[radiance]

Hi all,

I'm working on a youtube video, and I need to know where the different chips / parts of the 3d pipeline are on the indigo2's maximpact boards.
I know where to find the HQ3 and 2xGE11 (bottom board)
It's the 2xRE4, 2xTE and 4xPP1 chips I need to locate on the boards. (middle and top boards)

The problem is that most of the boards chips are covered with large heatsinks and i'm not going to pull apart my "working" set

On each board, there is a TRAM connector where the TRAM module goes, and next to it are 4 heatsink-covered chips.
Does anyone know which of these is which ?

On the product guide there is a photo of one of these boards without the heatsinks (the right one in the photo) here:
http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/i...actpg.html
It looks like those 4 chips are identical... 

On SGIStuff there are high-res photos of all boards, but alas with heatsinks on them...
http://archive.irix.cc/sgistuff/hardware...mpact.html


Can anyone help ? Does anyone have a board with no heatsink(s) or photos of it ?
I wanted to ask Ian Mapleson, but he's currently away for a few weeks...
Thnx,
Radiance


BTW: Here's the details about the chips from the impact product guide:

HQ3 Command Processor:

• Distributes graphics primitives to Geometry Engine
  
  
• GIO64 bus interface
  
  
• Pixel DMA engine
  
  
• 300,000 gates
  
  

Two GE11 Geometry/Image Engines:

• Power the graphics subsystem
  
  
• 960 MFLOPS for transforming triangles
  
  
• 960 MIOPS for processing pixels
  
  
• 600,000 gates each
  
  

Two RE4 Raster Engines:

• Provide the pixel-fill capabilities
  
  
• 234 Mpixels/sec gouraud fill rate
  
  
• 300,000 gates each
  
  

Two TE Texture Engines:

• Fill, warp, and zoom image/texture data
  
  
• 295,000 gates each
  
  

One or Four MB Texture Memory:

• Interpolates image/texture data and performs MIP-mapping interpolation
  
  
• 1MB of texture memory with expandability to 4MB through optional Mezzanine card
  
  
• 60,000 gates + 8MB DRAM for each MB
  
  

Four PP1 Pixel Pipe Processors:

• Provide blending, depth and dithering
  
  
• 290,000 gates each
  

[jan-jaap]

The TRAM is either 1MB or 4MB when 3MB option card(s) are installed. The 1MB TRAM is underneath the oddly shaped heatsink in the bottom left corner of this photo: http://archive.irix.cc/sgistuff/hardware...2-1901.jpg

That's from a HighImpact card set, the MaxImpact has it two of those of course, one on the top board and one on the middle board. They are only visible if the TRAM option is not installed. MaxImpact has twice the TRAM of HighImpact, but it's to double the speed, not to double the user-visible size.

[radiance]

The TRAM is either 1MB or 4MB when 3MB option card(s) are installed. The 1MB TRAM is underneath the oddly shaped heatsink in the bottom left corner of this photo: http://archive.irix.cc/sgistuff/hardware...2-1901.jpg

That's from a HighImpact card set, the MaxImpact has it two of those of course, one on the top board and one on the middle board. They are only visible if the TRAM option is not installed. MaxImpact has twice the TRAM of HighImpact, but it's to double the speed, not to double the user-visible size.

Hi, thanks jan-jaap, but I already know about the TRAMs

It's the actual chips next to the TRAM socket I was wondering about, eg the ones underneath the large heatsink visible in that photo you linked to...
Basically the RE4 (raster engine), TE (texture engine) and PP1 (pixel pipe) chips, I am hoping they are somewhere underneath this on each of the 2 boards that accept TRAMS...

If anyone knows, i'd love to find out
Radiance