🚀 go-pugleaf

Craig Dewick (cdewick@lios.apana.org.au) wrote:
: Sam Nickerson <sam.nickerson@wcom.com> writes:
: 
: >This may sound like a stupid question, but which is the better
: >performer? The Ultra1 benifits from SCSI, and I believe a better video
: >card (Creator 3d).
: 
: Only if there is actually a Creator card fitted... Remember than Ultra-1's
: are Sbus-based. I don't know if there are Sbus versions of the Creator
: cards.

The Ultra 1E has a horizontal UPA slave slot for a Creator/Creator3D card.
It sounds like the system the original poster was referring to has a
Creator3D installed.

If so, this is quite a fast system for OpenGL as long as you don't try
texturing.  Even early versions of the Creator3D are remarkably fast,
surpassing much of the current PC 3D market.  They do geometry calcs and
shading in hardware and do it very well, but no texturing acceleration at
all.  A perfect fit for most CAD but not so great for 3D games.

: And is loses out because it's an attempt to make a Sparc-based PC clone,
: meaning it has IDE instead of SCSI, uses PC-100 RAM modules, etc..

It does not use commodity PC-100 RAM.  It uses JEDEC parity DIMMs.

SCSI isn't really a showstopper.  I'm much more annoyed that they designed
the case specifically so a UPA framebuffer couldn't be used.

-James