Performer and RealityEngine
Last updated: October 7, 1999
Versions
of Performer that support RealityEngine
Performer
2.2 system and feature query for IrisGL and OpenGL
How
well does RealityEngine run under Performer?
What versions of Performer support RealityEngine?
Thanks to Onyx RealityEngine2 sharing much of the same hardware as Crimson RealityEngine, RealityEngine is supported by the latest version of performer for Irix 6.2 - performer 2.2.2 (performer 2.2 with patch3229).
Performer 2.2 System and Feature Query for IrisGL and OpenGL
The following tables give some information on the capabilities of the RealityEngine graphics boardset with 1 x RM5 under Performer 2.2 and are derived from the querysys and queryftr programs provided with the performer demo source in /usr/share/Performer/src/pguide/libpr.
GL TYPE: IRISGL GL TYPE: OPENGL NUM_CPUS: 1 NUM_CPUS: 1 NUM_SCREENS: 1 NUM_SCREENS: 1 SIZE_PIX_X: 1280 SIZE_PIX_X: 1280 SIZE_PIX_Y: 1024 SIZE_PIX_Y: 1024 MAX_SNG_RGB_BITS: 12 MAX_SNG_RGB_BITS: 12 MAX_SNG_ALPHA_BITS: 12 MAX_SNG_ALPHA_BITS: 12 MAX_DBL_RGB_BITS: 12 MAX_DBL_RGB_BITS: 12 MAX_DBL_ALPHA_BITS: 12 MAX_DBL_ALPHA_BITS: 12 MAX_DEPTH_BITS: 32 MAX_DEPTH_BITS: 32 MAX_DEPTH_VAL: 2e32 MAX_DEPTH_VAL: 1 MIN_DEPTH_VAL: -2e32 MIN_DEPTH_VAL: 0 MAX_STENCIL_BITS: 8 MAX_STENCIL_BITS: 8 MAX_MS_SAMPLES: 0 MAX_MS_SAMPLES: 0 MAX_MS_DEPTH_BITS: 24 MAX_MS_DEPTH_BITS: 0 MAX_MS_STENCIL_BITS: 8 MAX_MS_STENCIL_BITS: 0 TEXTURE_MEMORY_BYTES: 16777216 TEXTURE_MEMORY_BYTES: 16777216 * MAX_TEXTURE_SIZE: 8388608 MAX_TEXTURE_SIZE: 8388608 * MAX_CLIPTEXTURE_SIZE: 0 MAX_CLIPTEXTURE_SIZE: 0 TEX_SUBLOAD_ALIGNMENT_S: 0 TEX_SUBLOAD_ALIGNMENT_S: 32 TEX_SUBLOAD_ALIGNMENT_T: 0 TEX_SUBLOAD_ALIGNMENT_T: 32*With a standard RM4 (with 4Mb of texture memory) max_texture_size is 2097152 and texture_memory_bytes is 4194304.
Here is the output from queryftr for both IrisGL and OpenGL for a RealityEngine pipe with one raster manager. Clicking on the feature string in the IrisGL column will get you the relevant info about the feature string from the performer 2.2 pfQueryFeature man page. Note that N means the feature is not supported and FAST means that it is probably reasonable to use this feature in a real time simulation.
GL TYPE: IRISGL GL TYPE: OPENGL VSYNC = N VSYNC = FAST VSYNC_SET = N VSYNC_SET = N GANGDRAW = N GANGDRAW = N HYPERPIPE = N HYPERPIPE = N STEREO_IN_WINDOW = N STEREO_IN_WINDOW = FAST PBUFFER = N PBUFFER = FAST TAG_CLEAR = N TAG_CLEAR = N XSGIVC = FAST XSGIVC = FAST MULTISAMPLE = N MULTISAMPLE = N MULTISAMPLE_TRANSP = N MULTISAMPLE_TRANSP = N MULTISAMPLE_ROUND_POINTS = N MULTISAMPLE_ROUND_POINTS = N MULTISAMPLE_STENCIL = N MULTISAMPLE_STENCIL = N COLOR_ABGR = FAST COLOR_ABGR = FAST DISPLACE_POLYGON = FAST DISPLACE_POLYGON = FAST DECAL_PLANE = N DECAL_PLANE = N POLYMODE = FAST POLYMODE = FAST TRANSPARENCY = FAST TRANSPARENCY = FAST MTL_CMODE = FAST MTL_CMODE = FAST FOG_SPLINE = N FOG_SPLINE = N FOG_LAYERED = N FOG_LAYERED = N ALPHA_FUNC = FAST ALPHA_FUNC = FAST ALPHA_FUNC_COMPARE_REF = FAST ALPHA_FUNC_COMPARE_REF = FAST BLENDCOLOR = FAST BLENDCOLOR = FAST BLEND_FUNC_SUBTRACT = N BLEND_FUNC_SUBTRACT = FAST BLEND_FUNC_MINMAX = N BLEND_FUNC_MINMAX = FAST FRAMEZOOM = N FRAMEZOOM = N GLSPRITE = N GLSPRITE = N LIGHTPOINT = N LIGHTPOINT = N DVR = N DVR = N LMODEL_ATTENUATION = FAST LMODEL_ATTENUATION = N LIGHT_ATTENUATION = N LIGHT_ATTENUATION = FAST LIGHT_CLR_SPECULAR = N LIGHT_CLR_SPECULAR = FAST TEXTURE = FAST TEXTURE = FAST TEXTURE_16BIT_IFMTS = N TEXTURE_16BIT_IFMTS = FAST TEXTURE_SUBTEXTURE = FAST TEXTURE_SUBTEXTURE = FAST TEXTURE_TRILINEAR = FAST TEXTURE_TRILINEAR = FAST TEXTURE_DETAIL = N TEXTURE_DETAIL = FAST TEXTURE_SHARPEN = N TEXTURE_SHARPEN = FAST TEXTURE_3D = FAST TEXTURE_3D = FAST TEXTURE_PROJECTIVE = FAST TEXTURE_PROJECTIVE = FAST TEXTURE_EDGE_CLAMP = N TEXTURE_EDGE_CLAMP = N TEXTURE_CLIPMAP = N TEXTURE_CLIPMAP = N TEXTURE_5551 = N TEXTURE_5551 = N TEXTURE_LOD_RANGE = N TEXTURE_LOD_RANGE = N TEXTURE_LOD_BIAS = N TEXTURE_LOD_BIAS = N READ_MSDEPTH_BUFFER = N READ_MSDEPTH_BUFFER = N COPY_MSDEPTH_BUFFER = N COPY_MSDEPTH_BUFFER = N READ_TEXTURE_MEMORY = N READ_TEXTURE_MEMORY = N COPY_TEXTURE_MEMORY = N COPY_TEXTURE_MEMORY = N TEXTURE_SHADOW = FAST TEXTURE_SHADOW = N CALLIGRAPHIC = N CALLIGRAPHIC = N PFQFTR_PIPE_STATS = N PFQFTR_PIPE_STATS = N
Note that when you have more than one raster manager, a number of
other performer features now become possible. Those relating to multisampling
become available because of the additional framebuffer memory available
in each raster manager (see the RealityEngine
graphics buffer config page for details). Here are those features from
queryftr
which are different for a RealityEngine with more than one raster manager:
VSYNC = FAST VSYNC = FAST VSYNC_SET = FAST VSYNC_SET = N GANGDRAW = FAST GANGDRAW = N HYPERPIPE = FAST HYPERPIPE = N STEREO_IN_WINDOW = FAST STEREO_IN_WINDOW = FAST TAG_CLEAR = FAST TAG_CLEAR = FAST XSGIVC = FAST XSGIVC = FAST MULTISAMPLE = FAST MULTISAMPLE = FAST MULTISAMPLE_TRANSP = FAST MULTISAMPLE_TRANSP = FAST MULTISAMPLE_ROUND_POINTS = FAST MULTISAMPLE_ROUND_POINTS = FAST MULTISAMPLE_STENCIL = true MULTISAMPLE_STENCIL = trueThere are a few interesting points that should be raised about these differences. The first relates to TAG_CLEAR. This feature (using the multisampling buffers) is much faster at clearing the depth buffer than a normal glClear because only samples are cleared and not the depth buffer itself. Since clearing buffers is required at every frame any speed up in this operation is definitely desirable. Lastly, you should note that with more than one raster manager other interesting IrisGL operations such as gangdraw (for simulator and MCO use) become available. Unfortunately IrisGL is fading fast in performer 2.2 (some features such as pfImageCache just dont work with IrisGL at all) so I'm not sure how useful these gains are. For a more general discussion of the benefits of more than one raster manager see the relevant section on the main page.
Here are those features from querysys which are specific to the RealityEngine with four raster managers and screen size of 1280x2056 (driving two 1280x1024 screens):
GL TYPE: IRISGL GL TYPE: OPENGL NUM_CPUS: 1 NUM_CPUS: 1 NUM_SCREENS: 1 NUM_SCREENS: 1 SIZE_PIX_X: 1280 SIZE_PIX_X: 1280 SIZE_PIX_Y: 2056 SIZE_PIX_Y: 2056
... MAX_MS_SAMPLES: 8 MAX_MS_SAMPLES: 8 MAX_MS_DEPTH_BITS: 32 MAX_MS_DEPTH_BITS: 32 MAX_MS_STENCIL_BITS: 8 MAX_MS_STENCIL_BITS: 8Here is the glxinfo information for the RealityEngine with one RM5 raster manager:
display: :0 server glx vendor string: SGI server glx version string: 1.1 Irix 6.2 server glx extensions (GLX_): EXT_import_context, EXT_visual_info, EXT_visual_rating, SGI_make_current_read, SGI_swap_control, SGI_video_sync, SGIS_multisample, SGIX_fbconfig, SGIX_pbuffer, SGIX_video_resize, SGIX_video_source. client glx version 1.1 client glx extensions (GLX_): EXT_import_context, EXT_visual_info, EXT_visual_rating, SGI_make_current_read, SGI_swap_control, SGI_video_sync, SGIS_multisample, SGIX_fbconfig, SGIX_pbuffer, SGIX_video_resize, SGIX_video_source. OpenGL vendor string: SGI OpenGL renderer string: REC/S/1/8 OpenGL version string: 1.0 Irix 6.2 OpenGL extensions (GL_): EXT_abgr, EXT_blend_color, EXT_blend_logic_op, EXT_blend_minmax, EXT_blend_subtract, EXT_histogram, EXT_polygon_offset, EXT_texture, EXT_texture3D, EXT_texture_object, EXT_vertex_array, SGI_color_matrix, SGI_texture_color_table, SGIS_detail_texture, SGIS_multisample, SGIS_sharpen_texture, SGIX_tag_sample_buffer.The renderer strings (see OpenGL renderer string above) I have are:
The OpenGL visuals for RealityEngine with one raster manager are as follows: visual x bf lv rg d st r g b a ax dp st accum buffs ms id dep cl sp sz l ci b ro sz sz sz sz bf th cl r g b a ns b ----------------------------------------------------------------- 0x21 2 pc y 2 1 c y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x22 2 pc y 2 1 c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x23 2 pc . 2 1 c y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x24 2 pc . 2 1 c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x26 4 pc y 4 1 c y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x27 4 pc y 4 1 c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x28 4 pc . 4 1 c y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x29 4 pc . 4 1 c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x2b 8 pc . 8 . c . . . . . . . 32 8 . . . . . . 0x31 8 pc y 8 . c . . . . . . . 32 8 . . . . . . 0x37 8 pc y 8 1 c y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x38 8 pc y 8 1 c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x39 8 pc . 8 1 c y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x3a 8 pc . 8 1 c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x46 12 pc . 12 . c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x47 12 pc . 12 . c . . . . . . . 32 8 . . . . . . 0x48 12 pc . 12 . c y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x49 12 pc . 12 . c . . . . . . 1 32 8 . . . . . . 0x4a 12 pc . 12 . c y . . . . . . 32 8 . . . . . . 0x4b 12 pc y 12 . c . . . . . . 1 32 8 . . . . . . 0x4c 12 pc . 12 . c y . . . . . 1 32 8 . . . . . . 0x4d 12 pc . 12 . c . y . . . . . 32 8 . . . . . . 0x4e 12 pc . 12 . c . y . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . 0x4f 12 pc . 12 . c y y . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x50 12 pc y 12 . c y . . . . . 1 32 8 . . . . . . 0x51 12 pc y 12 . c . y . . . . . 32 8 . . . . . . 0x52 12 pc y 12 . c . y . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . 0x53 12 pc y 12 . c y y . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x56 24 tc . 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 . . . . . . . . . 0x57 24 tc . 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 . 32 8 . . . . . . ----------------------------------------------------------------- id dep cl xp bs lv rg d st rb gb bb ab ax dp st ar ag ab aa ms,b ----------------------------------------------------------------- 0x58 24 tc . 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . . . . . . . . . 0x59 24 tc . 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . 32 8 . . . . . . 0x5a 24 tc . 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 . 32 8 24 24 24 24 . . 0x5b 24 tc . 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 1 . . 24 24 24 24 . . 0x5c 24 tc . 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 1 32 8 12 12 12 12 . . 0x5d 24 tc . 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . . . 24 24 24 24 . . 0x5e 24 tc . 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . 32 8 12 12 12 12 . . 0x5f 24 tc . 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 1 . . 12 12 12 12 . . 0x60 24 tc . 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 1 32 8 . . . . . . 0x61 24 tc . 24 . r . y 12 12 12 12 . . . 12 12 12 12 . . 0x62 24 tc . 24 . r . y 12 12 12 12 . 32 8 . . . . . . 0x63 24 tc . 24 . r . y 12 12 12 12 1 . . . . . . . . 0x64 24 tc . 24 . r y y 12 12 12 12 . . . . . . . . . 0x65 24 tc y 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 . 32 8 24 24 24 24 . . 0x66 24 tc y 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 1 . . 24 24 24 24 . . 0x67 24 tc y 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 1 32 8 12 12 12 12 . . 0x68 24 tc y 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . . . 24 24 24 24 . . 0x69 24 tc y 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . 32 8 12 12 12 12 . . 0x6a 24 tc y 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 1 . . 12 12 12 12 . . 0x6b 24 tc y 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 1 32 8 . . . . . . 0x6c 24 tc y 24 . r . y 12 12 12 12 . . . 12 12 12 12 . . 0x6d 24 tc y 24 . r . y 12 12 12 12 . 32 8 . . . . . . 0x6e 24 tc y 24 . r . y 12 12 12 12 1 . . . . . . . . 0x6f 24 tc y 24 . r y y 12 12 12 12 . . . . . . . . . 0x70 24 tc . 24 . r . y 8 8 8 . 1 24 1 . . . . . . 0x71 24 tc y 24 . r . y 8 8 8 . 1 24 1 . . . . . . 0x72 24 tc . 24 . r y y 8 8 8 . 1 24 1 . . . . . . 0x73 24 tc y 24 . r y y 8 8 8 . 1 24 1 . . . . . . ----------------------------------------------------------------- visual x bf lv rg d st r g b a ax dp st accum buffs ms id dep cl sp sz l ci b ro sz sz sz sz bf th cl r g b a ns b -----------------------------------------------------------------
Here are the OpenGL visuals for the RealityEngine with four raster managers:
visual x bf lv rg d st r g b a ax dp st accum buffs ms id dep cl sp sz l ci b ro sz sz sz sz bf th cl r g b a ns b ----------------------------------------------------------------- 0x21 2 pc y 2 1 c y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x22 2 pc y 2 1 c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x23 2 pc . 2 1 c y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x24 2 pc . 2 1 c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x26 4 pc y 4 1 c y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x27 4 pc y 4 1 c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x28 4 pc . 4 1 c y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x29 4 pc . 4 1 c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x2b 8 pc . 8 . c . . . . . . . 32 8 . . . . . . 0x31 8 pc y 8 . c . . . . . . . 32 8 . . . . . . 0x37 8 pc y 8 1 c y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x38 8 pc y 8 1 c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x39 8 pc . 8 1 c y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x3a 8 pc . 8 1 c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x46 12 pc . 12 . c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x47 12 pc . 12 . c . . . . . . . 32 8 . . . . . . 0x48 12 pc . 12 . c y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0x49 12 pc . 12 . c y . . . . . . 32 8 . . . . . . 0x4a 12 pc . 12 . c . . . . . . 2 32 8 . . . . . . 0x4b 12 pc y 12 . c . . . . . . 2 32 8 . . . . . . 0x4c 12 pc . 12 . c y . . . . . 2 32 8 . . . . . . 0x4d 12 pc y 12 . c y . . . . . 2 32 8 . . . . . . 0x4e 12 pc . 12 . c . y . . . . 2 32 8 . . . . . . 0x4f 12 pc y 12 . c . y . . . . 2 32 8 . . . . . . 0x50 12 pc . 12 . c y y . . . . 2 32 8 . . . . . . 0x51 12 pc y 12 . c y y . . . . 2 32 8 . . . . . . 0x54 24 tc . 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 . . . . . . . . . 0x55 24 tc . 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 . 32 8 . . . . . . 0x56 24 tc . 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . . . . . . . . . 0x57 24 tc . 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . 32 8 . . . . . . ----------------------------------------------------------------- id dep cl xp bs lv rg d st rb gb bb ab ax dp st ar ag ab aa ms,b ----------------------------------------------------------------- 0x58 24 tc . 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 2 32 8 12 12 12 12 . . 0x59 24 tc . 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 2 32 8 24 24 24 24 . . 0x5a 24 tc . 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 2 32 8 12 12 12 12 . . 0x5b 24 tc y 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 2 32 8 24 24 24 24 . . 0x5c 24 tc . 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 2 32 8 24 24 24 24 . . 0x5d 24 tc . 24 . r . y 12 12 12 12 2 32 8 12 12 12 12 . . 0x5e 24 tc y 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 2 32 8 24 24 24 24 . . 0x5f 24 tc . 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . . . 24 24 24 24 4 1 0x60 24 tc . 24 . r . y 12 12 12 12 . . . 12 12 12 12 4 1 0x61 24 tc . 24 . r . y 12 12 12 12 2 32 8 24 24 24 24 . . 0x62 24 tc . 24 . r y y 12 12 12 12 2 32 8 12 12 12 12 . . 0x63 24 tc y 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . . . 24 24 24 24 4 1 0x64 24 tc y 24 . r . y 12 12 12 12 2 32 8 24 24 24 24 . . 0x65 24 tc . 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 . 24 8 12 12 12 12 4 1 0x66 24 tc . 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . 24 8 . . . . 4 1 0x67 24 tc . 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 . . . . . . . 8 1 0x68 24 tc . 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 . 24 . 24 24 24 24 4 1 0x69 24 tc . 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . 24 . 12 12 12 12 4 1 0x6a 24 tc . 24 . r . y 12 12 12 12 . 24 . . . . . 4 1 0x6b 24 tc . 24 . r . y 12 12 12 12 . . . 24 24 24 24 4 1 0x6c 24 tc . 24 . r y y 12 12 12 12 . . . 12 12 12 12 4 1 0x6d 24 tc . 24 . r y y 12 12 12 12 2 32 8 24 24 24 24 . . 0x6e 24 tc y 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 . . . . . . . 8 1 0x6f 24 tc y 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 . 24 . 24 24 24 24 4 1 0x70 24 tc y 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . 24 . 12 12 12 12 4 1 0x71 24 tc y 24 . r . y 12 12 12 12 . 24 . . . . . 4 1 0x72 24 tc y 24 . r . y 12 12 12 12 . . . 24 24 24 24 4 1 0x73 24 tc y 24 . r y y 12 12 12 12 . . . 12 12 12 12 4 1 0x74 24 tc y 24 . r y y 12 12 12 12 2 32 8 24 24 24 24 . . 0x75 24 tc . 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 . 32 8 12 12 12 12 4 1 ----------------------------------------------------------------- id dep cl xp bs lv rg d st rb gb bb ab ax dp st ar ag ab aa ms,b ----------------------------------------------------------------- 0x76 24 tc . 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . 32 8 . . . . 4 1 0x77 24 tc y 24 . r . . 12 12 12 12 . 32 8 12 12 12 12 4 1 0x78 24 tc y 24 . r y . 12 12 12 12 . 32 8 . . . . 4 1 0x79 24 tc . 24 . r . . 8 8 8 . . 24 1 . . . . 4 1 0x7a 24 tc y 24 . r . . 8 8 8 . . 24 1 . . . . 4 1 0x7b 24 tc . 24 . r y . 8 8 8 . . 24 1 . . . . 4 1 0x7c 24 tc y 24 . r y . 8 8 8 . . 24 1 . . . . 4 1 0x7d 24 tc . 24 . r . y 8 8 8 . . 24 1 . . . . 4 1 0x7e 24 tc . 24 . r . y 8 8 8 . . . . . . . . 8 1 0x7f 24 tc y 24 . r . y 8 8 8 . . 24 1 . . . . 4 1 0x80 24 tc y 24 . r . y 8 8 8 . . . . . . . . 8 1 0x81 24 tc . 24 . r y y 8 8 8 . . 24 1 . . . . 4 1 0x82 24 tc . 24 . r y y 8 8 8 . . . . . . . . 8 1 0x83 24 tc y 24 . r y y 8 8 8 . . 24 1 . . . . 4 1 0x84 24 tc y 24 . r y y 8 8 8 . . . . . . . . 8 1 0x85 24 tc . 24 . r . . 8 8 8 . . 24 1 . . . . 8 1 0x86 24 tc y 24 . r . . 8 8 8 . . 24 1 . . . . 8 1 0x87 24 tc . 24 . r y . 8 8 8 . . 24 1 . . . . 8 1 0x88 24 tc y 24 . r y . 8 8 8 . . 24 1 . . . . 8 1
How
well does Performer 2.2 run on RealityEngine?
Considering the age of RealityEngine - brilliantly.
For the traditional town and village demos, you can fly around the town with the frame rate (on the RM5 RE) never dropping below 10 frames/second and most often over 20 frames/second. Really impressive.
As far as the new performer 2.2 features of active surface definition and cliptexture are concerned, ASDs are supported on RealityEngine but cliptextures (which require some hardware OpenGL support) are not. Its unfortunate that the yosemite demo that comes with performer 2.2 (which will not work at all on RealityEngine - it core dumps) uses cliptextures and is not really suited to anything other than an InfiniteReality! Indeed though it runs on my Octane SI+Tex the textures look really ugly because it ends up using the smallest mipmap stack. It would have been nice if a demonstration which uses ASDs but not cliptextures had also been supplied as there are far more Octanes, Indigo2s, RealityEngine2s etc out there than InfiniteReality! It would also destroy the idea that peformer is much more oriented around/toward the big end of the SGI range.
To test out the ASD facilities on RealityEngine and Impact (and perhaps
provide a more generally accessible demonstration program for performer
2.2), I am working on a simulation involving a beach/bush national park
in north-eastern Tasmania known as Mt William. I have created a 5 level
ASD (using the ASDgen extensions to libpfdu (see http://reality.sgi.com/yair/ASDGen)
and the performer utility convasd) from an 1120x1200 25m resolution
DEM. I intend to use the pfImageCache setup to drive a high-detail texture
tile (1024x1024 on machines with 4Mb TRAM and 2048x2048 on the 16Mb TRAM
RE) across this ASD. At present you can look at the paging ASD with a simple
1024x1024 texture or a 2048x2048 texture as I havent ironed out the complexities
of the performer pfImageCache yet. On RE, with a LOD scale of 5, the frame
rate is quite good (around 10 frames/second) and the morphing terrain looks
quite funky! I'll shortly be able to release this demonstration (after
some red-tape on the data sources is cleared) and you will be able to download
it from this site and maybe a mirror somewhere in the US if you want to
try it.