Hi everyone,

I'm pondering if I should get an XVR-600 or XVR-1200 to supplement the
XVR-1000 in my SB2k.

The XVR-600 and XVR-1200 are both WildCat-IV-based. Only differences
appear to be the ammount of RAM (Texture, FrameBuffer, Display Lists,
etc..) and the fact that the XVR-1200 supports the ARB MultiTexture
OpenGL extension while the XVR-600 does not. Also, the XVR-1200 is
"supported" in the SB2K while the XVR-600 is not (Most Likely because
it's not supported as the primary console on the sb2k).

The XVR-1000 is quite a different beast and is MAJC-5200-based (a SUN
chipset).

I work on the Solaris/Sparc port of a small cross-platform OpenGL
application that has the following properties: It works fine on most
MacOSX, Linux or Wintel boxes with NVidia or ATI graphics but on the
Solaris/Sparc platform I found out that only the XVR-1200 would run that
application at respectable speed (50-60fps) while on my XVR-1000 it would
drop to about 7-8fps or less (much more than what benchmark data would
suggest). I attribute that significant difference to the difference in
chipsets between the XVR-1200 and XVR-1000: 3DLabs' WildCat IV appears to
be a more general-purpose 3D chipset while the MAJC-5200 chipset has a
different target market.. So, this result is not suprising considering
that the source port I'm working on came from general-purpose machines
(Mac's, PC's..).

So I want to get a WildCat-IV-based graphics card from SUN but I'm
wondering if I should get the XVR-600 instead of the XVR-1200 for the
following reasons:

1) I don't need multi-head and 32MB texture RAM is OK for me.

2) If I'm only using one head on an XVR-1200, its performance should be
similar to that of the XVR-600, right? I doubt 3DLabs implemented
something a la 3Dfx SLI on a single card.. Unless I'm wrong, I think that
both Wildcat-IV chipsets on the XVR-1200 drive only one video channel
(I.E: they cannot "join forces" if only one head is used).

3) The XVR-1200 (a 33Mhz or 66Mhz PCI card) can only (due to its width)
fit in a 33Mhz slot in the SB2K. The XVR-600, on the contrary, is a
single-width PCI card and -will- be able to fit in the only 66Mhz in the
SB2K.

Conclusion: Assuming that 1) and 2) are OK, 3) means I might get better
performance on the XVR-600 with my SB2K -with- my application..

Any comments or ideas? I'd really like to avoid spending a -lot- of money
on an XVR-1200 if I can get an XVR-600 and get similar performance (for my
app, that is, YMMV).

,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,
Vincent S. Cojot, Computer Engineering. STEP project. _.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~
Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Comite Micro-Informatique. _.,-*~'`^`'~*-,.
Linux Xview/OpenLook resources page _.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._.,-*~'
http://step.polymtl.ca/~coyote _.,-*~'`^`'~*-,._ coyote@step.polymtl.ca

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars - on stars where no human race is
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places. - Robert Frost