The collected works of 3dchris

Hi

I installed my new V12 card in my Octane in the hopes that it would improve the visual quality of maya's viewports. Based on the SGI tech pubs, the V12 is supposed to make the default phong look better on lower resolution geometry. I don't see any difference between it and my older SSE card, let alone any other Mac system I've used.
Also, I don't see the option to turn on "Smooth Wireframe", or "High Quality Viewport". Are these options not supported on the SGI?

Thanks!

This is my point. In Maya, I can see the options in the pulldown menus, but they are grayed out as if I can't choose them for options.
Vishnu, is it possible if you can post a screenshot of a default poly sphere with a phong material on it? I'd like to compare the quality of the highlights to my V12. Also, if you have the option of the High Quality shading, can you also send a screenshot of it?
Thanks!

Interesting. Looks the same as mine. I remember reading somewhere that the UI view of an object would have specular shading similar to a final render, like your render in Mental Ray. This was supposed to be one of the features of the V12. It looks like your viewport is the same as mine. I'll look deeper into this and find where I read that info....

Ah Ha! I found the document that lead me to the whole "High Quality OpenGL" kick! Take a look. This is how I was hoping the viewport in Maya would have behaved. I wonder if there's a way for the viewport to take advantage of this feature in the V12? Would be nice

I think that's what the "High Quality Rendering" viewport option is for. It doesn't seem to work on IRIX, but I can't find anything in the Maya user manual that says that it's not supported. The same thing goes with the Smooth Wireframe option. Also, I can't seem to get shadows to show up in the viewport

Is anyone using Maya on IRIX with any of these options working?

Hello all,

I just picked up a 1600sw display with a multilink adapter for my Octane2 system with v12 graphics. I'm using a proper 13w3 to VGA adapter and the vga to dvi cable that comes with the Multilink adapter. I'm running on 1280x1024_60 resolution and the display is perfectly fine. I can see the 1600X1024_60 resolution option in the display control panel, but it doesn't look at all proper. It uses the same space as the 1280 resolution, but all the pixels are squished. If I try the alternate timing mode on the multilink adapter, the display takes up the whole screen, but the timing is very wrong and everything has vertical lines through it. I tried adjusting the display timing modes and such through the multilink adapter, but nothing I do seems to solve the problem. I know that there's a way to create a custom display resolution using the VFC software, but I don't have the slightest idea how to do it. I'm sure if I spent the time reading I might be able to figure it out, but I was hoping somebody has already created one that works with this configuration. I've already done many searches on this forum and on Google, but all I see are people in my situation with no resolutions, or links to a proper file/settings for this configuration.

Any ideas??

Thanks, Recondas for the display vfo info. I can compile it on my Octane, so that's not a problem. I also tried it out, but it's giving me a very similar effect compared to the display option in the setmon by default. One difference is that my multilink can display the video widescreen when set to widescreen. The default vfo file displays the same way whether or not the multilink is set to widescreen or standard mode. It only displays widescreen when the multilink is set to alternate timing mode.

It looks like I will have to somehow create a custom file based on the multilink, but I have no experience at all with this. Any help would be appreciated

I did something that my computer doesn't like and now I don't get a display when it boots into the login screen. I can see the boot sequence, but now I get an unsupported resolution message on the monitor . I tried to find the command to get it back to the 1280x1024_60 file that I was using before, and I thought I was doing it properly in the command monitor at bootup, but obviously I'm doing something wrong. What's the correct command to get it back to the default resolution?

Also, Canavan, the Fuel is using a DVI connection, but my Octane is using a 13w3->VGA adapter and a VGA->DVI cable to connect to the Multilink. I'm sure this is what's throwing it off because it's an analogue signal, not a digital one.

Thanks!

Thanks for all the detailed information, Recondas! I compiled everything on my system, but the strange this is that the MLA is showing the display as a 1280x1024 image. The image looks similar to the standard 1280x1024_60 vfo file. That is how it appears on the login screen. When I logged in though, it seemed like IRIX was thinking that it's indeed a wider screen because the toolchest is off the screen as though it was in the top left corner of a wider monitor. Also, my desktop icons are off the screen as well. It's as though the system is displaying 1600x1024, but the graphics is only showing 1280x1024. Any ideas what might cause this?

I tried the new vfo file you attached and the display to me looks almost exactly the same as the previously compiled vfo file. I'm still getting missing pixel information on the left and right sides of the screen as though it's only showing 1280x1024. The MLA is still showing the display as being 1280x1024 and not 1600x1024.

With the newly compiled vfo running, what resolution does the Multi-Link Adapter's On-Screeen Display indicate, and (not to belabor the obvious) have you had the opportunity to try adjusting the display with the adjustments in the MLA's Advanced Display Menu (or the "Force Detect" option in the MLA's general menu)?

I have already tried that on each iteration of the vfo files. I've tried the force detect, wide/zoom, overlapping modes, reseting the monitor, adjusting phase, clock etc...

What I'm seeing with the last two files appear to have a much darker, distorted horizontal band of graphics at the top portion of the screen. Maybe 50 pixels tall or so.

On your previous post, you linked to the vfs page that was written. I took another look at the readme at the beginning and the poster says "Anyway, enough of my troubles. The 1600x1024_60p.vfo only
works if you have the flat panel adapter AFAIK, and the timings are
set appropriately for digital out (no front porch!). This 1600x1024
works with the analog output and sets the timings appropriate for
analog out." What is this Front Porch? I can see some entries on both of those files for horizontal and vertical front porch, maybe that's what they are referring to? Maybe that's something that needs to be changed?

Another interesting thing I noticed when fiddling with the MLA adjustments is the overlapping mode. In the default mode, I get a "normal" looking picture, but the sides of the screen are black. In the Alternate mode I can actually see most of the image, but the colors are all messed up and the display is showing the left halve of the screen on the right and vice versa. You posted much earlier a link that stated " These lines are required for use with the SGI Multilink Adapter and the SiliconGraphics Flat Panel display.
Modeline "1600x1024g" 108.0 1600 1616 1656 1704 1024 1027 1030 1056 -Hsync -Vsync
Option "OverridePolarity" "1""
I wonder if the syncs need to be reversed and this OverridePolarity needs to be flagged.

I think we are getting close to solving this mystery. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there that has this sort of a setup. Once we get this sorted, we should definitely include the vfo file into the Wiki about the MLA and the 1600sw.

One last thing, the 13w3 adapter I'm using was purchased from a site that specifically makes these for different models of SGI's and SUN computers. They have a computer selector/configuration for the different types of 13w3 adapters and mine was specifically for SGI's and Octanes. I don't think it's a bad adapter because I've used a few other monitors with the computer (analogue and digital) and never had any problem before. If it turns out that the adapter is to blame, then do you know where to get a proper one?

Thanks again for all your help with my crazy setup!

I gave this another shot. It's better than the previous one in the sence that there is much less of a distortion at the top of the screen. Almost none. I am almost able to get the quality of the picture to be as close to the 1280x1024_60 by fiddling with the MLA controls. What I'm still seeing is that the picture is displaying as 1280x1024 still. The MLA is detecting that as the resolution. Were you able to get the Override Polarity option set? Maybe that and the -syncs will solve the problem?

We're close. I can feel it. So very very close.....

Thanks for the response. I'm going to try this vfo again tonight.

Regarding the overlapping modes in the MLA, I've already tried adjusting them from default to alternate for every vfo that we've tried so far. I can see more pixels on the screen when it's set to alternate mode, but the image is REALLY messed up looking with the right half of the image on the left half of the screen and vice versa. Also the colours are all messed up in this mode, like they are missing one of either R,G or B. Probably they sync is messed up in this mode.

I'll let you know when I give it another try tonight.

I can tell you from personal experience that Maya on an O2 R5K machine really sucks. That's what I learned Maya on, and it was very sluggish.
I have an Octane2 with Dual 600 CPU and V12 graphics. Maya works great on that machine - for an SGI. It's dog slow compared to what I have at work (NVIDIA K5000, 6x 3.33GHZ CPU, 48GB RAM), but that's to be expected.
I have an SE card as well as a single 300, and dual 400 CPU's that I've tried on the same machine. There is a marked improvement over the SE card compared with the V12. Massive difference. The processors make a difference when calculating complex modeling operations and rendering - as well as overall performance. Dual doesn't really help over single for non-rendering tasks.
Hope that helps!