3Dlabs

If you are tired of waiting for your Maya, SoftImage, or 3DstudioMax objects to render then you might want to try out the monster graphics cards from 3Dlabs. If you look at the pictures below, they sure don't fit in a Shuttle PC.

The Wildcat Realizm 800 graphics card is a PCI Express x16 solution that has a whopping 640 MB of RAM and two Visual Processing Units. The card is meant accelerate the renders and previews of various 3D software. A 1.4 million-polygon character from the Appleseed anime was previewed in real-time. It was amazing to watch the graphics artist zoom in/out and move around the character with no hesitation or skipping.

For folks that want to stay with AGP cards, 3dlabs offers the Realizm 200, which has 512 MB of RAM and the Realizm 100, which has 256 MB of RAM.

Conclusion

Siggraph is a convention where the little guy can actually make a good impression. Small companies such as Actuality Systems, Hoodman and Wondertouch can wow the crowd with their innovative products. Now if only we could get our hands on those nine monitor display walls and a few Realizm 640-MB video cards.