The SUN Microsystems XVR-4000 Graphics Accelerator - Printable Version

+- IRIX Network Forums (//forums.irixnet.org)
+-- Forum: Other Platforms (//forums.irixnet.org/forum-5.html)
+--- Forum: Sun/ORACLE/Fujitsu (//forums.irixnet.org/forum-21.html)
+--- Thread: The SUN Microsystems XVR-4000 Graphics Accelerator (/thread-65.html)

---

Re: The SUN Microsystems XVR-4000 Graphics Accelerator - johnnym - 07-12-2018

<QUOTE author="Irinikus" post_id="1458" time="1531338561" user_id="62">

Irinikus post_id=1458 time=1531338561 user_id=62 Wrote:I found these slides in a pdf that give you some kind of an idea as to the XVR-4000's graphical performance when it comes to molecular modelling:
Screen Shot 2018-07-11 at 22.05.37.png

Wow, I couldn't imagine how big this graphics "card" is until I saw it in the hands of the guy in the picture. Geez!

---

Re: The SUN Microsystems XVR-4000 Graphics Accelerator - Irinikus - 07-13-2018

<QUOTE author="johnnym" post_id="1469" time="1531421003" user_id="209">

johnnym post_id=1469 time=1531421003 user_id=209 Wrote:Wow, I couldn't imagine how big this graphics "card" is until I saw it in the hands of the guy in the picture. Geez!

It is rather large! (Definitely the largest "graphics card" I've ever layed eyes on.)

Infinite reality is much larger, but it doesn't count as a "Graphics card" in my opinion. (I view it as a modular graphics subsystem.)

I just hope that it's performance is as impressive as it's and size complexity (When viewed in the correct context of course.)

It's an extremely interesting piece of hardware none the less, and was definitely designed to be an imposing one at that!

---

Re: The SUN Microsystems XVR-4000 Graphics Accelerator - johnny_b - 07-14-2018

<QUOTE author="Irinikus" post_id="1400" time="1531040633" user_id="62">

Irinikus post_id=1400 time=1531040633 user_id=62 Wrote:The V880z doesn't really take up that much space and it can be used as a side-table to your desk (It's slightly narrower than an Onyx2 and about 1.5 times as deep, and has castering wheels and a flat top!)

The only problem is the noise it makes! I'm not over-exaggerating when I say that it's probably about 10 times louder than my Tezro, it's awfully loud!

Nah, out of question! My wife definitely would kill me in that instant moment when I turn it on

---

Re: The SUN Microsystems XVR-4000 Graphics Accelerator - Irinikus - 07-17-2018

My peripherals for this system are on their way from the UK, so I should have them within the next week, maybe even by Friday!

These include :

A brand new Sun type-6 Keyboard and mouse
A proper serial cable for the machine (DB9 to DB25)
A proper SUN 13W3 to DVI cable

I will make use of the same type of DVI to HDMI converter that I used for my Tezro to interface it with my monitor. (I pray it works!)

As a matter of interest, WildFire Systems' current price for an XVR-4000 is a whopping £1750 before tax! (In this case, I got mine for a steal!)

---

Re: The SUN Microsystems XVR-4000 Graphics Accelerator - commodorejohn - 07-17-2018

<QUOTE author="Irinikus" post_id="1559" time="1531838099" user_id="62">

Irinikus post_id=1559 time=1531838099 user_id=62 Wrote:I will make use of the same type of DVI to HDMI converter that I used for my Tezro to interface it with my monitor. (I pray it works!)

I'm no expert, but...this may actually be your problem right there. Is your DVI-to-HDMI converter a passive plug affair, or some kind of active signal converter box? Because Sun 13W3 video doesn't (as far as I can tell) actually have digital video support at all, while HDMI doesn't have analog video support, and DVI has both. So if the 13W3-to-DVI adapter is just running the analog video through, and the DVI-to-HDMI adapter isn't properly converting analog video, you may end up still getting no video.

Honestly, it'd probably be worth your while to just pick up a proper monitor with an actual DVI input.

---

Re: The SUN Microsystems XVR-4000 Graphics Accelerator - Irinikus - 07-18-2018

Thanks for the heads-up regarding this.

I also have a DVI to VGA converter that I will make use of if I have to, but my main problem is that I didnt have a proper SUN cable in the first place.

I will just have to check this up and stand to be corrected on this, but I think that the XVR-4000 actually does allow for a purely digital output through it's 13w3 outputs.

---

Re: The SUN Microsystems XVR-4000 Graphics Accelerator - heavyfuel - 08-10-2018

When you get this running, some benchmarks against Geforce/Radeon/Quadro/FireGL of the same era would be interesting!

...unless it's difficult to carry out, which I guess it is.

---

Re: The SUN Microsystems XVR-4000 Graphics Accelerator - Irinikus - 08-11-2018

<QUOTE author="heavyfuel" post_id="2188" time="1533937352" user_id="313">

heavyfuel post_id=2188 time=1533937352 user_id=313 Wrote:When you get this running, some benchmarks against Geforce/Radeon/Quadro/FireGL of the same era would be interesting!

...unless it's difficult to carry out, which I guess it is.

It’s up and running, but at the moment, all can do is click around in Solaris, as I haven’t got any decent software for it yet!

Maybe it would be a good idea to try and make contact with, Mr Michael Frank Deering, the person who created this monstrosity, to see if he cannot supply me with a demo for it?

This might be easier said than done though!

The big problem here is that SUN was never really into graphical hardware, so there’s no commercial graphical software available for it, such as Maya and the like!

This machine is an interesting piece of hardware, but only serves as a table for my monitor for now! (A machine is nothing without good software.) It makes a great table though!

---

RE: The SUN Microsystems XVR-4000 Graphics Accelerator - Irinikus - 12-04-2019

At the request of @swarmik, who's also a member of this forum, I ran his GPU benchmarking software "GPUbench" on the XVR-4000, in order to gauge it's actual performance.

To quote @swarmik, "It seems that this was not a universal hi-end solution but rather just something for very specific market".

It seems that really high quality antialiasing is this card's strong point, as it renders a beautiful output (better than that of the V12), when rendering Quake3, even though it doesn't have the best frame rate.





Here are some examples of what one of the tests looks like:







The initial results were dismally poor, as we were initially unaware that the XVR-4000 was setup to automatically render with 16x forced antialiasing, which resulted in rather poor performance in the initial battery of tests.



After disabling the forced multi-sampling, the XVR-4000 obtained the following results:



Here are the results from the Tezro's V12, for comparative purposes:



The results of these tests will be reflected on his site, where you can too download his benchmarking software. Here's the link to his site: http://swarm.cz/gpubench/

---

RE: The SUN Microsystems XVR-4000 Graphics Accelerator - swarmik - 12-05-2019

I should correct myself about the anti-aliasing. The number of samples depends on the selected resolution. In this case it was ~10 samples per pixel. Check this table:

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19088-01/v880z.srvr/817-2400-10/chap6.features.html#21185

I've updated the web page and added all new results (including this card) - see attached for comparison with SGI VPro V12 and contemporary NEC, ATI and NVIDIA cards.

XVR-4000 is one of the weirdest cards we have tested. It is designed for high internal color precision and high-precision realtime anti-aliasing. I believe that this card could outrun its competitors by far in certain applications. However, it was not so good as a general-purpose 3D accelerator.

Simple on-line result browser: http://swarm.cz/gpubench/_GPUbench-results.htm

---