Talk:Silicon Graphics/Archives/2016

Deal with Nintendo and MIPS acquisition

Wasn't Nintendo engaged with SGI to develop the video subsystem architecture for their then-named Ultra64? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pulsar t (talk • contribs) 18:38, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so. I think that during the early 1990s SGI was really trying hard to entrench their aquired MIPS architecture in consumer products. They were doing the same with their graphics architecture, although to a lesser extent. SGI made a cheap combo consisting of a cut down MIPS processor and a single chip graphics pipeline, tried to sell it to another company (can't remember which one) and ended up making a deal with Nintendo. But I could be wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rilak (talk • contribs) 11:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Correct, SGI used a stripped down 64 R4000 for Project Reality, which included the Nintendo 64 (using the R4300i) and the Ultra Arcade (using the R4600). Im sure they had much larger plans as well with Nintendo that didnt pan out. It's probably worth mentioning in this article some where. - UnlimitedAccess 07:54, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Please include this info! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.118.51.44 (talk) 20:24, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I've added a mention of the N64 using R4300i derivative and the MIPS take over. Maybe people would like more details about SGI first going to Sega and then Nintendo? Jonpatterns (talk) 09:39, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Wasn't Rareware in a deal with them also? Silicon Graphics company name is written in the credits for Donkey Kong Country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.57.175.49 (talk) 23:26, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

In DKC, Donkey Kong was a 3D rendered object put into a flat, so SGI might have helped them. 184.88.250.38 (talk) 18:17, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I am positive that this was the case, I used to receive the Rareware company christmas card every year. I can ask about their relationship and get back to this thread later. Ignus3 (talk) 19:58, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

GL, GIS, and SIG's demise.

The GL software was the company's #1 asset. Not only did Maya use the workstations exclusively, but the were quite a number of GIS companies whose products ran only on SGI. These companies sold exclusively to governments who in turn purchased hundreds of millions of dollars worth of SGI workstations. Typically $30-60k per seat, and the GIS software was similarly expensive. DGL was a considerable mistake for SGI, and it tied up a lot of government admins fixing the problems (e.g. me). DGL was intended to run GL on thin clients across a range of hardware, but the system was discontinued before the bugs were fixed. The slow but sure development of OpenGL (aka MESA) was the end for SGI, and even they tried going to OpenGL themselves. The acquisition of Cray in the late 90s was also another nail in the coffin. SGI took on responsibility for government installations that had commenced in the 1970s, utilizing quaint software of that vintage.

MS developed their own graphics library (DX). While being quite inferior to GL, the rise of DX was effected by the rapidly increasing performance of Intel and graphics hardware, meaning DX-based graphics apps were soon well ahead in speed. The early 2000s corresponded to a rapid increase in performance of Intel hardware, and a rapid increase in the availability of open software on Linux, which was usually superior to the proprietary original. The days of the $30k workstation were gone, and a $500 PC was 10x faster, and had all the open source tools that specialist outfits needed.203.221.203.159 (talk) 12:28, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Why are the open source contributions questioned?

There's a citation-needed in that section, but the same or very next sentence mentions a few concrete projects. Seems enough, though the warning could be moved to the list of projects itself, if there are no good sources.

93.103.233.95 (talk) 19:05, 17 October 2016 (UTC)