SGI's migration to X

[James Helman]

slehar at bucasb.bu.edu writes:

  (My X image windows are prone to suddenly disappearing if they've
  been around for a while) My advice is to stick with SGI!

This is *not* a problem inherent in X, rather the result of bugs
in SGI's early implementations.

  The trouble is that if you want to do image processing you have to
  get your image data into that structure, and the only routine they
  provide sends the pixels over one by one, OVER THE NETWORK! so that
  even when you display from your own private terminal to your own
  private screen it goes...  "Prepare to receive pixel", "sending
  pixel", "confirm receipt of pixel", "prepare for next pixel"... and
  so forth and of course it takes an eternity to send a whole image!

There's no need to use single pixel transfers, but the basic problem
of trying to cram lots of data down a narrow pipe is inherent in
imaging on network window systems.  There are various implementations
that use shared memory for these transfers when possible.  Sun has
something along these lines called Direct Graphics Access.  Perhaps,
SGI will work to improve X's image transfer performance as well as
supporting GL calls in X windows.

moss at brl.mil (Gary S. Moss (VLD/VMB) <moss>) writes:

  on the SGI, X just plain doesn't work worth a darn under 3.2.x.
  Hopefully 3.3 is much better.

It is *much better*.  I've been running the IRIX 3.3 X server since
the end of June, and it hasn't dumped core once.  Some irritating
drawing bugs remain, but hopefully these will be fixed soon.

Jim Helman
Department of Applied Physics			Durand 012
Stanford University				FAX: (415) 725-3377
(jim at KAOS.stanford.edu) 			Voice: (415) 723-9127