grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins) (07/06/90)
Any of you DECstation experts out there want to talk a little about about
whether the UWS 4.0 X servers will support / make effective use of the added
accelerator hardware on the PXG display controller?
I'm trying to migrate a PC layout application where the users are accustomed to
using a relatively low resolution display, but with hardware zoom and pan, over
to a bit-mapped workstation environment. They like the speed of the DS3100 on
the compute bound phases, but hate the graphics. I feel that there's some
graphics performance point, at which their objections turn to mere grumbling.
From the graphics performance white paper, it appears the DS5100 PX would be
2-4 times as fast at redraw, but the PXG is only $2k more and I'd pay it
gladly if it would help speed things up a bit more or provide additional
backing memory or other notable improvement.
Most of the PXG and PXG turbo discussion centers on PHIGS performance, but
I'd really like to know if X can use the added hardware or just ignores it...
On a slightly different note, what form do the 8->24 bitplane and Z-buffer
upgrades take? Is it some new module, or just adding some video simms?
--
George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr
but no way officially representing: domain: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com
Commodore, Engineering Department phone: 215-431-9349 (only by moonlite)hascall@cs.iastate.edu (John Hascall) (07/10/90)
In article <13071@cbmvax.commodore.com> grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins) writes: }whether the UWS 4.0 X servers will support / make effective use of the added }accelerator hardware on the PXG display controller? I really doubt it (although to be honest I've only used a CX and a PXG Turbo). Here's a quick run down on the graphics hardware: CX: (zip) PX: 1 Pixel Stamp PXG: 1 Pixel Stamp, i860(33Mhz) PXGT: 2 Pixel Stamps, i860(40Mhz) And since the Pixel Stamp is the 2-D engine and the i860 is the 3-D engine (obviously this is a little simplified) I don't think the X11 (2-D) performance will be significantly better (I seem to recall a document on gatekeeper.dec.com with numbers...this may be the one you mentioned?). }Most of the PXG and PXG turbo discussion centers on PHIGS performance, but }I'd really like to know if X can use the added hardware or just ignores it... ...because PHIGS is 3-D... ...(hmmm, what about PEX??)... }On a slightly different note, what form do the 8->24 bitplane and Z-buffer }upgrades take? Is it some new module, or just adding some video simms? ...little boards which plug into the existing module (probably just simms, but I only got a glimpse)... John Hascall john@iastate.edu / hascall@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu