Re: IDL crashing badly on my solaris 8 system

[Jonathan Joseph <jj21(at)cornell.edu>]

David Fanning wrote:
> 


> > 1) is there a similar way to turn off hardware rendering
> >    from the IDL prompt (not in IDLDE mode)?
> 
> There is no way to turn hardware rendering off
> from the IDL command line, to my knowledge. But
> you can select software rendering on your draw
> widget with the RENDERER=1 keyword.

That's a good idea, but unfortunately, that won't prevent
built-in IDL functions (like the aforementioned xplot3d) from
crashing the system.  But I suppose if I let everyone who
is likely to use this system know, I can avoid this
eventuality.

> 
> > 2) what can I do to get hardware rendering working on this machine?
> 
> Get a decent graphics card.
> 
> > and is it worth it?
> 
> Hard to say. 95% of the craziness in object graphics
> programs can be tied directly to the hardware rendering.
> On programs I write that are suppose to run everywhere,
> I always render in software. Surprisingly enough, for
> a great many things, this is even faster than hardware!
> 
> If your object graphics program does things that *can*
> be speeded up in hardware (lots of polygon rendering,
> I think), then it may be worth it to you to upgrade
> your graphics card. But just be sure your boss upgrades
> hers as well, or your cool demo is likely to fall flat
> on its face at the worst possible time. :-(
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> David


Is that an anecdote from your personal experience David? :) 

As it turns out, the object graphics programs I have
written do happen to draw lots of polygons.  Maybe I'll check
the drivers first.  I wonder if there ARE any
solaris 8 drivers for any good graphics cards.

Thanks for the input.

-Jonathan