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Test Configuration

We used the same testbed as what we had used in the reviews of the 3DLabs Wildcat VP990 and the ATI FireGL XP1. As of now, there is more powerful "backbone" hardware available, however, in order to have comparable results, we stick with what we had in the earlier reviews, the differences would probably not be too earthshaking anyway.

3ds max5 and MAXtreme Driver Settings

The MAXtreme application drivers are highly specialized for the use with 3ds max. Within 3ds max, the drivers offer a number of different settings, the two most important of which are the "Speed" and the "Quality" setting. After installation of the MAXtreme drivers, there is no obvious or even intuitive way to change from e.g. the "Speed" to the "Quality" settings, the configuration utility is hidden within the "Customize" pull down menu. The complete path is: "Customize/Preferences/Viewports/Configure Driver".

      

Probably the most important feature here is the so-called triangle-strip vs line antialiasing. I don't believe it is necessary to go into what antialiasing means, and the principle is the same whether it applies to edges, textures or simple lines. Bottom line here is that line-AA requires computation of the gray values of any pixel that not only falls within a line but also those that are merely touched by it.

On the left is the theoretical make-up of the line from triangles (dark gray and black), each of which can be defined by a single data point, however, also would be rendered as a square (add the complementary lighter gray triangles). The resulting lines would look like the black "line" in the center of the picture. On the right is what the same line would look like using antialiasing.

On the other side of the spectrum is what is called a triangle strip. A triangle strip builds on the principle that lines are composed of consecutive triangles regardless of which direction they are running. Since each triangle shares one side with the previous triangle, it also shares two of its corners or angles. Consequently, in order to generate the next triangle, only a single geometry point needs to be calculated and transferred. In other words, because of the special properties of triangles, any triangle strip uses to its advantage that within any existing strip, only a single point is necessary to generate the next triangle. Needless to say that every pixel that partially falls into the triangle will be rendered in the color of the line, which, at high magnification will cause the jagged edges shown in the center of the drawing above.

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