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It Lives! SGI Onyx350 Prototype/Onyx4 - "Artemis" - Printable Version

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It Lives! SGI Onyx350 Prototype/Onyx4 - "Artemis" - kaigan - 07-05-2020

As I posted in a hardware support thread a while ago, I managed to acquire a prototype Chimera rackmount chassis on eBay fairly cheaply. However, the poor system had been gutted to very few original components. More or less all that was left was the 2U Interface board, the chassis, and some additional brackets, fans, etc. This started a months-long project to try to rebuild the system. Things have turned out a bit differently than originally anticipated, but at this point, it's up and running.

First of all, there is nothing other than the chassis and similar hardware left of the prototype at this point. The 2U Interface board is still really, truly, most sincerely dead. I hope to fix this yet, but it's more complicated than I had hoped. I may not have the skills and knowledge to fix it, even with the wonderful community assistance I've received. So, for now, it sits carefully stored for future repair.

As a part of bringing this thing online, I've purchased multiple partial, non-working Altix 350 systems (for chassis parts, fans, etc.), two nearly-complete Onyx4 bricks, and a host of risers, cables, and other miscellaneous stuff. Two of the three Altix 350s are now a fully-working NUMALinked setup, so at least they didn't go to waste. The last Altix only had a few miscellaneous components and the case was heavily damaged, so it was never going to be a full system again, anyway.

After some research into the parts that I had remaining, I determined with some help from the SGUG Discord that what I was looking at was an Onyx350 prototype unit. Given that everything in it (such as it was) was production spec, it was quite possibly an early demo unit sent to a specific client for certification or evaluation.

While I could have brought the machine back to spec as an Onyx350, in discussions with @sgiseller regarding specific parts he had on hand, I purchased a pair of Onyx4 bricks from him to create a full, quite powerful, Onyx4 configuration. One of the bricks was an Onyx4 expansion module, which is the same as an O350 one, but with the white front plate. I migrated the parts from this system into the prototype chassis and added all of the additional pieces to turn it into a full base compute module. I figured that this would be keeping in spirit with its purpose while allowing me to take a closer look into the world of the less-common Onyx4. I could always turn the module back into an Onyx350 by running it as a single node with a V10/V12 in it, anyway.

So, that's the history. All of that aside, it's time for some pictures and the hinv! All of the pictures I've taken so far are available on Silicon Image. If anyone would like to see any specific component in more detail, just let me know! http://siliconimage.irixnet.org/index.php/User-Albums/Kaigan/Onyx4

Code:
>> hinv -v -m
IP35 Node Board, Module 001c01
    ASIC BEDROCK Rev 2, 200 MHz, (nasid 0)
    Processor A: 1.0 GHz R16000 Rev 3.0
          Secondary Cache 16MB 333MHz Tap 0x15 , (cpu 0)
      R16010FPC Rev 3.0
    Processor B: 1.0 GHz R16000 Rev 3.0
          Secondary Cache 16MB 333MHz Tap 0x15 , (cpu 1)
      R16010FPC Rev 3.0
    Processor C: 1.0 GHz R16000 Rev 3.0
          Secondary Cache 16MB 333MHz Tap 0x15 , (cpu 2)
      R16010FPC Rev 3.0
    Processor D: 1.0 GHz R16000 Rev 3.0
          Secondary Cache 16MB 333MHz Tap 0x15 , (cpu 3)
      R16010FPC Rev 3.0
    Memory on board, 8192 MBytes (Standard)
      Bank 0, 1024 MBytes (Premium)  <-- (Software Bank 0)
      Bank 1, 1024 MBytes (Premium)
      Bank 2, 1024 MBytes (Premium)
      Bank 3, 1024 MBytes (Premium)
      Bank 4, 1024 MBytes (Premium)
      Bank 5, 1024 MBytes (Premium)
      Bank 6, 1024 MBytes (Premium)
      Bank 7, 1024 MBytes (Premium)
IP35 Node Board, Module 001c02
    ASIC BEDROCK Rev 2, 200 MHz, (nasid 1)
    Processor C: 800 MHz R16000 Rev 3.0
          Secondary Cache 8MB 400MHz Tap 0xa , (cpu 6)
      R16010FPC Rev 3.0
    Processor D: 800 MHz R16000 Rev 3.0
          Secondary Cache 8MB 400MHz Tap 0xa , (cpu 7)
      R16010FPC Rev 3.0
    Processor A: 800 MHz R16000 Rev 3.0
          Secondary Cache 8MB 400MHz Tap 0xa , (cpu 4)
      R16010FPC Rev 3.0
    Processor B: 800 MHz R16000 Rev 3.0
          Secondary Cache 8MB 400MHz Tap 0xa , (cpu 5)
      R16010FPC Rev 3.0
    Memory on board, 4096 MBytes (Standard)
      Bank 0, 512 MBytes (Premium)  <-- (Software Bank 0)
      Bank 1, 512 MBytes (Premium)
      Bank 2, 512 MBytes (Premium)
      Bank 3, 512 MBytes (Premium)
      Bank 4, 512 MBytes (Premium)
      Bank 5, 512 MBytes (Premium)
      Bank 6, 512 MBytes (Premium)
      Bank 7, 512 MBytes (Premium)
IXBRICK Bridge, Module 001c01
    ASIC BRIDGE Rev 3, (widget 15)
    adapter IOC4 Rev 53
          (pci id 1)
    adapter IOC4-ATA Rev 53
          (pci id 1)
    adapter USB (OHCI interface)
          (pci id 2 function 0)
    adapter USB (OHCI interface)
          (pci id 2 function 1)
    adapter PCI (SCSI interface) Rev 6
          (pci id 3)
        peripheral DISK, BUS 0, ID 1, COMPAQ BF3008B26C
        peripheral DISK, BUS 0, ID 2, COMPAQ BF3008B26C
    adapter GigE Rev 15
          (pci id 4)
IXBRICK Bridge, Module 001c01
    ASIC BRIDGE Rev 3, (widget 15)
CGBRICK Bridge, Module 001c02
    ASIC BRIDGE Rev 3, (widget 15)
    adapter PCI VGA Graphics
          (pci id 1 function 0)
PCI Graphics Processor
    adapter ID (Vendor 1002 Device 4e47 class 3 subclass 3)
          (pci id 1 function 1)
CGBRICK Bridge, Module 001c02
    ASIC BRIDGE Rev 3, (widget 15)
    adapter PCI VGA Graphics
          (pci id 1 function 0)
PCI Graphics Processor
    adapter ID (Vendor 1002 Device 4e47 class 3 subclass 3)
          (pci id 1 function 1)
ASIC XBOW Rev 3, on CBrick, Module 001c01
ASIC XBOW Rev 3, on CBrick, Module 001c02

[Image: 20200704_202541.jpg?m=1593909637]

[Image: 20200704_201200.jpg?m=1593909626]

[Image: 20200704_200907.jpg]

[Image: 20200704_202715.jpg?m=1593909646]

RE: It Lives! SGI Onyx350 Prototype/Onyx4 - "Artemis" - indy99 - 07-05-2020

(07-05-2020, 01:12 AM)kaigan Wrote:  It Lives! SGI Onyx350 Prototype/Onyx4 - "Artemis"


Nicely done! Looking forward to some details about the Onyx 4 graphics; both how they perform as well as how they are configured/operate within IRIX.

RE: It Lives! SGI Onyx350 Prototype/Onyx4 - "Artemis" - kaigan - 07-06-2020

(07-05-2020, 01:56 AM)indy99 Wrote:  Nicely done! Looking forward to some details about the Onyx 4 graphics; both how they perform as well as how they are configured/operate within IRIX.

The main issue with the Onyx4 graphics is that anything requiring Iris GL just won't work. This means that many of the older demos won't start at all. I was looking forward to watching some low-poly dolphins swim across my screen, but sadly that isn't an option.

IRIX runs XFree86 to support the ATI cards and you wouldn't see any difference to just look at the OS. You can configure display resolutions and the like in the exact same way and it's pretty seamless. Where things begin to differ is in configuring specialty setups like stereo vision or genlocks. The Onyx4 also has native support for running multiple independent graphics pipes, apparently up to 10 at a time per X server - and you can have multiple X servers running! Combined with multiple USB cards for keyboard/mouse input, you could turn the thing into a massive multi-user machine very easily.

I ran a couple of very simple benchmarks, and I do plan to do more:

Quake III Arena was consistently giving me around 47 FPS at 1280x1024 with max settings.

I also ran 10 runs of the standard test.blend Blender benchmark that Ian Mapleson has used in the past to benchmark SGI performance. The numbers have a fairly wide time spread, likely due to Blender allocating threads poorly and leaving some idle near the end of a render. Here are the times, and the average:

Run 1: 00:52.47
Run 2: 00:40.92
Run 3: 00:57.90
Run 4: 00:43.30
Run 5: 00:42.37
Run 6: 00:44.36
Run 7: 00:52.13
Run 8: 00:55:40
Run 9: 00:45.49
Run 10: 00:55.26
Average: 00:48.96

That average makes it a little bit faster than the Onyx300 setup listed on Ian's benchmarking page here: www.sgidepot.co.uk/blender.html

I'll get some more numbers as I can, and if anyone has additional questions about the setup, I'm very happy to answer them!

Edit: Here are some numbers from C-Ray with 64 threads as well.

scene, 800x600: 163 ms
sphfract, 800x600: 4021 ms
sphract, 1024x768: 49706 ms
scene, 7500x3500: 8462 ms

RE: It Lives! SGI Onyx350 Prototype/Onyx4 - "Artemis" - Irinikus - 07-06-2020

That's pretty impressive! Smile

Split the scene up into smaller tiles and allocate 16 threads (2 per CPU), and you should then get more stable performance!

The fact that you have two sets of CPU's running at different speeds installed in this machine could also be a factor here.

Your machine should be getting a 37.2 second average, as these CPU’s scale directly as a function of MHz.

RE: It Lives! SGI Onyx350 Prototype/Onyx4 - "Artemis" - hamei - 07-06-2020

(07-06-2020, 12:38 PM)kaigan Wrote:  That average makes it a little bit faster than the Onyx300 setup listed on Ian's benchmarking page here: www.sgidepot.co.uk/blender.html

That was wreck's O300 and I think he ran a G-brick on that. Top of the line for SGI numbers there :-). 

I think he was running four pipes to create a large, 4 -monitor display, too.

It would be interesting to see how software behaves on those cards ? Can you attach to an eye-candy Apple display with excessive resolution, then run something demanding on it ? A big Maya model or something ?

RE: It Lives! SGI Onyx350 Prototype/Onyx4 - "Artemis" - kaigan - 07-06-2020

(07-06-2020, 12:47 PM)Irinikus Wrote:  That's pretty impressive! Smile

Split the scene up into smaller tiles and allocate 16 threads (2 per CPU), and you should then get more stable performance!

The fact that you have two sets of CPU's running at different speeds installed in this machine could also be a factor here.

Your machine should be getting a 37.2 second average, as these CPU’s scale directly as a function of MHz.

Increasing the tiles to 64x64 brings my times down to around 38-39 seconds. I don't appear to be able to increase threads beyond 8 in Blender 2.44. Is there a specific setting to increase the count, or should I be using a different version?

(07-06-2020, 01:28 PM)hamei Wrote:  It would be interesting to see how software behaves on those cards ? Can you attach to an eye-candy Apple display with excessive resolution, then run something demanding on it ? A big Maya model or something ?

I'm currently outputting the display to my 1440p gaming monitor at 1920x1080. Given that the maximum resolution of the card is 2048x1536, I'm not sure how much farther I'll be able to push it. I can definitely load up a big Maya model for testing. Any suggestions on one to use?

RE: It Lives! SGI Onyx350 Prototype/Onyx4 - "Artemis" - hamei - 07-06-2020

(07-06-2020, 01:40 PM)kaigan Wrote:  I'm currently outputting the display to my 1440p gaming monitor at 1920x1080. Given that the maximum resolution of the card is 2048x1536, I'm not sure how much farther I'll be able to push it.

Are those cards single-link dvi, or dual-link ?  They had like two pipes per card, I think ?  Do they just plug into the standard riser card or is that different too ?

I think I'm happy with the V12 but if you didn't have one of those, might be a quik-n-dirty and fun way to turn an origin into an onyx ... did the O300 have pci slots ?

RE: It Lives! SGI Onyx350 Prototype/Onyx4 - "Artemis" - kaigan - 07-06-2020

(07-06-2020, 04:24 PM)hamei Wrote:  Are those cards single-link dvi, or dual-link ?  They had like two pipes per card, I think ?  Do they just plug into the standard riser card or is that different too ?

I think I'm happy with the V12 but if you didn't have one of those, might be a quik-n-dirty and fun way to turn an origin into an onyx ... did the O300 have pci slots ?

They're dual-link DVI with two outputs per card. Each board is considered a graphics pipe according to the manual, with two channels. The cards connect to an AGP riser. The riser has connections on the back for SGI's ImageSync cables.

I don't have an O300, but as far as I'm aware they did have a PCI riser, yes.

RE: It Lives! SGI Onyx350 Prototype/Onyx4 - "Artemis" - hamei - 07-06-2020

(07-06-2020, 04:38 PM)kaigan Wrote:  The cards connect to an AGP riser. The riser has connections on the back for SGI's ImageSync cables.

I don't have an O300, but as far as I'm aware they did have a PCI riser, yes.

Ah, AGP. I'd forgotten that. The O350 is pci full length - pci-x ?  And then a connector on the back side for a 'snowball' or V10-12. Looks like the O4 does not have that. Wreck has a few of the pci "imagesync" cards, but I never figured out what they do.

So, no chance for O4 graphics on an O300, unless ATi made a pci version .... which card is that, actually ? Fire-what ?

RE: It Lives! SGI Onyx350 Prototype/Onyx4 - "Artemis" - Raion - 07-06-2020

The ATi cards used by the Onyx4 are AFAIK identical to the later cards used by the prism.