Re: [ccp4bb]: Xfit hardware stereo

[Bart Hazes <bhazes@ualberta.ca>]

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> Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 08:58:39 -0500
> From: Petr Leiman <leiman@purdue.edu>
> To: Bart Hazes <bhazes@ualberta.ca>
> Subject: Re: [ccp4bb]: Xfit hardware stereo
>
> Hello Bart.
>
> Thank you for posting your comments on the Xfit stereo in Linux on the
> CCP4BB. Could you please also indicate which hardware you are using, i.e.
> what kind of a videocard and the rest of the system. How would you compare
> performance of your linux box running Xfit in stereo versus Xfit mono and,
> say, Indigo 2 with Xfit in stereo.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Petr

The system is a 933MHz Pentium III Dell Dimension 4100 with 128Mb of PC133
SDRAM. It has a 32Mb DDR nvidia geforce2 GT graphics card and Dell P1110 21"
monitor. For normal computing and Xfit I don't think I needed the, at that
time, fancy graphics card but it may still pay off for software that uses
hardware accelleration. I am very satisfied with the monitor although there
are now some new models with even better specs as mentioned on the web page.

I personally don't use hardware stereo since my eyes are trained on
side-by-side stereo without stereo glasses. So that makes it really impossible
for me to make a comparison. I was however impressed by the quality of the
stereo image I got and think it is more than adequate for our purpose. The
stereo works by assigning half the vertical resolution to each stereo image.
Consequently the line quality in the vertical direction suffers a bit but that
must be the same on the SGI. Similarly, this technique means that your other
windows on the screen get mangled. Stereo-in-a-window would be a significant
improvement. I think WhatIf actually allows you to do that on a PC but I
haven't got that installed.

I am running at 1280x1024 screen resolution and 56Hz refresh rate. With the
newer monitors, for instance some from Iiyama, you should be able to run
comfortably at 1600x1200 resolution and 56Hz in stereo mode. Since you spend
so much less on the computer if you buy a PC it is easy to invest more on the
monitor and, fortunately, monitors don't become obsolete as quickly. They also
improve the "computing experience" and impress potential new students :)

Bart

PS according to the Xfit documentation, one benefit of the SGI is that the
software can directly figure out the stereo settings. On the PC you have to do
this once manually, as explained on the web page, after which you can store
those settings in your startup script. However, if you change the vertical
size of the Xfit canvas you have to readjust one of the settings but that is
really trivial.