Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!uw-beaver!milton!hlab From: cdshaw@scapa.cs.ualberta.ca (Chris Shaw) Subject: Re: Real-time raytrace -- get serious! Message-ID: <1991May15.050715.28438@milton.u.washington.edu> Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu (Human Int. Technology Lab) Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada Date: Mon, 13 May 1991 22:19:00 -0600 Approved: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu In article Filip Gieszczykiewicz writes: > Greetings. Well, I finally got my 486/25 (25MHz) > Real-time raytracing is not as far away as most of you led me > to believe.... Why? Well, I did a 320x200x~256 image of a > sphere, 1/2 cylinder "pillar", and a room with brick walls (one of the > files included in the .ZIP file). It took less than 2 minutes. >Filip Gieszczykiewicz Whoa, there. That's quite a simple model you traced! Plus you don't say how deep the reflection tree goes, what the stuff is "made" of.... Also, the 486/25 is a pretty decent CPU. Not the hottest on the planet, but not shabby either. So fine, you got a simple model, a fast-ish CPU, a small screen, and it takes 2 minutes. To get 0.5 seconds (the absolute minimum) you need a speedup of 2*60*2 = 240. Just buying 240 486/25's is going to cost you $500,000 !! With that kind of money you can buy 1,000,000 gouraud shaded polygons per second, without sweating the frame buffer sharing required by a parallel, real-time ray tracer. After all, the ideal machine for tracing rays is the AT&T Pixel Machine, and that doesn't deliver real time ray tracing, either! -- Chris Shaw University of Alberta cdshaw@cs.UAlberta.ca Now with new, minty Internet flavour! CatchPhrase: Bogus as HELL !