From: leech@Apple.COM (Jonathan Leech)
Subject: Re: Highest Performance VR System
Date: 8 Aug 91 16:58:00 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA



In article <1991Aug7.001635.11441@milton.u.washington.edu> mklapman@adsl 
(Matthew Klapman) writes:

>The PixelPlanes5 is the highest performance polygon engine around.
>The 2 million polygon rate is for phong shaded polygons of arbitrary size...
>yes- arbitrary.  Each pixel has its own processor (massively parallel!!!),
>and the processor would decide whether it should be on or off.  Each pixel
>receives the same set of parameters at the same time as all the rest.

    This description applies to the previous version (#4).  The
current machine has a variable number of 128^2 pixel processor arrays,
which are dynamically reconfigured to render different parts of the
screen.  Several more VME racks of hardware would be needed to fully
instantiate a 1Kx1280 screen :-), and it would be wasted silicon
anyway.  See the SIGGRAPH paper 2 years ago for details.
--
    Jon (leech@apple.com)
    Pixel Planes RA, most of the time
    __@/