Not just those early machines that was huge. I worked as a modeller for Lego Denmark for a while in 1998 on their SGI RealityMonster. The machine was new, weighed 2 tonnes, stood 2 meters tall, 4 meters wide and had a heat effect of 20000 watts (thats like 10 electric panel owens you have in your house on full throttle) ! Imagine my dissapointment when I saw that only 1 of its 16 processors was in use with the software I was using, ROFL !
Remebered that most software was very expencive too. In like 1996 the simplest version of the most popular 3d modelling tool on the SGI, MultiGen, cost 25k £. At the same time 3D Studio Max cost about 2.5k for the simplest version. My thought is that perhaps the greedy software companies also are too blame for why the SGI (practically) is no more...
I was working in a simulation firm when the times shifted for SGI. We had some SGI RE2's that cost us about 200k £, expencive stuff in other words. My boss gave me an assignment in 1996 to find a graphics card for PC's that we could run our simulator on, and I heard rumour about a company with ex SGI guys that had started to make graphics cards for the PC market. I got the stats for a new SLI card they had made, and was asoniced of what they had in fillrates and such. My co-workers frowned at the stats thinking it was a hoax, but I convinced my boss on a gut feeling to buy the 2k £ card. We actually got a bundle deal with a company called OpenGVS that made 3D API, so it was a good deal. The card lived up to our expectations. When talking to SGI at several occations I got a taste of their arroganse when it came to the PC graphics boards, they rightfully claimed that it was no match for their super-computers, since it was missing FSAA, AF. Still I was getting the idea that their machines were very overpriced, they were in 1996 selling desktops like the Indigo2 for 20k £ and these DID NOT EVEN HAVE TEXTURING ! Now we have PC cards that have FSAA and AF with higher resolutions for a fraction of the price. PC's are so cheap that simulator companes now use one PC per projector, where a SGI have to split its screen into one area for each projector. No wonder they failed to keep the market, they will have to blame themselfs for their arrogance.
Cool ! I hope the finished maps can be downloaded from their website:) I would like to make some flyby videos in 3dsmax or something. Since everything is grey on the moon we dont need no textures either I would guess.
I have the 19" version of that monitor on my Dell; a 1280x1024 60Hz LCD, but I don't supper from this lag. I use my computer to play UT 2004 alot so I shoul have noticed such a lag I guess. Might it be the gfx card you use ? I have a ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128 MB on it.
I played Doom 3 and was impressed by the graphics, but the monsters AI was poor (compared with Half-Life that came in like 1998 or something), and there were obvious triggers to make the monsters pop out, if you like avoided to step in a certain place in a room then no monsters would pop up, that was lame.
Size don't really matter when it comes to games on CD-ROM. I think this sort or engine is more suited for the web because of it's small size its easily downloadable for use with web commercials/banners and/or 3D web games. Alot better than earlier engines for the web (name of them slipps my mind atm though, did'nt SGI have a web-based 3D engine waaaaay back).
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Not just those early machines that was huge. I worked as a modeller for Lego Denmark for a while in 1998 on their SGI RealityMonster. The machine was new, weighed 2 tonnes, stood 2 meters tall, 4 meters wide and had a heat effect of 20000 watts (thats like 10 electric panel owens you have in your house on full throttle) ! Imagine my dissapointment when I saw that only 1 of its 16 processors was in use with the software I was using, ROFL !
Hehe, funny stuff. Our RE2 catched fire after beeing in a small room a whole weekend with no cooling ;)
Remebered that most software was very expencive too. In like 1996 the simplest version of the most popular 3d modelling tool on the SGI, MultiGen, cost 25k £. At the same time 3D Studio Max cost about 2.5k for the simplest version. My thought is that perhaps the greedy software companies also are too blame for why the SGI (practically) is no more...
Not that it matters much, but I think the company the SGI ppl left to start was 3dfx
I was working in a simulation firm when the times shifted for SGI. We had some SGI RE2's that cost us about 200k £, expencive stuff in other words. My boss gave me an assignment in 1996 to find a graphics card for PC's that we could run our simulator on, and I heard rumour about a company with ex SGI guys that had started to make graphics cards for the PC market. I got the stats for a new SLI card they had made, and was asoniced of what they had in fillrates and such. My co-workers frowned at the stats thinking it was a hoax, but I convinced my boss on a gut feeling to buy the 2k £ card. We actually got a bundle deal with a company called OpenGVS that made 3D API, so it was a good deal. The card lived up to our expectations. When talking to SGI at several occations I got a taste of their arroganse when it came to the PC graphics boards, they rightfully claimed that it was no match for their super-computers, since it was missing FSAA, AF. Still I was getting the idea that their machines were very overpriced, they were in 1996 selling desktops like the Indigo2 for 20k £ and these DID NOT EVEN HAVE TEXTURING ! Now we have PC cards that have FSAA and AF with higher resolutions for a fraction of the price. PC's are so cheap that simulator companes now use one PC per projector, where a SGI have to split its screen into one area for each projector. No wonder they failed to keep the market, they will have to blame themselfs for their arrogance.
Cool ! I hope the finished maps can be downloaded from their website :) I would like to make some flyby videos in 3dsmax or something. Since everything is grey on the moon we dont need no textures either I would guess.
I have the 19" version of that monitor on my Dell; a 1280x1024 60Hz LCD, but I don't supper from this lag. I use my computer to play UT 2004 alot so I shoul have noticed such a lag I guess. Might it be the gfx card you use ? I have a ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128 MB on it.
I played Doom 3 and was impressed by the graphics, but the monsters AI was poor (compared with Half-Life that came in like 1998 or something), and there were obvious triggers to make the monsters pop out, if you like avoided to step in a certain place in a room then no monsters would pop up, that was lame.
UT 2004 is on DVD ? Man I got the 4 CD version :(
*Cries, runs and hides*
Size don't really matter when it comes to games on CD-ROM. I think this sort or engine is more suited for the web because of it's small size its easily downloadable for use with web commercials/banners and/or 3D web games. Alot better than earlier engines for the web (name of them slipps my mind atm though, did'nt SGI have a web-based 3D engine waaaaay back).