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Ask Slashdot: Quality Graphics in Linux? 84

Posted by Cliff from the well-it-DID-render-Titanic! dept.
Another of Clan Anonymous Coward asked: "We will be getting a few new boxes soon, and I want to know: can you get workstation quality graphics out of Linux? NT-GL seems to be acceptable, SGI-IRIX has great graphics, and the best I hear about Linux is that it runs X in 2D!" I remember hearing a sentence with the words "Titanic" and "Linux" in it. But seriously, how much would one have to spend to get quality workstation graphics out of a Linux box? And this doesn't have to mean Titanic quality either. If you're interested, hit the link.
continued...
"Given say, a $1000 budjet for Drivers, Monitor, and Video Card, what could you do with that in Linux? I would like to know details, for example: what 3D-32M video cards work, what cards are the faster cards, what commercial X product with GL/glide/Mesa are avaliable now, and for what price? With money to spend NOW and a need for graphics NOW, what is there in Linux that works NOW? (and not in a few months, or planned, or in progress)"

C :Good questions, I'm sure there are folks out there that have some answers. Does anyone have the link to that Linux Times article about the Linux Farm used to render _Titanic_?
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Ask Slashdot: Quality Graphics in Linux? More

Ask Slashdot: Quality Graphics in Linux?

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  • Radiance is open source, but not Open Source(tm). You can't modify it or redistribute it, even though it comes with source.
  • Xfree doesn't support much of the high end hardware, but the commercial X-servers do. Go to Xi [xig.com] for the best X-server and full OpenGL support. Metro-X [metrolink.com] is another good vendor of commercial X-servers. Not quite as good but a better bang for your buck. Their servers cost between $50 and $250 depending on what you want, but they are usually worth it. As for Hardware to get. Find out what the X-server will support and get the best one.
  • It seems most people here are answering questions about 3d rendering in Linux. However, from reading the guy's question, he seems to be asking about 3d workstation graphics (as in real-time while-you-look-at-it display and modelling), not render farms. So references to Titanic are off-topic, since it used a render farm, and most of its boxes didn't even have video cards. This guy seems to want a workstation with SGI-IRIX quality graphics. Unfortunately, such a beast doesn't exist running Linux, and probably won't for a while. We're talking about the 32meg 3d cards here used for serious work, not your voodoo2 that you need to play games.
  • Until the 3D card vendors get a clue and start releasing specs... As both the Voodoo2 and the Matrox G200 have proven, the driver interface is not the key to high performance.

    The Voodoo2 worked under Linux before Darryl ported the Voodoo2 Glide drivers because someone changed one byte in the card detection code to fool Glide into thinking that a Voodoo2 was a 1. Worked great, didn't use the new features of the Voodoo2, but there weren't many. All a V2 is is a really fast dual-TMU V1 with a few small enhancements. 90+ percent of the performance differences between the V1 and V2 don't need those enhancements.

    Someone used an alpha-level driver for the 3D portions of the Matrox Mill II on a G200 - It worked pretty decently, considering the quantum leap in 3D capability between the Mill II and the G200. (Nowhere near as good as the V2 story, tho.)

    As far as my advice - Get an IRIX SGI. Once Linux's 3D performance is "there", going from SGI IRIX to Linux will be a lot easier than migrating to/from NT. Still, SGIs will probably be eternally ahead of Linux machines, with the exception of Linux running on SGI hardware, which looks like a very good possibility. :)
  • The original question stated "Workstation-quality" graphics capability. $5000 is cheap for this class. SGI's lowest-end box is $4500 (The VisWS), and that's the bare minimum to be called "workstation quality"

    $5K-10K is realistic, even more.
  • They do make big flat-panels, if you're willing to pay for them. Sony makes a 30-inch 150dpi flat-panel that's mostly used for very high-res/space-constrained/price-insensitive work (it runs about $15K). You know, things like AWACS planes and medical radiography...

    I wish I could afford one! Maybe they'll be affordable one day - it's progress that they are available at all.

  • mmm, sending every mouse movement across the network is so efficient.... NOT

    X is a travesty of a windowing system, NT's client/server approach is *way* superior. and anyhting you want to script, you can with WSH.

    as for the graphics, show me Maya or Lightwave on linux... and get a clue before you post. All the bashing of NT i see here is from people who've no idea how to use it.
  • What is the advantage to it?


    The advantage to using more than one monitor is more desktop space. Or you could be running the 3d display on one monitor and the menus/controls on the other. Use your imagination to find out what to do with a 3200x1280 desktop... ;-)

  • I believe the question was $1000 for drivers and video card, maybe not even including the monitor, but maybe. But I sure didn't read that it was the whole workstation!!! I believe they were talking $1000 specific to video, and then add the CPU/RAM/Motherboard/etc to that.
  • I think a lot of you are reading that wrong.

    "Given say, a $1000 budjet for Drivers, Monitor, and Video Card, what could you do with that in Linux?"

    No where in that do I see anything about CPU, RAM, Motherboard, etc.... They are being VERY video specific. And when I see posts that say "you can't get a system that will do 3D at all for $1000" it seems to say to me, you didn't even read the question.

    I don't know much about 3D, I have never done any on x86, what I have done is on SGI's, but I would guess that a high quality SONY selling for about $400 (checking PriceWatch, that would get about a 17" .25 pitch, blah blah blah Sony) might not be the biggest monitor, but should be high quality. That leaves $600 for a video card and commercial X server. My God, if you can't do it on that, I will be sad to hear Linux is soo far off. I bet an NT newsgroup would give you endless suggestions. I can't believe all the Linux fanatics here say it can't be done.

  • There are widely differing assumptions here about what makes a "Graphics Workstation." Me, I think it would be something that an architect or engineer can use to do CAD type stuff, and then manipulate a 3D model of the design in a window.

    It would have helped quite a lot if the original poster had mentioned what sort of work was being planned, and what sort of software was to be used.

    For work that needs to be done today:

    A used SGI indy runs less than $2k these, irix 6.5 and a 1-year service contract will run you around $350. Not a speed demon, but the graphics hardware is dandy, and the applications are readily available.

    $1000 and Linux just aren't reasonable yet for building a "Graphics Workstation". Give it a year or two.
  • Yep, NT's just the best thing since sliced bread isn't it? Well perhaps you can answer me this one simple little question: Since NT's administration is largely GUI based why didn't they design it from the ground up to support the kind of behavior x windows has had for - oh lets just say "decades"? Boggles the mind how the geniuses didn't chose to (a) Make sure every gui administration screen had a functional command-line equivalent or (b) Build in x-like ability, this OS was designed in the *90's* you know. Hard to conceive how they selected option (c) - do neither of the above, you have to be physically sitting at the machine to do *many* administration tasks. But pay no attention to the man behind the curtain - just keep repeating "NT is definitely the way to go, once again".
  • For OpenGL graphics, you'll need either AccelX from Xi graphics [xig.com], or Metro X [metrolink.com] with one of the supported cards.

    However, the accelerated versions are RSN, which is not what you want, so you may be better off looking at an old Indy or Indogo2, either from the open market, or at SGI's remanufactured products page [sgi.com].
  • There is no way you'd get an NT box to do 3D rendering nicely...

    How are the SGI NT boxes at 3D rendering?


  • actually I dunno, but you can go here:


    Jujunem [angelfire.com]

    I guess I'm first, huh? =)

  • Who cares about your Bill Gates Dumbfuckware?


  • I'm trying to do this at work for some scientific visualization work. Most of our boxes are SGIs, but I ended up with an x86 on my desk, so I ran out and got a #9 Revolution 3D card (as I loved the Imagine 128 I used back in my NT days) and a Xi Graphics server (as they looked to have the best server that supported it). It's slow as a dog. Screen redraws (like between virtual desktops) take on the order of seconds. 3D is just unuseable. My box here at home just has a cheap Matrox Millinium II in it that I use with Mesa and it rocks. I tried out another box at work with a S3 chip & Mesa and that worked beautifully too. My project lead is running a 3Dfx card in his box at home and said that the Linux support for that is impressive.
    So, if you aren't looking to spend much, I'd pick up a nice 2D card (like the latest & greatest from Matrox) and a 3Dfx card, and just use the XFree86 server with Mesa.
    I now do my graphics work on an Indigo 2 that's floated down to me. For what you can pick one of those beasts up for these days, I'd say that's probably the best solution if you're doing anything more that fiddling around. How is the SGI port of Linux doing anyway?
    And in case anyone is wondering, I tried XFree86 3.3.3 with the Rev3D and it looks like #9 changed the RAMDAC on it from what the XFree86 group ran on, which may well explain Xi's problem with it. I'd avoid #9 products for now.
  • Hrm. Maybe you're confused... how can you compare NT's "client/server" approach to X? The main client/server functionality built into NT is user authentication and file sharing, and X is responsible for neither of the two. I've never heard of setting NT's $DISPLAY; perhaps NT can't forward command prompts, etc? Also, keep in mind that the WM is seperate from the X Window System. Sorta like Microsoft's browser is seperate from their OS. Well okay, maybe not.

  • Go to www.blender.nl to look at one of Linux's prominent 3d programs. AC3D is also a 3d option.
    I don't have the url right off hand. Sorry.

    I had heard that one of the big companies had ported their stuff to Linux, but I think it was mostly a CAD app.

    As for 2d, well of course there is GIMP. Nuff Said there.

  • Banshee (Score:1)

    by wilee ( 9970 )

    when the Voodoo 3 comes out the banshee server that daryll has will suport it :)

    since voodoo 3 = banshee with dual texture ps :)

    1 voodoo 3 > #2 voodoo 2 in sli
  • I have a NEC 21" and a Sony 19", and the picture of the Sony is actually sharper (since it's newer), and I have no trouble reading text at 1280x1024 (the same resolution I have the NEC at).

    The Sony's $ 799 and worth every penny.

    I used to agree with you, but the 19" technology really won me over. I wouldn't recommend 17" or below, though.

    D

  • BMRT (Score:1)

    by FigWig ( 10981 )
    Use BMRT (www.bmrt.org) for great rendering. It will render scenes written in the RenderMan shading language (originally developed by Pixar). Lots of packages should be able to output RIB. There are lots of good modelers on NT.
  • I do some 3d graphics as a hobby, and I'm looking to buy a new system soon. Unfortunatly, from all the research I've been doing, I'm finding that there isn't much in the way of midrage graphics cards available, period. Once you start trying to look above consumer level Matrox Milleniums, Viper 550s, etc., you find there aren't may other cards until you start looking in the $1000+ range. For hardware accelerated OpenGL, there are some permedia2 cards that are cheap, but they don't really qualify as professional quality. You can get some Glint TX based cards (Leadtek 2500, Symetric Glyder, Diamond FireGL 3000, etc. - all in the $300 range) that are probably supported loosly in Linux, but they're old and not really supported by the manufacturer. When you start looking at current chipsets (Glint MX and above), all the cards are well over $1000 (Intergraph, Evans & Sutherland, 3dLabs, etc.). It's true that there are some cards in the $700-900 range, but that's still a bit expensive for me. My suggestion is, if you don't want to spend over $1000 on the graphics part of your system is to go for a decent monitor ($700 for the Mitsubishi 900u flat crt, Sony GDM-400ps, etc.) and get a high end consumer level card (Matrox Millenium G200 w/16 megs, or maybe a Number Nine card).
  • I bought a Viewsonic PT813 from onsale.com
    for $650USD. True its refurbished but other then
    the box it arrived more or less like new.
    (even has a 1 year warranty)

    Once you run X at 1600x1200 @ 85Hz you aint
    goin back to anything less. :)

    You just need to look in the right places for
    cheap stuff.

  • I'll be doing a presentation at Linux World Conference on the state of 3D for Linux. The presentation and benchmark results will be available on my website (http://www.linux3d.org) soon after the show.

    Here's the short answer:
    Xi Graphics and Metro Link have servers out to Beta testers. I have them and will be benchmarking them before the show.
    Precision Insight is adding Mesa and GLX support to XFree as well as creating a direct rendering infrastructure for drivers to be built on.
    3Dfx Voodoo cards work now. Banshee and V3 will be reasonable (low end) cards for in a window 3D. No extra software costs.
    Permedia2 is in alpha and is open source.

    I personally expect all this to really be solid by Linux Expo and I expect SIGGRAPH to be pretty exciting.

    For Titanic we used the boxes strictly for rendering, no interactive work. Without 3D hardware support doing interactive work doesn't make any sense. We did run our compositing software remotely using Mesa and X and it worked surprisingly well! That was just for testing not for real work.

    Can you get a reasonable setup for $1k? It depends on what you mean by reasonable. For film work, the answer would be no. The modelling packages we use range from $2,500 to $15,000. A good OpenGL card can set you back another $2,500. A good rendering package is another $2,500 to $5,000.

    As a home user you could buy a V3 or Permedia for $150, no extra OpenGL cost, and a low end modelling package (say Animation Master were it available) for another $200. You'd be in good shape.

    - |Daryll
  • ya i could never use that low of a res on a big moniter. they arn't designed for it anyways, it is no wonder he has an unsharp picture with the 21" if he is using a res that low.
    i use a 22" with 1600x1200 at work, going home to my poor 17" with 1024x768 is annoying!
  • What was the original question again?

    Ahh, who cares...

    Why is it that NT people are always taking things that *NIX can do, which NT can't do and saying 'boy is that inefficient', or 'boy is that complicated'?

    That makes no sense to me. You're taking a feature that you can't do at all on your NT box and complaining about it on *NIX. If *NIX is to complex for you, read a computer book or just stick with NT. If you want to be a good administrator, you need to know more than which button to press. You should know why you're pushing the button.

    Obviously 3D support is not here yet for X. Of course, Linux wasn't here a few years ago. Linux is usable now and more and more people will use it. As more people use it, more companies will start to produce binary linux kernel modules to support their proprietary hardware.

    It will happen. It's happening already. Creative, who use 3Dfx, nVida (among other) graphic chipsets have hired a guy (I forget his name) to write Linux drivers for _all_ of their products (sound and video).

    Those who want to use NT, go ahead and use it. Those who choose to use Linux, use it. Those who seriously think that NT is in some way superior to _any_ *NIX should get educated. It's not a debate. It's a fact. *NIX is far superior to NT as far as OSes go. Anyone who says otherwise is just yapping and has no facts to back up their words simply because none exist. If you don't believe me, then you have never been to post-secondary school. :-)
  • I would love to hear how. I'm building a CAD station to run SURFCAM 7.0 for a guy who builds 427 Cobras.

    I would love to deliver him a Linux box. Any help would be appreciated.
  • This article [ssc.com] appeared in Linux Journal last year, it's a little thin on tech, but does talk about how Digital Domain made use of Linux for rendering.
  • Hi. I checked out the penguin computing site and you could get a system with the number9 32M card that comes with the 19" SGI flat panel in it with the X-Server fully configured and everything.

    Not under $1000, but still good.

  • Why not their VisualPCs, despite NT? They have future Linux xupport being decided upon, so you may even be in luck in the future...

    Of course, much more than the 1000$ per system, but no where else can you get this performance for 3000$ or less...

    AS
    AS
  • Is this the same person who always posts M$4VR, or are there copycats now? So much for originality =)

    But in a twisted way, he's sorta half right...

    Note SGIs VisualPCs running WinNT. Not exactly a point ofr NT, of course, but a point for SGI. Given the fact that they already have to modifiy and patch M$ source and bins to run on the system, I don't think it will hurt them any to adopt Linux instead, and rely upon the open source model of things. So for now we can get kick-butt systems with awesome hardware capabilities, a mediocre and passable OS, and maybe later, support for Linux as well!

    So if you're going to support NT, use SGI's VPCs, for 3000$ each you cannot beat the performance, and then, as a loyal SGI customer, lobby for Linux support because NT is too unstable, its unreliable, its a resource/performance hog, and because it will actually be easier for SGI to maintain with the open source available to them =)

    AS
    AS
  • Mentionned renderman as a possible alternative
    to using linux-boxes as a rendering farm...but it coasts near $5000 for a license, altough little companies would consider linux as a cheap but powerful unix alternative with native applications.

    Tried Blue Moon Rendering Tools?
    www.bmrt.org
    A free implementation of the renderman standard.
    Reading standard rib (renderman) format files, its ayet a powerful rendering solution with the features of Renderman.
  • Simply go to www.debian.org. Ask for pixar's guy. Do you remember Toy Story? This is the person to ask. Enjoy.
  • I'm a PhD student in Computer Graphics. About 18 months ago I wrote a ray-tracer that we use for teaching purposes, as a research testbed, and for animation here.

    It's based on a ray-tracer that is used for commercial animation by a company that's closely tied to our research lab (I couldn't use their actual source code, but had access to it while writing mine). It's quite easily capable of producing commercial-quality animation, if you know what you're doing. We are producing a short film (4 min) here which we hope to submit to the SIGGRAPH 99 Screening Room.

    It will run on any Linux system using glibc; we use Red Hat 5.1. It has no interactive previewing; you run the ray-tracer and view the resulting output image(s) using a program such as XV. So, you'll need a video card and a monitor, but nothing special.

    Incidentally, it's also GPL Library licensed.

    Those interested may check out the Mirage web page [otago.ac.nz], which has a download link from our anonymous FTP server.

    - Chris Butcher
    --

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