#Playing with Big Boys
10 messages in this thread
I am championing 3DS on the PC competing with (exclusively) SGI
hardware and Alias and Wavefront type software. I can (sometimes by
sheer determination and trickery) compete in quality with these
animators but not in speed. You guys have done an outstanding job
making 3DS efficient and fast and I have absolutly no complaints. My
question is this: If you all decided to write a version for a "good"
32 bit operating system for the PC, namely OS2 2.1, you could
multi-thread and more importantly not haft to page through a 64K frame
for everything. I belive that an application as powerfull as 3DS
would be launched squarely in the middle of the SGI brat pack if this
could be done.
I know all about the NT egg that's all over most developers faces and
alot of users as well. And I know that NT or Chicago is the next
carrot being dangled by the all mighty Microsoft but OS2 is here now
and it's a fist rate operating system (with some noteable rough
edges). I don't know what you can and can't say about AutoDesk's
future but what do you think about all of this personally? I'd sure
like to know cause I'm a devoted proponent of your work and products
and I'm staying alive in a world of decreasing price high-powered
hardware and glitzy software. Guys like me may be your bet marketing
assets and I just want to know your personel thoughts so that I may
have hope for the future. Thanks much, Mark Huppertz
PMJI but… 3D studio _is_ a 32 bit application and in no way is
restricted to 64k pages. It has access to over 4G of memory using
plain ol'32 bit offsets. It runs under what is called "PharLap DOS
Extender" which allows a program to take full use of the 386/486/586
environment. It has direct access to all hardware and, because of
that, it's light years faster than if it was ported to some high
overhead OS such as OS/2 or Windows. The only thing that would make
3DS faster is porting to an environment running either a different
CPU (RISC, what have you) or some environment able to run multiple
486/586's.
The diffences in the hardware is reflected in the hardware cost
and performance. The workstations have dedicated swap partitions
running full 32 bit and processor speed. They also have custom
engineered graphics boards which are optimized with the processor.
They also may use multiple processors.
Windows NT brings (I have it running just fine) an operating
system which will let hardware developers bring some of these
features to the PC. As PC hardware evolves we should find a more
level playing field. With the R3 network rendering, a network of PC's
can easily be more productive then the workstations of compairable
cost.
Note, as Gary quoted 25,000 copies of 3D Studio, that is more
copies then Softimage + Wavefront + TDI + Alias + …
Both Gus and Keith have extremely valid points. All I can say is that we
intend to continue making 3D Studio competitive with workstation systems. We've
done that with rendering quality already, and we intend to continue doing that
in other areas in the future. (have hope)
– G
Gary,
One advantage of using networks of the latest PC's as Keith hinted is
that PHAR-LAP is very flexible about swap space compared to UNIX
workstations. The INDIGO I am using to look at SOFTIMAGE and ALIAS
these days came formatted with only 40 meg of swap partition. In
order to make these two programs really run to thier full potential
I'm gonna have to back-up my 1.2 GIG drive and re-partion it, kissing
off 200 meg to permanent swap duty. This is system administrator and
GURU stuff, as an IRIX novice I'm not looking forward to
re-installing my system.
BTW, I could not help but notice that in very fine print on the 3DSr3
box it says " for MS-DOS ". Since r-1 and r-2 packaging had no
similar markings I assume that it is there to differentiate the
package from an upcoming version for something other than MS-DOS.
Care to illuminate and elaborate ?
Always looking for a scoop,
Good luck installing your new swap partition. Re the 3DSr3 box, the
previous (R1 and R2) boxes had absolutely ZERO explanatory text on
them. The R3 box is the first one that does. There ya go,
>> I'm gonna have to back-up my 1.2 GIG drive and re-partion it, kissing
>> off 200 meg to permanent swap duty. This is system administrator and
>> GURU stuff, as an IRIX novice I'm not looking forward to re-installing
>> my system.
I don't know IRIX anywhere near as well as Sun UNIX, but on the Sun
you can create a file on any drive with 'mkfile' and just add it to
the swap space. You might want to see if that is an option on your
operating system!
Thanks, I'll call up the MAN pages on MKFILE and see if I can sort it
out, you probably would have to be savvy enough to specify block
counts and locations though , and without bumping into used areas.
Bruce:
>> I'll call up the MAN pages on MKFILE
After doing the 'mkfile', the Sun UNIX command to tell the system to
add it to the swap space is 'swapon filename' where filename is the
name of the file you created with 'mkfile' and want to add to your
swap area.
Let me know if this works on your SGI, now I'm curious! Anything
rather than re-partition and reload the operating system and files! I
hope you at least have the OS all on CD-ROM like the Suns do, so you
can just start it and go to lunch!
My normal configuration on the Suns is a 425 meg internal drive for
the operating system, swap space, plot spoolers, etc. All user
programs and data go on external disks so that with an operating
system upgrade or similar we only have to re-load that one disk, then
just mount the externals again. FWIW
Gus tell you all, but Keith too. For me, both are ok. 3ds takes the
tiny stupid DOS, throw it away, and take the whole control of the
machines. NT, OS/2 and the others, provides everybody with an
standard enviroment to develop all kind of solutions _without_
limiting theirselves to one program (therefore, saving development
cost).