27 Apr
2000
27 Apr
'00
9:36 a.m.
On Apr 27, 13:08, Scott Hall wrote:
Thanks for the reply, Mark. This PI is on circa 1994
Irix 5.3. Nope,
this cut of Blender is IrisGL, so I don't think that's it.
Certain stock Irix 5.3 demos don't work. Launching the MahJong is fine,
so is the flight sim. Launching the mandelbrot fractal maker is a no
go--says 24-bit is needed. The Porsche driving sim. comes up but puts
up an error message that says "gconfig: not enough bitplanes for RGB
mode."
Some of the demos are intended specifically to show off capabilities, or
demonstrate how to program, the 24-bit or Z-buffered systems, so I wouldn't
expect them all to work or even compile on an entry-level graphics system
(if you only have entry-level graphics, some of the headers and libraries
will not be there).
Mark Green wrote:
> > > A student of mine has a circa 1990 SGI Personal Iris with GR1.2
> > > graphics--apparently less than 8-bit. He wants to run Blender on
> it
> > > <www.blender.nl> and he'll need at least 8-bit graphics to do
> that.
> >
> > Anybody have a PI graphics board that's 8-bit or better to give or
> sell
> > to him?
> >
>
> There's something wrong here. I know of no SGI with less
> than 8 bits of graphics, all the PIs have at least 8 bit
> graphics, and most of them have 24. So the problem must
> be somewhere else.
Mark is right: GR1.2 is 8-bit. Some GR1.2 boards are apparently
upgradable to TG (the next level), if the big chip in the middle is
socketed rather than soldered (you replace it with a TG piggyback board).
I *think* all versions can be upgraded to 24-bit. Whether you'd find an
upgrade now is another matter, of course.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York