New IBM Graphics Workstations

[David Hinds]

In article <11111 at odin.corp.sgi.com> ciemo at bananaPC.wpd.sgi.com (Dave Ciemiewicz) writes:
>In article <1990Jul29.165033.22289 at portia.Stanford.EDU>,
>dhinds at portia.Stanford.EDU (David Hinds) writes:
>>     The IBM RS6000's have several levels of graphics support.  The 8-bit
>> color 3D graphics level is quoted as doing 90K 3D vectors/sec, and 10K 3D
>> polygons/sec.  The 24-bit color 3D graphics system is quoted as doing
>> 990K 3D vectors/sec and 120K 3D polygons/sec.
>
>Has it been released yet or is it still vaporware?  Something else to
>consider is that IBM's high-end graphics board is an IBM proprietary
>and does not run the GL.

    Is this right?  I thought that all the 3D graphics options for the IBM's
were SGI technology.  An IBM rep told me they would support GL.  I don't
know if it has been shipped yet.

>>     For comparison, SGI says a base IRIS 4D/50 with 8 bit planes does
>> 140K vectors/sec and 5.5K polygons/sec.  An IRIS with GTX graphics is
>> supposed to do 475K vectors/sec and 100K polygons/sec.
>
>Don't forget the VGX system's 1M vps and 1M pps.  This board uses the GL
>unlike IBM's top-o'-the-line.

   Yeah, my table didn't include VGX.

>The graphics performance numbers for the Personal Iris and GT graphics systems
>vps are based on 10 pixel, connected, full 24-bit color, arbitrary orientation
>vectors.  For pps, 10x10 (100 pixel), full 24-bit color, unlighted, Gouraud
>shaded, Z-buffered, arbitrary orientation, polygons.  The numbers for the VGX
>system are based on anti-aliased vectors and polygons in triangle meshes

    OK.  The IBM vectors are the same as the SGI ones.  The sheet says the
polygons were 50 pixel Gouraud shaded triangle mesh.  I don't know how the
speed scales with size.

 -David Hinds
  dhinds at popserver.stanford.edu