[Info-vax] VSI Software and Stark Gaming

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Tuesday, 11 August 2015 17:09:08 UTC+1, JF Mezei  wrote:
> On 15-08-11 10:12, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> 
> > Hollywood.  For many years, Hollywood was the main driver pushing high
> > end video systems and they were SGI's major customer.  In the eighties and
> > early nineties, CGI shops dominated the customer base.
> 
> Did CAD software also drive video card development ? Or did CAD just
> ride on the wave created by Hollywood which enables near real-time
> rendering of structures being designed ?

CAD and similar applications drove the development of (relatively) high performance graphics and (relatively) high performance systems at relatively high prices. Not sure about the volumes. These systems were around (perhaps invisibly to most folk) long before 3D rendering and CGI and what have you became high visibility.

The potential size of the PC gaming market drove Dell to buy a company that built specialist gamer PCs (Alienware), even though Dell already had a Workstation product line. Same for HP with VoodooPC (who?).

Other than both sectors do 3D rendering etc at high speed, is there that much in common? How many workstation systems come with blue LEDs inside and on the cooling fans, with voltmeters and ammeters and overclocking-adjustment knobs where the floppy drive used to be?

Do CAD vendors etc still certify their packages on particular configurations that have been tried tested and proven to work, or is that kind of thing left to the customer these days?