From: Fred Kleinsorge [kleinsorge@star.enet.dec_nospam.com]
Sent: Monday, November 08, 1999 12:53 PM
To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
Subject: Re: DS10, elsa synergy and Open3D, OpenGL works?

mathog@seqaxp.bio.caltech.edu wrote:
> 
> 
> One might also wonder why the Elsa card is not supported for 3D work as
> Permedia II cards do a fine job of it under WNT (for instance.)
> 
> Comments from the Compaq crew?
> 

I'll add my complaint here as way of an explanation...  This card was
done as a 2D replacement card for the low-end.  There never was any
serious thought to using it for 3D.  While this card is a fine card for
3D games on a PC, the amount of work it would take to utilize the 3D
functionality on the card for VMS is not worth the effort - given the
limitations.

Most of the "commodity" 3D cards you find for PCs are nearly useless for
any serious X11 and UNIX/VMS 3D use.  However, as Intel talks about
embedding simple 2D into the core chipsets, the commodity card makers
are abandoning cheap 2D cards, and trying to build "cheap" 3D cards --
which cost several times what the old 2D cards cost.

So you get cards that have things like 11-bit precision (so you need to
first do a check to see if you can use hardware or fallback to
software), you get a handful of 3D primitives, but no overlay planes. 
You get 8 bit, 15 bit, or 24-bit pixels - but only a single lookup table
- so no mixed pixel formats.  In short, the cards cater to the design -
and limitations - of NT and Windows.

We are currently working on porting the Powerstorm 350 code from UNIX
and should have something shipping at ~year end for those who need real
3D.  As to the ELSA card, and the Open3D license being bundled on the
XP900 -- I'll see what is going on... but the best that will *ever* be
done for the ELSA card is software 3D.