hardware for fedora

[Sharpe, Sam J]

Steve Searle wrote:
> Around 07:33am on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 (UK time), Sharpe, Sam J 
> scrawled:
>
> > I don't find it a PITA (I have akmod-nvidia installed) and the 3D
> > performance of the Intel chipset is not great enough to satisfy the
> > applications that some of my users run.
>
> Out of interest, what applications?
Mainly high end engineering stuff, like:

ABAQUS: http://www.simulia.com/
STAR-CD: http://www.cd-adapco.com/

It's not so much actually running the analysis, as that's CPU-bound 
(although I hear some of the newer software will take advantage of GPU 
processing) - it's the subsequent loading and viewing of the resulting 
outputs, which are typically OpenGL overlays of data on top of a 3d 
representation of whatever they are modelling (I'm an Electronic 
Engineer, I don't really understand what these Mech/Aero guys do ;o)

Same goes for some of the stuff the Chemistry department use to simulate 
and view molecules, spinning them in pretty ways takes a lot of GPU power.

Also, the users are really really picky - they don't like the GPU 
stealing 128MB of "their" 4GB main memory (which is what the GMA3100 in 
the models we buy does) - they'd rather have the extra 0.125GB to fiddle 
with the models and spend the extra few bucks on a discrete graphics card.

(I work at a University - so it's not your average software user-base)

--
Sam