Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!ucselx!crash!jcs
From: jcs@crash.cts.com (John Schultz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Re: Graphics in Hardware (was Re: So, does *anyone* make 1024x768 x256...)
Keywords: radiosity, 34020, DMI
Message-ID: <1991May11.085621.7234@crash.cts.com>
Date: 11 May 91 08:56:21 GMT
References: <1991Apr24.043853.20723@coplex.uucp> <15230@helios.TAMU.EDU> <8787@crash.cts.com> <2102@Terra.cc.brunel.ac.uk>
Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA
Lines: 25

In <2102@Terra.cc.brunel.ac.uk> cs87fmc@cc.brunel.ac.uk (F M Cargill) writes:

>In article <8787@crash.cts.com> jcs@crash.cts.com (John Schultz) writes:
>>...The 34020
>>board (still in design phase) will sport a 34082, spec'd out at 40 MFLOPS. It's
>>got built in matrix operations as well. Serious real-time simulation will be
>>possible with this board.
>Will it let you use the 40MFLOPS to do 3D projections?  Hardware Z-buffering
>would be even better - it would let us render scenes using the Radiosity
>model rather than using Ray-Tracing; for animations the former has the
>advantage that you only calculate the scene once (to work out light
>reflections) and you can produce an image of the scene in a matter of seconds,
>from whatever viewpoint you like - Real Time Virtual Reality!

  You can use the 40MFLOPS to do whatever floating point operations you
wish.  Z-buffering in hardware? You'll have to wait for the i860 board.
Not only will you get hardware z-buffering, but Gouraud shaded polygons
at about 40,000/sec (33Mhz part).  25Mhz i860s are down to about $250...
I saw a demo at HP/Apollo with a 68030 machine with an i860 coprocessor
doing real-time radiosity and texture mapping in a window (about four
frames/sec [real-time is relative]).  Still no big deal compared to an
SGI VGX, but a great deal cheaper.


  John