[vtkusers] experience with VTK and PC?

[Michael J. Winckler]

Hi list members,


our institute facilities are based mainly on SGI machines (rom O2 to
Origin 200 to Reality Engine 2). Now we consider extending to Linux-
based PCs in the graphics department two. As we run VTK (and other
visualization software), we would be glad for some user experience 
about "graphics power in day-to-day applications". 

Questions:

1. nVidia seems to be the graphics chipset to use. GForce3 looks
   like it is not good enough to make the cut (considering price
   and performance). Is GForce2 Ultra or Quattro2 Pro the better
   choice? 

   Key applications include *lots* of triangles in some cases, 
   2D-texture mapping on selected (larger) polygons in other 
   areas.

2. Is Mesa plus XFree performing well or do we need to buy an XServer
   plus OpenGL? Is there a "professional" OpenGL for Linux still on
   the market?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Personal views and impressions
are grteat. If you think, this is too off-topic, mail to me dircetly
(although I am pretty sure information on this point would be valuable
to all VTK users.


           Michael

--

 \\\   Dr. Michael J. Winckler  Michael.Winckler at iwr.uni-heidelberg.de
 ( o>     http://www.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de/%7EMichael.Winckler/ 
 /U )            "If swimming is so good for your figure, 
--oo--                how come whales look the way they do?"