On 30 Aug 99, at 17:23, Bob Wright wrote:

> At 02:34 PM 8/30/99 , David Gillett wrote:
>
>
> >   I too have a RAGE 128, and am very happy with it, even though it has
> >   "only"
> >16 MB of RAM.  Note that at 1600x1200 resolution and 32bpp depth, 8GB
> >should be enough, and more is useful only when running 3D rendering
> >software *that takes advantage of it*.
> >   My hunch is that if your customer is doing 3D rendering that actually
> >   needs
> >more than 16 MB on the video card, they may want to consider one of the
> >cards that does OpenGL in hardware -- the last time I checked, these were
> >in the $500-1K range.
>
>
> I hate to disagree with David, but...
>
> My card is the ATI Rage Fury 128 card with 32mg ram and TV out.   This
> card features hardware OpenGL, DirectX support, hardware MPEG-2/DVD
> decoder and 32-bit true color 3D acceleration.  I bought this card last
> May for around $175.00.

  When I said "OpenGL in hardware", the magic acronym I had forgotten was
3DLabs' "GLINT" chipset -- used on cards such as the "Oxygen" series or
ELSA's "GLoria" line -- cards that I see listed now for (varying with on-
board RAM and features) $635 - $1767.
  My understanding is that GLINT is still in a whole other realm of 3D
hardware performance from the consumer-level OpenGL provided by 3Dfx, NVidia,
ATI and so on -- and that high-end 3D drawing/rendering tools may
specifically require GLINT and not just "support for OpenGL".
  [You must look very closely at what their intended software sauys it
requires.  I wouldn't know these GLINT cards existed, if we hadn't at one
point looked at a network management tool which turned out to require GLINT.]



David G

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                       Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>