[comp.sys.sgi] Just how fast are these things, anyway?

daves@martha (Dave Springer) (04/25/91)

I would like to know just exactly how fast a PI is, and all the other machines  
SGI makes.  When I say "how fast" I mean how many 10-pixel marketing lines can  
you _really_ get from a client app to the screen; how many 100-pixel marketing  
triangles can you _really_ get, etc. (this includes GL overhead,  
transformations, clipping, and so on).  Please include price information, like  
"On a PI that costs $15,000, you can get 2000 smooth-shaded polygons per sec,  
with 3 lights".  Obviously I can get some numbers from the marketing  
literature, but I get enough lies as it is.  Please respond directly to  
daves@next.com.  Thanks.

der Springer.

tarolli@westcoast.esd.sgi.com (Gary Tarolli) (04/25/91)

In article <558@rosie.NeXT.COM>, daves@martha (Dave Springer) writes:
>I would like to know just exactly how fast a PI is, and all the other machines 
>SGI makes.  When I say "how fast" I mean how many 10-pixel marketing lines can 
>you _really_ get from a client app to the screen; how many 100-pixel marketing 
>triangles can you _really_ get, etc. (this includes GL overhead,  
>transformations, clipping, and so on).  Please include price information, like 

The numbers we report in our marketting literature are actually
attainable in a real application.  When we say the VGX draws
1 million triangles per second (or whatever the number is), you
can write a C pgm to get that performance.  The numbers all
come from actual C benchmark programs.  Now this doesn't
guarantee your application can achieve these numbers, but
if you write your code carefully and operate in the same mode(s)
as the benchmark, you can.


--------------------
	Gary Tarolli

drb@eecg.toronto.edu (David R. Blythe) (04/29/91)

In article <558@rosie.NeXT.COM> daves@martha (Dave Springer) writes:
>I would like to know just exactly how fast a PI is, and all the other machines  
>SGI makes.  When I say "how fast" I mean how many 10-pixel marketing lines can  
>you _really_ get from a client app to the screen; how many 100-pixel marketing  
>triangles can you _really_ get, etc. (this includes GL overhead,  
>transformations, clipping, and so on).  Please include price information, like  
>"On a PI that costs $15,000, you can get 2000 smooth-shaded polygons per sec,  
>with 3 lights".  Obviously I can get some numbers from the marketing  
>literature, but I get enough lies as it is.  Please respond directly to  

From my experience the "marketing" numbers are pretty accurate, at least I
can get the claimed performance if I sweat over my code for a few hours.
Oddly enough, I noted the literature now rates the performance of a 4D/70GT
at 60K polygons/sec up from 40K polygons/sec.  The result of crafty microcoding
and new gl primitives?
	-drb

paquin@kahua.esd.sgi.com (Tom Paquin) (05/04/91)

In article <558@rosie.NeXT.COM>, daves@martha (Dave Springer) writes:
|> When I say "how fast" I mean how many 10-pixel marketing lines can  
|> you _really_ get from a client app to the screen
...
|> Obviously I can get some numbers from the marketing  
|> literature, but I get enough lies as it is.

My experience is that numbers which come out of SGI marketing
are reproducible on a typical machine.  Of course, running
makes and several GL apps simultaneously will trash a benchmark.
But it doesn't take odd configurations, special software, or
eye of newt in the dead of night to get published numbers
from an Iris 4D.  Carefully writing a simple C test should do it.

-- 

		-Tom
*****
Opinions are mine, etc.