#DEC Alpha-Workstation
25 messages in this thread
I have got access to more than 10 Alpha-Workstations (160 – 250 MHz) running
DEC OSF/Motif.
Does anybody know how I can use this cpu-power regarding 3D-Studio (RenderMan
for example)?
I would be very happy about any kind of answer!!!!!!
Holger,
Sorry, I don't have an answer for you but I'm interested in the DEC Alpha AXP
workstations as they will be my company's future for CADD. Although there is a
flavor of Windows NT for the Alpha, 3DS has not yet been ported to NT. I would
like to know if this is 3DS's future as it will be AutoCad's. It seems that
Autodesk won't talk about future plans. I was at DEC's offices in NYC on
Thursday and I tried to weasel some info on software that is being ported to
the Alpha. Nobody that I spoke to knew of plans for 3ds. Is DEC OSF the name
of your operating system? What line of work are you in? What applications are
you running on your Alphas I am familiar with the motif interface but only
with VAX/VMS as the operating system.
Bob
Have you considered the DEC Pentium machines? They use a CPU daughter card and
will allow you to upgrade to the AXP chips in the future. I think this will be
the next 3DS box I buy. I'm sure 3DS will eventually go to NT, and with this
box I'll just have to swap daughtercards.
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
John,
I have considered the DEC Pentium machines for use with 3ds. At the moment I
cannot run my CADD software on anything but VAX/VMS or Open VMS. So, for CADD
I am going straight to the Alpha and I'll run Open VMS.
>>> I'm sure 3DS will eventually go to NT<<<
This is the gamble but I'd make the bet as you probably would. I know I need a
machine or two to dedicate to 3DS so to start off with a pentium then upgrade
to the Alpha may work out fine. Now here's one for you. Could you take the
pentium chip off the daughtercard when upgrading to the Alpha chip and plug the
pentium into an old 486 with a zif socket? It couldn't be that easy could it?
Bob
>> to the Alpha may work out fine. Now here's one for you. Could you
>> take the pentium chip off the daughtercard when upgrading to the Alpha
>> chip and plug the pentium into an old 486 with a zif socket? It couldn't
>> be that easy could it?
No you could not. The socket you see in these 486's are for a watered down
version of the Pentium called P24. This is a 32 bit version as opposed the
the full 64 bit. You could, however, buy a Pentium motherboard, put the
Pentium in it and replace the 486 motherboard. On the other hand, DEC is
charging $2,500 for the Pentium option (that's for the daughtercard). I could
get a fairly decent computer for that amount of money. Have you seen the NEC
with two Mips R4400? All that for less than 10k?
Gus,
As there are many flavors of Windows NT I should have known there would be many
flavors of pentium chips.
>>> Have you seen the NEC with two Mips R4400? All that for less than 10k?<<
I haven't seen this machine. Even though I'd try to dedicate a machine or two
to 3ds I'd have an easier time of convincing my firm to buy the equipment if I
could show that it could be used to run CADD as well (the Alpha will run GDS).
I'll check it out but I think that GDS (our CADD software) will only be ported
to Open VMS. I don't know if that'll run on the NEC.
Could you prognosticate on the possibility of running 3ds on DEC Alphas? What
would be your choice of what's soon to be availlable?
Thanks for your input, Gus. You have a valuable way of keeping my wild ideas
anchored in reality.
Bob
Gus,
Actually, you can get the Pentium card for $1,699 and $1,999 directly from
Digital, trading in any 486 board. The Alpha AXP board will also be priced
bellow $2,000.
I can get a DEC XL Pentium/60 box with PCI bus and up to 192MB, with PCI
SCSI-II onboard, 340MB SCSI2 HD, double-speed CDROM for $3,699 now. Is that a
good price or not? 🙂 And squeezing that computer for a year and then buy the
AXP board when I need the upgrade is a bad business? I have been in many press
conferences regarding the AXP, and looking the results when comparing to a
R4400 machines… well, I will get the Alpha with my eyes closed anytime. And
this is not only about computer power, a real upgradability path like the DEC
XL provides a lot of things for the 3ds user. If finally a NT version of 3ds is
not released, I will be able to upgrade it to as many Pentiums and Sextiums
Intel release <g> Seriously, I think that the DEC is a VERY good system for
many people who depends now on DOS, but want to have their doors open to other
options at a very reasonable cost. I am personally dying to leave Intel-land,
but have a business now that need their processors (now). If someone comes with
a system like the XL and put that price quote… it sounds like heaven to me.
ana /krazy images
Ana, I hear that DEC is now shipping a 66Mhz version of that machine… Do you
know if that's true?
– G
Hi Gary (and welcome from your lovely vacations 🙂
No, DEC is not shipping the 66MHz version of the Pentium machine yet. According
to their Digital Store, it will be available in January 1994.
Here is a list of prices and availability dates for all models:
****** PRICING/AVAILABILITY
DECpc XL 433dx $2,899
DECpc XL 466d2 $3,299
DECpc XL 560 $3,999
DECpc XL 566 $4,599
Prices include 8 MB RAM, 340 MB SCSI hard drive, 3.5" floppy disk drive,
S3-928PCI local bus video, 1 MB VRAM, dual SCSI CD-ROM, Microsoft DOS and
Windows, mouse and keyboard. Digital also offers a variety of monitors
including a 14" non-interlaced SVGA monitor priced at $399, and 14" interlaced
SVGA monitor priced at $299.
The DECpc XL 433dx and 466d2 systems are available on November 30. The DECpc
XL 560 will be available by December 15, and the DECpc XL 566 will be offered
in January. All systems can be purchased through the company's Desktop Direct
catalog at 800-210-1408, through Digital's direct sales force, and authorized
resellers. *************
You can order it without the PCI video card -price $300- (they claim a 80
million winmarks, but I think they are talking about the Diamond Viper PCI,
offered as an option). The Viper is at $600 from Digital. The only PCI video
cards I know about right know are the Matrox MGA2 (I don't want to know the
speed of that board! 🙂
ana /krazy images
ps. I will zip the file with the specs and upload it to the libraries.
Very complete info, Ana.. thanks! I'm going to try to get an eval of the XL566
as soon as possible, and if it's as cool as I think it's going to be, we're
going to standardize on that platform.
– G
Gary and Ana,
Ya'know .. I've had to face this dilema for years … 386 upgradables … 486
upgradables … . I have ALWAYS found .. when looking further into the system
that one of two things are true (and most times .. both):
1) The system MB is not optimized for the future processor(s) 2) The price of
the upgrade module is equal to or greater than a new MB
With both of these "true-isms", I have always recommended (and still do) to my
customers that they buy the best they can now and when it comes time to upgrade
… either count on a new system or a new MB … about the same price and you
will be sure not to have "yesterdays technology" in your investment.
In the Pentium catagory for instance, I am now able to sell 64-bit, 60MHz
Pentium MB's for around $1.7k (give or take a little). Full Pentium systems
for about $3.5k. As always .. these prices will just keep coming down .. but
the price for the proprietary upgrade card (used in these systems) rarely
change from their original offering.
As Led Zepplin said," .. the song remains the same"
Ang
Ang, the implementation of the PCI bus in the DEC machines is
extremely tightly coupled to the processor bus, hence providing
maximum speed for future peripheral devices and accellerated display
cards. That's the primary reason I'm interested in the DEC
machines. Plus, I like the way they're build (very solid), I like
their memory architecture, and the future upgradability is an
additional plus.
After I get the eval unit, I'll compare the speed to the other P5's
floating around, to make sure that no processor performance has been
sacrificed to gain expandability.
Yes, Ang, they are always trying to sell us the same horse <g>
Howeverm, it seems that this machine it is not one of that horses.
Honestly, this machine is designed to deal with Alphas at 150MHz.
That's PURE speed, not double speeds. As Gary have said, the machine
has an excellent design and this time, it seems that the promise for
expandability is for true. And the prices for the upgrades are marked
from the beginning. Less than $2,000 for an Alpha AXP at 150 MHz
seems like a big deal for me. Specially since the machine is designed
with upgradability in mind, and they have put a lot of care with its
architecture..
Moreover, we are not talking here about an upgrade from 386 to 486 to
Pentium. Actually, we are talking about getting an outstanding
Pentium at 60MHz, full equiped with PCI SCSI2, 340MB and a double
speed CD-ROM for $6,995. Squeeze it for a year and then trade in the
Pentium card and get a full Alpha AXP at 150MHz, while mantaining
your investment in ISA and PCI cards. In my opinion, there are a lot
of advantages in this workstation. And they are solid like rocks. In
fact, I can't believe that DEC is selling these machines, full
equiped, at that price. hey, as LedZep said, it seems like the
"Stairway to Heaven" <g>
Glad you like the info. I hope your research on the platform to give
you good results. Probably I will run 3DSr4 in a 110% compatible
platform <g>
I just called the DEC folks asking to quote a system for me. My "base"
system would cost $12,000! And that's for a 60Mhz Pentium. When I
asked about upgradability, the guy suggested getting a new machine.
Is this thing that much better?
Gus,
>> The socket you see in these 486's are for a watered down version of the
Pentium called P24. This is a 32 bit version as opposed the the full 64 bit. <<
I am also aware of this, but what about the internals of the chip? Since 3DS is
so CPU intensive, any idea what the relative rendering speed might be compared
to a full fledged Pentium? I realize it'd probably be more cost effective to
get a new motherboard, but was just curious.
John
I don't know. It depends on too many things I don't understand 100%. How is
external cache handle for instance? How about internal cache? Will it be the
same as the full blown Pentium? I tend to prejudge these things when I compare
them with the 386SX. I could never think of a good reason for the 386SX. Is
this the same kind of deal?
How about that. You asked me a question and I answered it with a dozen more!
Gus,
I would probably think of it in comparative terms of:
286 -> 386SX -> 386DX
486 -> P24 -> Pentium
Speed on some operations, (integer?), might be the same, but access to
peripherals and RAM must surely be slower on the P24 relative to the Pentium.
'Probably won't know what the significant variables are until we're actually
able to try the chips.
John
I just finished reading an article in Dr. Dobb's which "enlightened" me in
several ways. It had to do with CPU evolution in the past couple of decades and
how we somewhat got our faces against the wall as performance increase has
reached a barrier. It went on defining all the good things about the Pentium
and "Hexium", and SuperSparc, and DEC Alpha, etc. According to the article, the
reasons that make the Pentium faster than anything are present (by definition)
in the P24 version which makes my comparison with the 386DX/SX somewhat
invalid. The real gem of the article was its very last paragraph. The context
is that it may be a long while before we see a quantum jump in CPU performance
again. The paragraphs ends like this:
"… Who knows, efficient operating systems and efficient application programs
may make a come back. Soon, programmers won't be able to depend on the next
generation microprocessor to run their absurdities…"
Oh how good I feel after reading that. Specially with all this oophla around
the current trend of producing code so bloated that it would sink the Titanic.
I'm pretty neurotic when it comes to code efficiency. It makes me sick when I
see the crap that goes out the door nowadays taking huge amount of space for
nothing.
Gus,
I just purchased some of your work, possibly. Today, I bought PC Tools for
Windows 1.0. I hope it's not too bloated and inefficient <g>.
No, it's not my work. If I tell you what I think about that I will most
certainly be invited to leave the company. When I wrote that message, PCTW came
to mind like a flash…
Robert,
I am a student at the "Fachhochschule Furtwangen" (a kind of university) in
Furtwangen, Germany. They bought 13 Alpha-Workstations (OSF/Motif) and a server
with 512 MB Ram to run Sap R3 on it. R3 is a realtime-system for every part of
an enterprise (bill of costs, stockpiling, sales etc.), best program I have
ever seen in this domain (but you have to pay some million $ for it).
Since I could use the workstation as I like I am very interested to render on
them. They are extremely powerful, but I think you know that.
As you said there is no other version of 3D-Studio but for dos. Windows NT may
change this, but this will take time and NT will never run on
Alpha-Workstations, only on PCs (150Mhz).
But there may be a possibility to get Render Man. I don't know if this program
can render 3ds-Files, but I know that there is a version for
Ultrix-workstations. To use it on Alpha-OSF, you just have to recompile it,
changing very few or nothing. Even if you only have the compiled object-code,
you can migrate it to Alpha by a program sold by DEC. It will take speed of
course, but the Alpha will still be fast than any PC, I think. There are also
people who will migrate a program you send them for you for a few $.
My problem at the moment is that I don't get the address of Pixar (they wrote
Render Man). They don't have a representation in Germany, and the USA – address
I've got seems to be old, I couldn't get their telephone-number till now. The
address I have is:
Pixar, 3240 Kerner boulevard
St. Raphael, CA 490901 USA
If you make it to contact them in any way, please send me a note. I will inform
you of any new things in this matter, also.
regards,
Holger
Try this:
PIXAR
1001 West Cutting Boulevard
Richmond, CA 94804
510/236-4000 (FAX) 510/236-0388
– Jack
I have heard from a friend, that is doing some developement for Windows NT,
that there is a version of the Pharlap mem manager that runs on NT. I don't
know any details or if it will have any affect on running 3DS on other
platforms in the near future. Maybe someone could enlighten us on this.
SSH –Graphic Realities–
Yep. The new version of the PharLap DOS extender (now called TNT) was designed
to work with NT. Currently, the only compiler supported is Microsoft's own
Visual C/C++ (god forbid). It is possible, in theory, to port anything over
there using these tools. They even promises multithread, multitask, use of
DLL's, etc. Interesting future ahead.