[chimera-dev] Re: working at home

[Greg Couch]

I believe that all of the currently mid-to-high end shipping
workstation class PC graphics cards support multisampling.  It's not
clear if it is enabled by default though, you might need to configure
the driver.  For instance, with the NVidia Quadro4 900 XGL graphics
card on my desk, I changed the default settings to be "highest" quality
in XP and for Linux I had to set some environment varialbes before
starting the X server.  Those cards are the NVidia Quadro4 and Quadro
FX series, the ATI FireGL Z1 and X1, the 3dLabs Wildcat3, Wildcat4 and
Wildcat VP series.  The cost of these cards range from $400 to $3000.
Any workstation graphics card that costs less than $400 is probably an
entry-level card and should be avoided (i.e., some Quadro4
variations).

As for the mid-to-high end consumer graphics cards (otherwise known as
gaming graphics cards), they have multisampling support, but it is
unclear if it only applies to full-screen applications (games) or if it
works within a single window.  The online literature is not clear.  The
literature seems to be missing any euphemisms for full screen only, so
it should work.  Those cards are the Nvidia GeForce4 Ti and GeForce FX
series, and the various ATI Radeon 9000 series (the 9500, 9600, 9700
and 9800 are best).  And just like the workstation cards, you probably
have to tell the graphics driver that you're more interested in quality
than speed.  (Oh, and there's the Matrox Parhelia series, it should
work too.)  Unfortunately, we won't be able to tell for sure without
getting our hands on more of these cards.  The cost of the mid range
should be $200 to $300.  The high end should be $400 to $600.

	Greg

On Wed, 14 May 2003, Tom Ferrin wrote:

> Greg,
> Which of the mid-to-high end graphics cards support hardware
> multisampling/supersampling?
>
> --tom
>
>
> --------
> > I have already had extensive talks with Tom Goddard about why the jaggies
> > are there and there is alreadys an entry in the gnats database.
> > Normally, I try to not burden the email list with these details and keep
> > them in the gnats database, but to summerize:
> >
> > Without hardware multisampling/supersampling (which chimera uses if it is
> > available), you'll always have jaggies for cylinders, spheres, and
> > surfaces.  It is just more noticable if you have a white background
> > because of how the primitives are shaded (dark on the sides).  The
> > solution for printing, is to supersample, that is to generate an image
> > that is 16 times larger and average 16 pixels into one (9x might be
> > sufficient).  Regular grid supersampling will work for molecular modeling
> > images (instead of the jittered sampling that ribbonjr uses) because there
> > are extremely few right angles (so there is almost no chance that the
> > "picket fence" effect of primitives appearing and disappearing from one
> > frame to the next).
> >
> > 	Greg
> >
> > On Wed, 14 May 2003, Tom Ferrin wrote:
> >
> > > Okay, but please respond to Tom Goddard's email (w/ cc to chimera-dev)
> > > about jaggies in Chimera images.
> > >
> > > --tom
> > >
> > >
> > > --------
> > > > Forgot I had a dentist appointment today.  First in many, many years.
> > > > Marriage is a good thing.
> > > >
> > > > 	Greg
> > >
>