Wanted: Key to Speedy Particle Rendering...

[Mark T Vandewettering]

I have a new application that requires eeking out the highest
performance possible from our 4D/220.  My current application requires
the capability to draw filtered spheres (possibly transparent) as fast
as possible.  Each point will be relatively small (< 10 pixels) but it
is important that they be drawn with relatively sophisticated filtering
in order to prevent aliasing in the final image.

The current method that I have requires transforming the point into 
screen space by hand, and then using a table indexed by fractional pixel
coordinates to filter the particle and zot it into the frame buffer.
I use the blendfunction() call to composite the points, and draw them
in back to front order.

The main problem is the transform:  translating the point by hand is 
tedious and slow.  I have heard that the graphics pipeline of the 
4/D is microcoded, and may be dynamically changed.   Is this true?
If so, is there documentation on coding applications which might take
advantage of this?  Is there anyway to code the transform and 
filter operations in microcode?  

Thanks for your help

Mark VandeWettering (markv at acm.princeton.edu)