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From: mark@calvin..westford.ccur.com (Mark Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Real-time graphics via computer - custom hardware?
Message-ID: <61528@masscomp.ccur.com>
Date: 11 Dec 90 15:19:43 GMT
References: <1990Dec08.075337.10213@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
Sender: news@masscomp.ccur.com
Reply-To: mark@calvin.westford.ccur.com (Mark Thompson)
Organization: Concurrent Computer Corp. Westford MA.
Lines: 64

In article <1990Dec08.075337.10213@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) writes:
>I would like to build a graphics display which can display high-res color
>images from a computer-generated list of objects (ie: the screen has xxx
>objects, here are their coordinates, and apparent sizes) in real-time.  To
>me, real-time means something better than 10-15 frames per second; like 30.
>Resolution requirements are fairly high; perhaps as high as 1280x1024 in 256
>colors.

In summary you want real-time 3D rendering at 1280x1024 for <$5K each
for 20 systems.
Your best bet is an off the shelf i860 based rendering engine. These are
capable of somewhere around 20K to 50K polygons per second for a modest
price: $5K to $10K. This will limit your scene complexity to under 600
to 1600 polygons, a fairly crude scene. To do better than this you are going
to have to pay the BIG bucks. These boards are available for various
platforms from several vendors. Of hand I know of Levco and Lazerus who
make them for the Mac and PEECEE respectively. I hear there is one in the
works for the Amiga also. Since you are doing real-time animation, before
by you buy one of these, check out the overhead required for such a task
on each board, for example screen clears better be damn FAST! Also make
sure they are double buffered.

>I'm willing to build custom hardware if needed.  My >preference< is to buy
>something off the shelf. I may need as many as 20 of these things, and
>ideally would like to keep the board cost under $5k/unit in small quantities.

You will not be able to build it your self and make the price point,
not at only 20 units.

>It's obvious that at 1024x1280 this is going to be a hell of a problem.  At
>640x480, or even 400x300 it's not going to be easy.

No, the real problem is the rendering speed, not the resolution.

>VGA-style resolution (and color mapping) is probably the bottom of the line
>on this one.

You cannot have smooth shading without true color. It is very unlikely
that you will be able to remap your true color display into 8bits in
real time. This means your absolute minimum is 12 bits per pixel for
acceptable results, but it will look pretty bad unless you dither.

>Can an Amiga 3000 handle this kind of graphics load?  I know they have some
>darn nice graphics capabilities, but are they up to something this nasty?

NO off the shelf micro can handle real time rendering. The Amiga can't be
beat for cost effective real time animation at up to 60 frames per second,
however these are pre-computed animation loops. Unless you seriously
degrade your scene complexity, remove smooth shading, and drop your resolution
will you ever get close to 10-15 frames per second.

Contacts:
Levco........(619) 457-2011
Lazerus......(415) 339-6263
These are both good rendering engines but I do not know if they are capable
of real-time animated rendering.

Hope this helps.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Mark Thompson                                                           |
|  mark@westford.ccur.com                                                  |
|  ...!{decvax,uunet}!masscomp!mark   Designing high performance graphics  |
|  (508)392-2480                      engines today for a better tomorrow. |
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