SGI Delivers Computer Industry's First Hardware-Accelerated Graphics for Linux

SGI has announced a new family of graphics subsystems called VProTM graphics for Windows NT, Linux and IRIX desktop workstations. The company offers two distinct implementations of VPro graphics, one available today for Windows NT and Linux with the Silicon Graphics 230, 330 and 550 visual workstations, and a more robust and full-featured implementation for the IRIX platform that will be announced later this quarter. Both implementations leverage SGI's expertise in OpenGL with full hardware-acceleration of the OpenGL 1.2 core feature set on a single chip. The first two VPro graphics subsystems available from SGI are 32MB or 64MB AGP 4X boards for the Silicon Graphics 230, 330 and 550 workstations. These graphics subsystems deliver up to 64 MB of high-speed double data rate (DDR) graphics memory, geometry performance over 17 million triangles per second and up to 540 megapixels per second, allowing for improved realism and interactivity of large 3D models. SGI provides a broad range of high-performance computing and advanced graphics solutions that enable customers to understand and conquer their toughest computing problems.