Is NT the Future of Graphics?

If Comdex is the full-service warehouse store of computer shows, SIGGRAPH is the toy shop--only the prettiest baubles and gewgaws are shown there. I've covered SIGGRAPH for 10 years, and I remember when PCs were the pesky creatures that got under the feet of the purpose-built desk-size workstations.

Today, many of those old-line graphics companies are gone or changed radically: Workstations look like oversized PCs, and the rivalry over host operating systems is less heated. Almost no one sneers at the mention of PC-based graphics because so much good work is done on hardware you can buy at a big mall.

Graphics is moving into every segment of the business market and Windows NT is the right platform for many graphics-laden applications, such as video editing, modeling, computer-aided design (CAD), and structural analysis. This stuff is becoming more mainstream all the time; businesses produce moving-image demos and presentations with lots of pinball graphics. When was the last time you saw a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet without a big 3D chart? Although not too many corporations use 3D graphics or worry about Gouraud shading for the business pitch now, more will in the future.

Microsoft at SIGGRAPH
Today, Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI), maker of the Iris, Indigo, and Reality Engine UNIX workstations, dominates the computer graphics field. The company sells a lot of hardware to Hollywood for creating and manipulating pictures. SIGGRAPH had dozens of booths with add-ons for SGI products, including morphing, motion-capture, and video-editing tools. SGI's hardware is still the dominant platform.

But Microsoft has its eyes on SGI's turf. The world's best-known software company is moving into computer graphics big time. Microsoft bought Softimage, Inc., the Canadian software company that has been SGI's biggest title for a long time. Microsoft bought Altamira and Altamira's Windows-based drawing program Composer, acquired Reality Labs for Render Morphics, and hired Alvy Ray Smith and Jim Kajiya, two longtime pioneers in the computer graphics field. There were rumblings that Softimage products could go NT. Daniel Small, Softimage product manager, loudly hinted that the company was previewing an Alpha version in the back room. Expect a first cut at a really killer graphics application from Microsoft within the next 18 months.

SGI's reply has been manyfold. Some time ago, they bought MIPS Technologies, Inc., which makes SGI's CPUs. Then, they merged with Alias and Wavefront Technologies, Inc., two 3D software companies that sell a lot of SGI products, to form the subsidiary Alias/ Wavefront. SGI also bought part of NetPower, an NT workstation company that uses MIPS chips. But only time will tell if SGI can compete against PCs.

Non-Intel NT? For Whom?
"Windows NT" doesn't just mean the Intel-CPU-based NT that most people use. With version 3.1 came two other versions of NT--one for the MIPS RISC CPU and one for Digital's Alpha series of RISC CPUs. With NT version 3.51 came a version for the Motorola PowerPC chip. All four CPU families were at SIGGRAPH, although you had to look pretty hard to find PowerPC systems. Of the three non-Intel chipmakers, Digital was the most visible. Representatives had a full-court press on, touting the Alpha as the fastest general-purpose CPU on the market and the right platform for NT. A walk down the aisles uncovered at least five Alpha-based PC companies: Aspen Systems, BVC, Carrera Computers, DeskStation Technology, and Digital. Not surprisingly, Alpha NT systems were showcasing high-powered graphical applications--applications that need almost limitless horsepower.

Digital's current speed champion is the 300-MHz Alpha 21164, which runs so hot it needs a 4" heat sink. Microprocessor Report says it's "at least 2.5 times faster than the best shipping processors" in the other NT platforms. And Microsoft recently made a major alliance with Digital, just about guaranteeing that Alpha will be first among equals. Digital has bought into NT in a big way, perhaps to the detriment of their much larger UNIX business.

But can you use a PC that doesn't have Intel inside? Microsoft would say yes, although they haven't started pushing it yet. Every version of NT has a DOS-like command prompt which will run .BAT files or NT .CMD files. At the show, I learned that non-Intel NT has an emulator for 16-bit Windows applications.

Most programs should run, although more slowly, on any version of NT without modification. Amusingly enough, the emulator won't run 32-bit applications.

"I guess 32-bit applications are supposed to all be native," said representatives from Radiosity Software, which ported its Scene Machine flying logo software from the Amiga to Windows NT.

That most programs will run without modification is still quite an accomplishment: It means Microsoft wrote a 486 emulator and squirreled it away in the operating system. It's also a mark of just how large a piece of code NT is that this huge feature could go unnoticed.

But no one wants to run in emulation mode: Ask any PowerMac owner about it. Speed will always be an issue when one computer pretends to be another. What users really want to know is: Will my favorite applications be available on the non-Intel platforms? The current answer is: "That depends."

Upon my return from SIGGRAPH, I literally tripped over the box containing Microsoft Office for Windows NT; it claims to run on all four platforms. (Interestingly enough, however, the Reviewer's Guide doesn't mention the PowerPC.) Rumors at SIGGRAPH were that migrating Word and Excel to NT on an Alpha was more complex than it's supposed to be and that Digital gladly lent at least 10 programmers to the port.

Certainly, moving applications to non-Intel NT is harder than it should be. There is no cross-compiler for NT; if you want to run your program on an Alpha, you have to compile it on an Alpha. That's an onerous burden for a small software company, which would have to own one of each platform at $7000+ each.

I suggested to Blaise Fanning, the vice president of engineering for DeskStation Technology, that his company set up a "teleport," a dial-in or Internet-accessible center where small companies could migrate their software. He was excited. DeskStation will do well only if non-Intel NT does, so helping the little guys move their software is important to him. (Microsoft has such a center, but you have to fly to Redmond to use it.)

DeskStation makes both Alpha and MIPS CPU cards, so enterprising developers could get one of each. However, they'll also have to get two hard drives, one to boot each version of NT because the code base is completely different for each CPU.

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