[rescue] WTB: SGI (MIPS architecture) Systems

[Richard]

In article <4bfda312.23145e0a.44ca.ffffc8f8 at mx.google.com>,
    "Ian Finder" <ian.finder at gmail.com>  writes:

> Serial? That's pretty slow. How did the 3D commands and gfx commands work?

Local processing is the key to high-speed 3D graphics, both then and now.

As much as SGI liked to talk up immediate mode, even their own
benchmark programs that achieved maximum theoretical rates used
display lists.  The marketing emphasis on immediate mode was for two
reasons: i) its easier to program immediate mode than to program
display lists, regardless of API, and ii) the main competitor to SGI's
GL was the ISO/ANSI standard PHIGS/PHIGS-PLUS, which *only* used
display lists.  (Vendor extensions provided immediate mode mechanisms,
but IIRC this was never incorporated by the standards body as
official.)

For terminals, the idea was to get all your data uploaded into the
terminal and then send small byte sequences which changed viewing
parameters.  It wasn't until you got workstations with high bandwidth
between the graphics system and the CPU that you could have per-frame
CPU-generated geometry of any significant size and still maintain
interactivity.

Even in high-end real-time games today, they typically do not generate
on-the-fly significant amounts of dynamic geometry on the CPU.  There
are lots of fancy tricks that are used to create dynamic geometry all
on the GPU.
-- 
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
 <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>

      Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>