OpenGL cards and multiple windows / WinNT

[John Biddiscombe]

>Those using 3DLabs' VX1 seem to be a happy bunch, especially if they have
>a second CPU to make use of the (non-beta) multi-threaded drivers.
>
>Now that the drivers for the TNT2/VX1 cards have matured, can anyone offer 
>a comparison?  Will the GeForce/Quadra cards leave all else in their wake?

I can't offer any input in this regard, but I can say

"Stay clear of any product manufactured by Diamond"

I'm using a FireGL 1 here at work and an older FireGL 1000 at home.

I'm happy with the overall performance when using multiple windows (4,5,6
etc etc), huge datasets (700,000 polys), large textures (11MB), and the
whole lot is just lovely....

except that clearly Diamond employ monkeys to write their drivers. Every
simulation I run has problems with lighting/clipping etc etc The latest
changes to the clipping planes in nightly releases have totally destroyed
my stuff. I may have a lovely Z-buffer, but its bugger all use when the
graphics card randomly clips away anything it likes irrespective of
distance. Clearly there are floating point instabilites in the calculations
done on the card to decide what to clip, chunks of screen flicker in and
out of visibility, odd patches of repeating black spots flip in and out of
view and generally it's just painful to view.

I suspect that when the clipping planes get close to the camera, everything
just dies and I have no idea why. 

I'd very much like to be proven wrong and not blame diamond, but unless
someone at Kitware wants to 'fess up and give some reason why vtk could be
causing this - Then don't buy their cards!.

John B





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