SGI's Visual PC 62
CSD writes "As
I was surfing for news bits this morning I noticed that the
guys over at Ars Technica have
an in-depth review of the new SGI NT box. Apparantly they
got hold of a 320 model. I figured this was OK content for
this site as well, since people are clammoring to know about
Linux support, and from some of the hardware mentioned in
this review, it leaves room for doubt about Linux working
on it w/o some major tweaks. " If SGI is smart, they've
got an army of hackers making sure these 'tweaks' are ready
as soon after this bugger is announced.
Update: 01/05 11:50 by CT :
afniv writes "In
an interview with
SGI CEO Rick Belluzzo regarding the launch of the new "NT
workstation", he discusses the new direction of SGI and
the fact that he "can't go on a customer visit without
somebody asking about Linux." "
Hi Chuck! (Score:1)
if "administrate" is a verb, i'm charles de gaulle.
For the curious: The Merriam Webster Definition [m-w.com] of Administrate (verb)
SGI != smart (Score:1)
If SGI is smart, they've got an army of hackers making sure these 'tweaks' are ready as soon after this bugger is announced.
IMHO, The move to an x86/NT scheme already showed that they aren't too bright. I'm part of a minority who happened to like their mips-based machines...
----------------- ------------ ---- --- - - - -
Hardware to lust after? (Score:1)
Geek: Father, I have had impure thoughts about a Silicon Graphics workstation.
Father: Did it have 256 Meg of RAM and 15 Gig of hard drive space?
Geek: Yes, father. And a 21"
Father: Oh, my. For your penance you shall sing the Free Software Song 3 times and smash 10 AOL CD's on your forehead.
Geek: Thank you father.
Hark! I hear a clue phone ringing... it's for you. (Score:1)
Nope, no reason for Linux whatsoever. Don't need stability after all: we're not talking about serious work here (just movies, simulations, and other nonsense). After all, per-seat licenses won't be anything, really.
We all know how fast NT is, so there's another reason that Linux would be of no value here. Why bother? Portability isn't an issue either, we all know the world runs on Intel.
Guess it's time to pay homage to the Empire.</sarcasm>
MIPS hardware is great, IRIX blows chunks (Score:1)
From the looks of this thing's designe, there is NO WAY IN HELL that video card manufacturers will ever be able to clone this thing, because the video subsystem is highly integrated into the rest of the machine. Essentially, to clone this, you would have to re-engineer an entire machine from the ground up, just like SGI did.
I wish I had the cash for one of these... They look simply *amazing*, although it would be even cooler if they happened to have a decent processor at their heart.
SGI != smart (Score:1)
Your not alone. I loved the SGI hardware. I wish I had one, they are the only thing thatI mihgt be able to convince mom to keep in the living room. Why are all cases puddy or black? It doesn't cast anything significant to sell a bunch of colors. Apple hasn't really got this point either the iMac is a step, but just a tiny one.
The electronics are nice too. I loved playing with openGL on a 100 mhz machine. And it was fast enough for the complex graphics I was doing. Well, slow by todays sgi standards, but fast compared to what a pc can do today.
can you at least tell us... (Score:1)
supported? the video stuff would be nice too...
Give SGI a chance to see the light. (Score:1)
If MesaGL, Linux, and a standard PC were up to the task, why would Lucasfilm, PIXAR, Rhythm & Hues, PDI, Digital Domain, Disney, ILM &c, &c, &c, use SGIs in the first place?
The question's rhetorical, but I'll answer it anyway: because no PC provides adequate performance, and so long as SGI exists, ever will.
A $12,000 Octane WILL be incalcuably superior to a $1299 Dell or Compaq. And quite honestly, if you'd rather not prefer an Octane for the work you're doing, you really *don't* know what you're doing.
(Good enough is one thing, but who in their right mind would actually rather have a PC instead of an Octane?)
Is it just me, or? (Score:1)
I do fault X quite a bit tho. When I look at stuff on my OS/2 version of netscape, it tends to at least have the same relative sizes as windows, while X fails at this miserably.
Some weird HTML in there... (Score:1)
1) They use the small tag all over for no apparent reason. I'm not even sure what this supposed to do, but apparently X takes it literally.
2) They use a style sheet to force the text size to be 12 pt in the body. At high rez, 12 pt seems pretty tiny.
Get real (Score:1)
SGI is not "just another kewl box maker" or do they give a shit about "kewl warez."
SGI makes real boxes for real use. Use a PC to make your warez copies.
Not so... (Score:1)
As for most everything else, IRIX runs just great. It scales well and is for the most part pretty standard.
SGI not being smart in moving to NT? Are you serious? They hope to cash in on the low-end where people are using NT-based 3D software. People with a clue and some cash will still use an Octane/Onyx system with Maya. I for one wouldn't buy this box and run NT if I could avoid it - I'd go straight to an Octane. However not every company/person can afford this and must resort to using NT. I fall into this category too - until 3D Studio Max is ported to something other than NT, I'm stuck - but this would be THE machine to use for it.
SGI isn't dumb. They're covering the full spectrum, that's all.
No way (Score:1)
Half the power at twice the price of a Mac!WooHoo! (Score:1)
SoupIsGood Food
the iMac-killer (Score:1)
(But it does look cool)
--Zachary Kessin
Is it just me, or? (Score:1)
Is it just me, or does that page have some of the tinyest, hardest to read text I have seen in any web page at all lately. I may have to reconfigure X completely to set things to a lower resolution in order to read this vaguly worded artical well enough to even understand what OS these things are running? I think I saw "NT" in there, but maybe it was "MT?" or "VT?" I also think I saw IRIX in there, but I couldn't make out if it was just an IRIX style boot screen for an NT box or what...
Maybe it's just to early in the morning for me or something, or a bad day... I need a magnifying glass for this thing.... Oh, wait, "View Page Source!" yea, that Will show it at a standard size that hopefully I can read... What a sad way to have to read something.
NM, I don't aggree after RE READING... (Score:1)
I had to go back and re read that artical over, and from all indications i saw, it was NT only. If this box _IS_ NT only, you can bet your bottom dollar someone will be porting LINUX to it fast.
No, if they actually had IRIX for it on the other hand, that wouldn't be the case.
ps. I am still frusturated to hell with the tiny print in that artical, I had to set the font selection in Netscape through the roof (like 18 point) to read it, now /. looks like something for kindergarders that I should break out some crayons to color by comparison.
xmag (Score:1)
Don't tell me you forgot about xmag?!
----
Well... Maybe they are going to work on it. (Score:1)
MIPS hardware is great, IRIX blows chunks (Score:1)
I can't tell you how many times I've pulled my hair out because if inconsistencies between SGI NFS implementations and the rest of the world. Even IRIX 6.x has problems exporting NFS v.3 to Solaris 2.6... and this is *after* dealing with its horrible 64bit NFS bugs (-32bitclients anyone?). Sure, IRIX scales wonderfully as an SMP kernel, but the userspace tools and many basic UNIX services have been broken for too long. Solaris is just as good a server and it *doesn't* have these problems.
Of course, suggesting that Linux can solve their IRIX problems on commodity Intel hardware only shows that you've never dealth with a serious server. When MIPS Linux or UltraLinux supports 64 CPUs with good threading and apps to make use of this then it may compete with IRIX and Solaris.
As for SGI's last ditch effort with an NT desktop, I don't think this is going to generate significant revenue for SGI because their technology will simply be cloned by the major video card makers within 6 months to a year after release. They don't stand a chance.
The MIPS hardware line is *excellent*... Irix needs some tweeks to make it useful in heterogeneous environments and SGI should fix these obnoxious problems instead of pointing fingers at Sun (and Sun should do the same!) SGI seems destined to throw away their best technology for a forray into the commodity PC world. Good Luck. They'll need it.
Linux and SGI (Score:1)
in this respect? I think that they'd have
more expertise in this area
But seriously, I could see SGI selling these
beasts as Linux workstations. NT for the ones
who want something new & shiny on their desks,
and Linux for those who actually want to get
work done (and play Quake REALLY REALLY FAST
Whatever, Rob. (Score:1)
Whatever, Rob. (Score:1)
The way that SGI should market this box is as an NT-based graphics box, basically designed to run SoftImage and Maya and run them really really fast. High-end 3D stuff basically.
NT boxes seem to be taking over the 3D design market. The reason is simple: price. You can put together an NT box with a very decent 3D graphics adapter for a fraction of what you can put together an equivalent SGI or Sun box for. SGI needs to capture this market. There is NO point in trying to build this box to run linux. If you want a good linux box (or FreeBSD if you're like me), there are a million zillion other choices out there. Specialize, specialize, specialize.
Yum Yum.... SGI is Genius (Score:1)
> compete against SGI in the high end workstation
> market with one of these babies.....
The funny thing is that they are not high end workstations. They're intended to be low-end workstations, not as competition for their Octanes. It's just that some high-end workstations will have trouble keeping up.
get lynx (Score:1)
Give SGI a chance to see the light. (Score:1)
years ago, and I'm not too surprised that they
chose NT as the operating system. At the time,
that was the gutsy thing, and perhaps the right
thing to do; I'm not terribly surprised that Linux
wasn't considered.
The question is "what is SGI's idea of the market
for this box?" If it is to replace their O2
machine (which I'm using to type this mail), then
they're going to have to have some kind of UNIX
for it. As I understand it, SGI plans to kill
the O2 line very quickly when this box comes out,
and then the cheapest UNIX box from SGI will be
an $12,000 or so Octane. So, perhaps they are
hoping that when people need new UNIX workstations
they'll buy Octanes.
My guess is that this was the plan 2 years ago,
when development was started. Clearly, though,
Linux has changed all that.
What makes an SGI box worth the money that I've
paid for them? A lot of things. It's got a
nice Unix, it has a spectacularly simple and
straightforward graphics library for development,
it has high bandwidth in every dimension, and
they've been reliable. Part of the appeal, also,
is that they covet, and respect, the animation/
visual-effects market.
But, if I had to buy machines now, I'd buy Linux
machines and run Mesa, and tolerate the slow
(for now) graphics performance, rather than buy
$5,000 NT boxes or $12,000 Octanes. I think that
a lot of other current SGI owners will do the same
thing.
If this Visual Workstation machine ran Linux,
it would be a spectacular machine; and I'd buy
10 of them tomorrow. The beauty of Linux with
the graphics speed of the SGI chipset would
be killer.
So, I'm hoping that SGI will see the light, and
will not be afraid of the penguins.
the iMac-killer (Score:1)
someone realizes that Apple does not have a monopoly on sleek-ass box hooked up to sleek-ass hardware...
-Lupus
Is it just me, or? (Score:1)
Market
covering the full spectrum (Score:1)
As for huge bashes... it is a great machine, and
considering SGI's design and product introduction cycles, they are due for a big change sometime very soon. The VisualPC is the (hopefully) little splash.
please (Score:1)
I always told myself I'd use all linux if I could find the killer 3d app that I like... Looks like blender might be that app. It's blazingly fast without a 3d card on a p200, would love to see it on one of these bad boys with hardware accelleration... *drool*
I don't think SGI is unsmart to go to the NT market, they are a corporation and if the market changes, they have to change with it. NT has seen a recent rise in the number of high-end 3d applications being ported to it, even if they run pretty poorly on said operating system. SGI and TDZ are the only two companies I know of offhand that are after the high-end 3d graphics NT (can I use high-end and NT in one sentence? Will the universe rip itself apart?) market, and I'd like to admit I'm curious how well the programs will run under NT on these...