From: js@wolfenet.com (Jay W. Summet)
Subject: TECH: Input needed on VR setup, OS, software, graphics cards.
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 20:19:55 GMT
Message-ID: <4i7aui$t32@tahoma.cwu.edu>
Organization: Central Washington University


From: js@wolfenet.com (Jay W. Summet)

     I am planing on setting up a small homebrew VR system this
summer, and I'm interested in hearing people's suggestions.

My Goals:
                 To build an abstract VR world.
                  I may want to interface this world to the internet,

                      (ie, show status of networked computers, have

	         programs running on unix shells sending it usage 
                       data etc...)
                  Make use of the hardware I currently have.
                  Prefer the main language to be C.

Hardware I already have:
                  Vio I-glasses PC version with head tracking.
                   Nintendo Powerglove
                   Some 3com ethernet II cards/cables.
                   A few smal (200megs) HD's.
                   Cheapo VGA cards, monitors.


I plan on spending: 2000-3000 dollars (US) Buying some combination of:
                   One or Two bare bone Pentium computers.
                   One or Two hardware 3d graphics accelorators.
                   

Currently, I have been looking at Omnicorp's 3dDeamon that uses the
3dlabs 300sx chip. This card already has built in support for frame
sequential stereoscopic NSTC output, and would work great with my Vio
I-Glasses.

However, it costs around 1800$ last time I checked.

The Creative Labs 3D Blaster uses another version of the 3dLabs 300sx
chip (this one does not support OpenGL as far as I can tell)  and only
costs around 300-400$.

It looks like I might be better off buying TWO pentium bare bone
computers (500$ or less each) networking them, and puting a 3D Blaster
in each of them, and then buying the VGA to NSTC converters along with
a Frame Sequential multiplexer to interface to my Vio I-Glasses.

I would like to know if anybody has any comments on this,
specifically:
  1. I suspect that the 3d Deamon is a much better card, but do I
really need all the nice features it offers?  
  2. According to the specs, TWO 3d Blasters SHOULD give me a much
better polygon count than ONE 3d Blaster, and would cost about the
same, along with a second computer to spread the geomotry calculations
out a bit.
3. (2) VGA-NSTC converters and a frame sequential multiplexors should
not cost more than 300-400 dollars, RIGHT?
4. Will networking the two computers make the software a LOT harder to
write? (I am also considering using a third computer (486) as the main
controller, and just using the Pentium's for graphcis rendering.)


Now, for some software questions:
1. I would sort of like to use Linux for my system, because:
   a) It's free.
   b) It has some good freeware C compilers that would work well.
   c) It's fully 32bit, multitasking, stable, and has full network

        support built in.
   Would Win95/NT/IBM Warp or some other OS be better?

2. I don't really WANT to write all of the code for my system, I would
be more than happy just making the high-level user interface, main
control loop type of stuff. What type of low level object/graphics
libraries exist, and would they have built in support for either the
3d Deamon (Open GL) or the 3d Blaster? (As well as support for
distributed processing with twin computers?)


My main question is:

If anybody sees anything that I should not be doing, or something that
I should, please let me know.



Thanks for any help,
                               Jay W. Summet