system help things along.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
NT Workstation only supports 2 processors. You've got to get NT Advanced
Server to support more than that (NTAS is much more expensive). Also note that
two dual-processor machines are almost twice as fast as one four-processor
machine, due to smp overhead. Finally, a dual P6 system ought to be quite
fast. (that's an understatement)
– G
Gary,
Thanks for the clarification and semi-benchmark <g>. Regardless, if
someone were to purchase the NT Advanced Server version, WOULD 3DS MAX in any
way benefit from more than 2 processors? Your answers implied that 4
processors WOULD be faster than 2, but that 2 dual systems would be the more
economical (and ultimately more flexible) choice (due to SMP overhead, plus
advantages of having a 2nd system, designer, net rendering, etc.).
Kevin Krell (wanting answers to hypothetical questions)
Computer Support Associates
Kevin,
From my poking around in the NT forum I've come across these figures for
adding extra
Pentium processors to NT. The second processor adds about 60% of the
performance of the
first. The third ads only about 40% of the performance of the first. And the
fourth and
subsequent chips add less than 30% of the first processors performance. So
from my way of
looking at it the third and fourth chips are a Waste of performance!
Other tidbits on SMP under NT, supposedly the PPC chips are better at
scaling under NT. The numbers I saw were 2nd 70%, 3rd 60% . The P6 chips,
besides being fast when running 32 bit code (Intel even says that they will
drop enough cycles during 16 bit code to make them slower than a comparable P5)
they will be very fast in SMP machines. The internal CPU bus was designed for
up to 4 P6 to run together without additional logic. Because each P6 has its
Own 256k or 512k of internal cache they will be faster than any P5 SMP where
all chips share the same external cache.
If anybody can dispute these figures please do! I am by no means an expert
on the subject. It would be nice to see some good benchmarks on NT SMP with
various CPUs and various numbers of chips.
My 2 bytes.
-Matt (Active Media Graphics)
Y 50 /g fM/
Although I've never run Max on more than two processors, the information that
I've managed to dig up is pretty much in line with what Matt just quoted you.
The bottom line is that although 4 processors will all get used, they won't get
used efficiently. So, it's best to put them to work in two boxes, each with
its own RAM.
– G
Kevin:
>> Creative Labs just announced (saw it in Executive News Service yesterday
when checking the stocks) a 2D/3D accelerated board for games – no mention
though if it is Glint-based. <<
There were rumors to this effect, I hope it is Glint based. This would really
heat up the competition.
– Bob Ritger
Thanks Bob,
I hadn't realized how expensive they were at this time. I too will have to
wait until prices drop some.
Doug
>> I hadn't realized how expensive they were at this time. <<
I wouldn't hold my breath on this one. Although they are bound to come down in
price, the good cards will have _a lot_ of memory on them and memory prices
aren't effected by competition nearly as much as the boards and chips are. One
of the boards I saw at SIGGRAPH (the ELSA I think) had 4 megs of DRAM and 7
megs of VRAM in order to get the required acceleration. Anything less would
ham-string the effect.
Now, I hear that there are gonna be some new memory fab plants coming online
soon (Q1 96 +/-) but I suspect, because demand will still be quite high w/
increased use of W95/NT, that they will opt for making a bunch of cash by
keeping prices high instead of trying to make alot of sales by lowering prices.
I hope that I'm wrong.
– ej
Thanks Ernie, I 'll definately hold off a while.
Doug
Hey Bob,
I've been inquiring about these Glint cards also. My supplier reports that the
Omnicomp people claim the ELSA will not work with 3DSM, while the ELSA people
skirt the issue. How can one learn The Truth?
The ELSA looked attractive to me since it has onboard VGA, while the 3Deamon
needs a separate VGA card (in another slot) just to boot NT.
The docs I got from 3Dlabs listed 8 PC-based Glint "Partners". I also heard
rumors that Creative is putting the Glint on a Soundblaster card. What is
this world comming to?
With all the Glint boards comming, this may be a nightmare if custom drivers
are needed for each card. If that's the case, some brands may never work for
us. If one simply has to buy now, it seems that the 3Deamon is a safe bet.
JKJ
PS, Thanks for your kindness in LA land. It was nice talking to you again!
JKJ:
I'm content to let the accelerator board mfgrs duke it out for a couple more
months before I seriously start to consider what's going to work for me. I
tend to put my money in the hands of those who frequent our forum and support
their products.
Good to see the Tennessee contingent again at SIGGRAPH! Say hello to Bruce
"Invalid Normal Array" McG for me.
– Bob Ritger
Bob-
How's it going? Do you know if which 3Deamon they were using… SX44, SX48, or
the SX88. My guess is probably the SX88 because it runs 1024×768 double
buffered at 24/32 bit. I just received some specs on the board and it looks
like a screamer!!!
Andrew Sinagra
Digital Art & Motion
It was the SX48 (15-bit double-buffered).
– G
Andrew:
Which board is a good question and one that perhaps would be better answered
by someone like Gary, Jonas or Jack who probably got a look under the hood of
the machine used in the SIGGRAPH demo. However, at two different demo's I
heard that the machine was both a dual pentium 120mhz and a dual pentium 133mhz
box. So who knows for sure?
– Bob Ritger
The box 'said' 133smp on the outside, but they were 120's on the inside.
– G
Gary:
>> The box 'said' 133smp on the outside, but they were 120's on the inside. <<
Yikes! Whatever happened to truth in labelling? So it was CompuAdd who
inadvertently caused this confusion. Thanks for clearing up this minor detail
and I appreciate your note on your use of the DEC Alpha boxes.
– Bob Ritger
That wasn't a production box, fyi.
– G