🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <414@snll-arpagw.llnl.gov>, hwstock@snll-arpagw.llnl.gov
(stockman harlan w) writes:

|> I have an IRIS in my labs and an ATI on my 486, which communicates with
|> the SGI via X11/SVR4. For X11 stuff, the ATI IS faster than the IRIS--
|> at least, IRIS programs redirected to my display run faster than on the
|> IRIS itself. 

Well, which Iris?  There are various flavors.  Now, granted, they start
to get expensive when compared to PC's, but the point is that there
*are* uses for which even a very fast 2D accelerator won't do.  Drawing
lines, filling, and doing bit-blts is not such a tough thing to do
anymore, and these PC graphics cards do very nicely.  An Iris is made
for interactive 3D.  If I have to move it, scale it, wiggle it, or spin
it, I think I'd rather draw it on my Iris.

|> It is interesting that in BYTE a few months back, a Compaq 486/50 with a
|> Matrox display list processor scored substantially better on CAD
|> benchmarks than a more expensive IRIS. That suggests to me that SGI just
|> hasn't gone after the CAD market with any enthusiasm.

I'm not a marketing type, I don't know any marketing types, and I don't
want to be a marketing type.  I also don't speak for SGI, but I *do*
have a point of view.  :)

One of the problems that SGI has faced is that PC-oriented developers
have never had interactive 3D available to them, so they don't really
know how valuable it is.  Things are changing, but it will take time.
In recent history, 3D in the CAD world seemed to mean that you could
*represent* a three dimensional object, and given a sufficient amount
of patient, look it from different angles.  Our founder says "If it
don't move, it ain't 3D!", and that's what we do.  3D CAD to us would
be the ability to just yank the drawn object with the mouse and spin it
around to work on the backside, for example.  Or to finish up the
interior and add the lighting, and then mouse your way into the house
and take a look around on a little tour.  Things things are happening,
but slowly.  What the Iris philosophy gives you is an orientation for
graphics hardware that lets you get all those points transformed and
all those polygons shaded as quickly as possible.  Off-load these
tasks to a processor that is specially made for them, and get them
done in parallel with the rest of the computing.

- donl mathis at Silicon Graphics Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
donl@sgi.com