[rescue] Sigh

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Thu, Jun 06, 2002 at 01:06:06PM -0700, Gregory Leblanc wrote:
> On Thu, 2002-06-06 at 12:02, Joshua D Boyd wrote:
> > Once again I got sniped with less than 8 seconds to go, so no Indigo2
> > for me today.  And unfortunately, that nicely loaded steal of an O2 is
> > still at steal level pricing, but is now higher that I can scratch
> > together until my next paycheck.
> 
> Darnit, I stopped watching those a few minutes ago, distracted by duties
> elsewhere.  What IS a steal price on an O2 like that one?

Well, in this case, the O2 in question has an AV module (the moose cam
is the giveaway since the guy doesn't mentioned it), and is loaded
with Lightwave 5 and Studio paint.  I'd love those applications.  You
just have to make sure that you back up the HD first thing.

Really, any O2 working under $200 is a good deal.  I call it a steal
if it is that price but with an AV module or special software, or
something else that should make it work considerably more.
 
> I was talking to somebody on #geeks the other day about SGI stuff, and
> where different things fit into the SGI lineup.  Like, the Indy was a
> low-end machine, kind of in the same venue as the SS5, Ultra 5, or the
> Blade 100.  Where's the O2 compete?  I2?

Well, you are talking about two generations of SGIs.  The first of the
two consists of the Indy, Indigo2, and Onyx.  The Indy was low end,
the Indigo2 mid range, and the Onyx highend.

Then all three were replaced with the O2, Octane, and Onyx2.  But, not
things are a little trickier.  You can say that the O2 is the low end,
the Octane the midrange, and the Onyx2 the highend.

In reality, the O2 is enough different from the Octane that it is hard
to say that the O2 is worse.  I think that anything the O2 can do the
Octane (with MXI or better) just as well, but it can require some
wierd work arounds since the Octane expects its textures to be in TRAM
rather than always streaming them from RAM.  If fact, you are trying
to use several hundred megs of textures per every frame, the Octane
might not be able to keep up with the O2 at all.

But, for the most part, this difference only pops up when it comes to
volumetric work (like medical viz.), and if you ignore that part of
the market, an Octane MXI is pretty much universally better.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd