Graphics processing on a graphics supercomputer

Author

Borden, Bruce S.

Author_Institution

Ardent Computers, Sunnyvale, CA, USA

Volume

9

Issue

4

fYear

1989

fDate

7/1/1989 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

56

Lastpage

62

Abstract

A description is given of the Titan Graphics Supercomputer. The primary design philosophy was to have as little redundant hardware as possible and to make as much of the hardware available to compiled application code as possible. This led to a design with multiple parallel processors, each with an integer unit and a vector floating-point unit. The system provides 3D graphics and image processing, using the main processors for most computations. The graphics subsystem consists of only a frame buffer with rasterization (vector and triangle pixel drawing) support. The Titan architecture provides a very good balance of computation and graphics but to make it more competitive in graphics or imaging-intensive applications, a special-purpose accelerator also fits into the architecture.<>

Keywords

computer evaluation; computer graphic equipment; computer graphics; computerised picture processing; mainframes; parallel architectures; parallel machines; 3D graphics; Titan Graphics Supercomputer; Titan architecture; compiled application code; frame buffer; graphics processing; graphics subsystem; image processing; imaging-intensive applications; integer unit; multiple parallel processors; primary design philosophy; rasterization; special-purpose accelerator; triangle pixel drawing; vector floating-point unit; Application software; Computer graphics; Hardware; High performance computing; Image databases; Pipelines; Rendering (computer graphics); Sun; Supercomputers; Three dimensional displays;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Computer Graphics and Applications, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0272-1716

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/38.31464

Filename

31464