John Archdeacon (jarch++at++gemtech.com)
17 Apr 1996 13:18:52 -0800
Howdy all...
Luke Hoffman of COLSA recently wrote on the Performer news group:
> How do we compare offerings from other vendors with SG equipment.
> Another vendor offering a Vis/Sim solution will almost certainly use
> OpenGL. OpenGL is fine, but it ain't Performer...
Gemini has had a paper entitled "RealWorld Benchmarks for Workstation and PC Computer Image Generation Systems" accepted at the upcoming Image Society meeting in June (Arizona) which largely addresses this issue. Gemini has proposed a new benchmark system for computer image generation (CIG) application developers which will allow end users to compare the relative performance of 3-D graphics systems under identical "realworld" application and database workload (on or off SGI systems). The OpenGVS test suite environment makes this possible as it runs on top of OpenGL (like Performer does) as well as other low level rendering engines (e.g., Direct3D). The test suite as proposed will include a flight simulation stress test, a race car test, and a tank simulation environment test. The paper itself will shortly be published on the WEB at http://www.gemtech.com. Gemini has received favorable comments from some hardware manufacturers who are interested in officially endorsing the test suite.
d good commments as well from SGI (Judith Pafford). The results of tests will be published in June or July on our WEB site.
Don Tidrow at TAACOM wrote in reply to Luke:
> Before Performer was widely available (1.2), we used Gemini
> Technology's GVS software for all our image generation software needs.
> They now have an OpenGL version that runs on other platforms
> (PC's, ..., prob. any other OpenGL platform you want...). It had
> basically everything Performer had...
First, let me say that Performer is a great productivity product, and so is OpenGVS. As Don pointed out, OpenGVS is a computer image generation API with "basically everything Performer has" but unlike Performer, OpenGVS is intended (by design and focus) to be FULLY cross platform compatible at the end user application level while still delivering ALL of the underlying graphics hardware performance to the end user.
OpenGVS is available for SGI IRIX 5.x and 6.x for any SGI
system running with OpenGL (including the new InfiniteReality). OpenGVS is also available NOW for Windows 95, Windows NT, UNIX, and even DOS with 32-bit extenders for developers that aren't yet ready to make the leap to Windows.
The largest difference between OpenGVS and Performer is the target hardware environment; we wrote GVS to be operating system AND graphics system independent. Don was right, OpenGVS supports virtually ANY OpenGL environment under Windows NT, Windows 95, IRIX, DEC-UNIX, HP-UNIX, and (in planning with a customer) Sun's Solaris. So, write your visual simulation application once and you're a recompile and relink away from running your CIG application and databases on different hardware systems (even the makefiles are fully portable across OS).
Don probably didn't know this, but OpenGVS not only runs on top of OpenGL systems, but also with Microsoft Direct3D accelerators. When neither OpenGL or Direct3D are available from the hardware manufacturer, OpenGVS includes a hardware abstraction layer which we call SGL (subset OpenGL); this would include hardware accelerators from 3DFX, subsystems from Lockheed Martin Real3D (Pro 1000 series), and others. Generally, CIG applications written with OpenGVS run everywhere that the user would want.
You can read more about OpenGVS at our web site: http://www.gemtech.com.
Don further wrote:
> My take on all this is that Sun and HP don't seem to be targeting the
> top-end SGI's, instead they are targeting the mid-range (Impact) area.
> The top-end SGI's really compete in the vis/sim arena with ESIG's and
> other dedicated image generators...
Gemini plans to continue supporting all of SGI's excellent graphics hardware (we've used 'em for years too!) including the new and very exciting InfiniteReality line. We do now support the HP-UX line now (in alpha test) and expect to be soon supporting the Solaris environment using OpenGL. We also support DEC-UNIX with OpenGL there as well (e.g., E&S Freedom series).
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Mon Aug 10 1998 - 17:52:44 PDT