As an aside, I would say that you can buy 2nd hand Octanes, phone up SGI, and they will give you a support contract - they will even check the machines over for you.
The total cost will be a fraction of the cost of a new dual Xeon workstation.
Again, this would be a foolish decision to apply across the board, but if you're doing the sort of effects work where the strengths of something like Octane are a bonus, it's a good solution.
I know someone who runs an effects house who has bought dual CPU Octanes and 4 way Origin 2000 desksides for each of the animators.
The Octane gets used for the creative work, the Origin for the render.
They're using Maya5, and this solution cost them less than the cost of dual Xeon gfx workstations for each animator, and a render farm. A renderfarm sounds like a cool idea, but it's not just the cost of the kit (something people on/. seem to forget). It's the cost of the network infrastructure and storage to support it all. If people think SGI workstations, new, are expensive, you should check out the costs of a SAN to support the work of a renderfarm!
You need to be able to render something in realtime, combining rendered scenes and a live video feed, and then to display that on a monitor or writing it out to digital storage - and all in real time.
This is not a function of the CPU of the GFX card - they both play a part, but not as much as you seem to assume.
The main thing here is *bandwidth*. You have to have a large amount of non-contentious bandwidth to chuck all that data around.
Point to point bandwidth between multiple devices - CPU to memory, CPU to GFX, GFX to memory, CPU to output pipe, input pipe to GFX, etc. etc.
One approach was UMA, which SGI pioneered in the O2. A 7year old SGI O2, even a low end one, can handle 800mb textures in realtime with ease. There is little available today that can even approach that.
Another approach is some sort of IO switch. SGI have the crossbar in the Octane/Octane2, which is old tech based on the IO infrastructure of the Origin 2000.
The Octane's crossbar switch gives you a large amount of non-contentious bandwith, which is why, for instance, a low end 195mhz SGI Octane from 1998 can apply in incoming digital feed as a texture to an object, and display that on digital output, in real time.
Remember the Anubis warriors in The Mummy Returns? Their skin was a texture from a feed that was applied in real time - this was so the animators could get a good feel for how their animation changes effected the scene.
Sun have a similar sort of setup with their UPA crossbar on their Ultrasparc kit. IBM and DEC^W^Compaq^WHP a similar deal.
The reason UNIX vendors can charge lots for their kit is the years of R&D they've put into solving problems like this, which just don't appear on low end commodity kit.
The Origin2000 can scale to 1024 CPUs in a single system image - it's one OS, no partitions. Sure, that's for a niche market, but it doesn't change the fact that there is a serious IO contention issue that needs to be solved in that scenario. SGI have then taken that solution and thrown it into their graphics workstations.
CPU speed and gfx speed will not help here - neither will the OS. Linux or Windows, ATI or Nvidia, PC solutions will not cut it in this area - the underlying architecture is poorly suited to those sorts of tasks.
Niche markets for people like SGI will always remain small, but despite the ill-informed nay sayers, they will never die - because there is a need there, and there is no commodity kit that can do the job.
Avid's high end systems run exlusively on SGI kit, and are capable of significantly more than the lower end pre-prod stuff that runs on PCs and Macs.
I've yet to see any solution that can match the capabilities of a 7 year old Octane in this area. The fact that you can cite software that is available that claims to do a similar job is irrelevant. It's not in use by broadcast studies and effects house, for the simple reason that it doesn't work.
These images are *not* realtime! A PC is not capable of rendering a CGI screen, in realtime, and merging that, in realtime, with a video feed, and then displaying that, in *realtime*.
Say what you like about Linux, or high speed CPUs, or XXX vendor's high end GFX card - the architecture and the tools are physically incapable of this.
If you look at the extras on the LOTR:FOTR DVD set, you'll see people walking around, with a camera on a stick. This *is* displaying real time camera images, merged into a low res, non final rendered, scene of the Cave Troll fight in Moria.
A point of reference - the machine's they are using for this are SGI Octanes. Not Octane2s, but Octanes.
They did that work around, what, 3 years ago? And the Octane, at that time, was only 3-4 years old.
Can anyone show me a PC from 1997 that can manage that? Anyone?
Despite the fact that the Octane is an ancient piece of kit, there is nothing from the PC world that can match it's capabilities.
SGI have always been, and always will be, a niche player.
You would be a fool to buy expensive SGI kit for a renderfarm - buy Intel PCs with Linux. Similarly, you would be fool to try and do realtime CGI with that same kit - that's a specialist task that calls for specialist skills.
This article does not show that SGI is dying, or that they're being thrown out of the GFX workstation market.
This article *does* confirm what is widely known - the once cutting edge ILM are now many years behind people like Weta Digital.
Throwing around "Linux" and "Intel replacing SGI" sound bytes to try and get some news coverage for a dated effects house isn't going to change that.
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Good points, well made.
/. seem to forget). It's the cost of the network infrastructure and storage to support it all. If people think SGI workstations, new, are expensive, you should check out the costs of a SAN to support the work of a renderfarm!
As an aside, I would say that you can buy 2nd hand Octanes, phone up SGI, and they will give you a support contract - they will even check the machines over for you.
The total cost will be a fraction of the cost of a new dual Xeon workstation.
Again, this would be a foolish decision to apply across the board, but if you're doing the sort of effects work where the strengths of something like Octane are a bonus, it's a good solution.
I know someone who runs an effects house who has bought dual CPU Octanes and 4 way Origin 2000 desksides for each of the animators.
The Octane gets used for the creative work, the Origin for the render.
They're using Maya5, and this solution cost them less than the cost of dual Xeon gfx workstations for each animator, and a render farm. A renderfarm sounds like a cool idea, but it's not just the cost of the kit (something people on
You need to be able to render something in realtime, combining rendered scenes and a live video feed, and then to display that on a monitor or writing it out to digital storage - and all in real time.
This is not a function of the CPU of the GFX card - they both play a part, but not as much as you seem to assume.
The main thing here is *bandwidth*. You have to have a large amount of non-contentious bandwidth to chuck all that data around.
Point to point bandwidth between multiple devices - CPU to memory, CPU to GFX, GFX to memory, CPU to output pipe, input pipe to GFX, etc. etc.
One approach was UMA, which SGI pioneered in the O2. A 7year old SGI O2, even a low end one, can handle 800mb textures in realtime with ease. There is little available today that can even approach that.
Another approach is some sort of IO switch. SGI have the crossbar in the Octane/Octane2, which is old tech based on the IO infrastructure of the Origin 2000.
The Octane's crossbar switch gives you a large amount of non-contentious bandwith, which is why, for instance, a low end 195mhz SGI Octane from 1998 can apply in incoming digital feed as a texture to an object, and display that on digital output, in real time.
Remember the Anubis warriors in The Mummy Returns? Their skin was a texture from a feed that was applied in real time - this was so the animators could get a good feel for how their animation changes effected the scene.
Sun have a similar sort of setup with their UPA crossbar on their Ultrasparc kit. IBM and DEC^W^Compaq^WHP a similar deal.
The reason UNIX vendors can charge lots for their kit is the years of R&D they've put into solving problems like this, which just don't appear on low end commodity kit.
The Origin2000 can scale to 1024 CPUs in a single system image - it's one OS, no partitions. Sure, that's for a niche market, but it doesn't change the fact that there is a serious IO contention issue that needs to be solved in that scenario. SGI have then taken that solution and thrown it into their graphics workstations.
CPU speed and gfx speed will not help here - neither will the OS. Linux or Windows, ATI or Nvidia, PC solutions will not cut it in this area - the underlying architecture is poorly suited to those sorts of tasks.
Niche markets for people like SGI will always remain small, but despite the ill-informed nay sayers, they will never die - because there is a need there, and there is no commodity kit that can do the job.
Avid's high end systems run exlusively on SGI kit, and are capable of significantly more than the lower end pre-prod stuff that runs on PCs and Macs.
I've yet to see any solution that can match the capabilities of a 7 year old Octane in this area. The fact that you can cite software that is available that claims to do a similar job is irrelevant. It's not in use by broadcast studies and effects house, for the simple reason that it doesn't work.
Indeed I have. I think you'll find they use a combination of Avid and SGI kit to display that.
This is, largely, nonsense.
These images are *not* realtime! A PC is not capable of rendering a CGI screen, in realtime, and merging that, in realtime, with a video feed, and then displaying that, in *realtime*.
Say what you like about Linux, or high speed CPUs, or XXX vendor's high end GFX card - the architecture and the tools are physically incapable of this.
If you look at the extras on the LOTR:FOTR DVD set, you'll see people walking around, with a camera on a stick. This *is* displaying real time camera images, merged into a low res, non final rendered, scene of the Cave Troll fight in Moria.
A point of reference - the machine's they are using for this are SGI Octanes. Not Octane2s, but Octanes.
They did that work around, what, 3 years ago? And the Octane, at that time, was only 3-4 years old.
Can anyone show me a PC from 1997 that can manage that? Anyone?
Despite the fact that the Octane is an ancient piece of kit, there is nothing from the PC world that can match it's capabilities.
SGI have always been, and always will be, a niche player.
You would be a fool to buy expensive SGI kit for a renderfarm - buy Intel PCs with Linux. Similarly, you would be fool to try and do realtime CGI with that same kit - that's a specialist task that calls for specialist skills.
This article does not show that SGI is dying, or that they're being thrown out of the GFX workstation market.
This article *does* confirm what is widely known - the once cutting edge ILM are now many years behind people like Weta Digital.
Throwing around "Linux" and "Intel replacing SGI" sound bytes to try and get some news coverage for a dated effects house isn't going to change that.