ArcGIS® 3D Analyst™ Graphics Accelerator Cards

An ESRI ® Technical Paper • October 2001

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ArcGIS 3D Analyst Graphics
Accelerator Cards

An ESRI Technical Paper

Contents Page

Improving 3D graphics performance with ArcGIS 3D Analyst 1

Level of support for OpenGL 1
Geometry setup 1
Geometry acceleration 1
Texture mapping 1
Z buffer resolution 1
Output resolution, colors, and refresh rate 2
Display driver 2
Chipset 2

Graphic cards tested by ESRI 2

ESRI Technical Paper i

ArcGIS 3D Analyst Accelerator Graphics Cards

October 2001 ii
 ArcGIS 3D Analyst Graphics
Accelerator Cards
Improving 3D Rendering performance in 3D scenes can be improved dramatically
graphics through the use of an OpenGL® graphics card. OpenGL is an industry-
performance with standard, cross-platform, 3D graphics application programming interface
ArcGIS 3D Analyst
(API). Cards supporting this API offload compute-intensive tasks from the
CPU and perform the operations in specialized hardware. A proper
graphics card and graphics driver configuration is all that’s necessary for
3D graphics performance to be improved in ESRI® ArcGIS™
3D Analyst™. No special setting in 3D Analyst is required.

A variety of OpenGL cards are available. Their capabilities and prices vary. The
following sections describe issues to be aware of when making purchasing decisions.

Level of support for Some cards support only a partial implementation of the OpenGL API, handling few
OpenGL tasks in hardware. Some 3D cards made for games and the Direct3D API do not have a
good OpenGL implementation (if at all). Look for cards, and their drivers, which are
designed and optimized for OpenGL to achieve the best performance.

Geometry setup Geometry setup reduces load on CPU and graphics pipeline by accepting geometry data
directly rather than requiring preprocessing by the CPU into a card-specific format.
Requiring less use of the CPU and the graphics pipeline improves performance.

Geometry This form of acceleration accepts geometry primitives (e.g., triangles), projects them into
acceleration 3-D camera space, clips, illuminates, projects again to 2-D screen space, and rasterizes
the result. It has a significant performance impact for data-intensive applications like
geographic information systems (GISs).

Texture mapping Texture mapping handles imagery in hardware. Images, such as those from satellites,
orthophotos, scanned maps, and raster-based symbols can be rendered in real time when
texture mapping is supported in hardware on the card. Texture memory controls the total
amount of imagery that can be used at one time. If you ever intend to use imagery or
raster-based symbols in your 3D GIS applications, you should consider a card that
supports this feature. The card should have at least 16MB of RAM that can be dedicated
to the task. This means the total memory of the card needs to be more than 16MB.

Z buffer resolution Z buffer resolution controls how accurately the card can perform hidden surface removal.
The minimum to be considered is 16 bit, with the highest and most accurate resolution
being 32 bit. 3D Analyst requests a 24-bit z buffer but will work with values both higher
and lower.

ESRI Technical Paper 1

ArcGIS 3D Analyst Accelerator Graphics Cards

Output resolution, These control the size and quality of the resulting display on your monitor—the higher
colors, and refresh the better. Be aware that configuring a card to maximize one of its capabilities may
rate diminish its capabilities in other areas. For example, just because a card supports a 24-bit
color mode and 1280x1024 output resolution doesn't mean you can have them
simultaneously. Also, depending on the card, increasing one of these parameters may
impact memory available for other things such as textures.

Display driver Display driver communicates display information from the application to the graphics
hardware. Some display drivers for 3D cards have limited OpenGL support or none at all.
Make sure an optimized OpenGL driver is available for the card that’s designed to fully
exploit the capabilities of the hardware. Compatibility issues can exist between driver,
card, graphics bus, and operating system version. Check with the graphics card vendor
for verification. In addition, look to the graphics card vendor for updates to drivers that
ship with a card. These can enhance performance and resolve bugs.

Chipset The primary factor influencing the capabilities and performance of a card is its chipset.
Cards from different vendors who use the same chipset more than likely have similar
capabilities and performance.

Graphic cards tested The following is a list of graphics cards, by manufacturer, that ESRI has used
by ESRI successfully* to improve rendering performance with 3D Analyst extension:

n
®
3Dlabs Create!
n
®
3Dlabs Oxygen GVX1 (and GVX1 Pro)
n 3D Prophet II Pro GTS
®

n ATI FireGL2 ™
n ATI Radeon 8500 ™
n ATI RAGE Mobility™
n Compaq PowerStorm™ ®
n Diamond Multimedia Viper V770
n Diamond Multimedia Fire GL1 AGP
n Diamond Multimedia Fire GL™ 1000 PRO
n ELSA Synergy™
n ELSA GLoria™ II-64
n
®
NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS™
n NVIDIA GeForce2 Mx™
n NVIDIA GeForce3™
n NVIDIA Quadro2 Pro™

*Related to performance only, not rendering quality. Some cards improved performance
more than others. In general, those with geometry setup and texture mapping support
performed better. These cards have various restrictions that include operating system and
graphics bus version. Check card requirements and your system configuration before
purchasing.
The chart below indicates performance test on selected cards. As noted above the test is
relevant to performance only.

October 2001 2
 Geometry & Texture Intensive Tests For Different Graphics
Accelerators
System Configuration:
processor[x86 Family 6 Model 8
Stepping 6 993Mhz Pentium III]
80.00 sysMemPhys[535,998,464 KB]

Data Setup:
71.25
70.00 Polygon Count
Pure Geometry: 3,314
Mixed Text Geo: 45,707
60.00 59.09 Text-Intensive: 1.26 x 10 E08 Pixels
64.34

50.00
42.89
40.22
38.79 42.01
38.73 38.87
40.00

30.78
30.00

Frames Per Second (FPS)

29.59
13.61 13.55 24.88 26.14 25.35 24.09
13.57

40.97
20.00

39.47
10.95 20.93
9.65

30.78
9.16 17.01 17.96
11.86
26.93
11.74 11.81 11.97 11.84 11.95 Texture Intensive

23.74
23.70
22.36
20.34
10.00

19.59
4.94 5.43 6.61
Mixed Texture Geometry
9.78

7.48

7.01
6.86

5.89
5.88
5.78

5.77

5.55

Pure geometry
0.00
Nvidia Nvidia Nvidia Ati Ati Ati Nvidia Nvidia Nvidia 3D3D 3D 3D 3D 3D
Card Type GeFor GeFor GeFor FireG FireG FireG Quadr Quadr Quadr Labs Labs Labs Proph Proph Proph Radeo Radeo Radeo Test Type
ce3 ce3 ce3 L2 L2 L2 o2Pro o2Pro o2Pro Oxyge Oxyge Oxyge et et et n n n
Pure geometry 19.59 23.74 23.70 30.78 40.97 39.47 5.89 5.88 7.01 22.36 20.34 26.93 7.48 5.55 9.78 5.77 5.78 6.86
Mixed Texture Geometry 13.61 13.55 13.57 38.73 38.79 38.87 11.86 11.74 11.81 4.94 5.43 6.61 11.97 11.84 11.95 20.93 17.01 17.96
Texture Intensive 71.25 59.09 64.34 40.22 42.89 42.01 30.78 24.88 26.14 9.16 9.65 10.95 25.35 29.59 24.09 * * *

Card Details:
Nvidia GeForce3 - GeForce3 Integrated RAMDAC 64MB Driver Version: 6.13.10.2311 Video Architecture: VGA
ATI FireGL2 - IBM RC100 256-bi /IBM GT1000 Integrated RAMDAC 64MB
Nvidia Quadro2 Pro - GeForce 2 GTS 64MB Driver Version 6.13.10.2311
3D Labs Oxygen - Oxygen GVX1 Pro Integrated 300MHz RAMDAC 64MB Driver version: 2.16-0691
3D Prophet II Pro GTS - GeForce 2 Pro 400Mhz DDR RAM 64MB Driver Version
Radeon 8500 - ATI Radeon200 AGP (QL) Internal DAC (350Mhz) 64MB card Driver Version: 5.13.01.3276

* The Radeon 8500 Card did not complete this test as it was not able to render color while drawing complex polygons (polygons with more than 3 vertices) &
traingle strips (as in the case in multipathces)