GX Graphics question

[Mark Wiederspahn]

We can't seem to get straight answers from Sun about the relative merits
of a vanilla color adapter (eg 4/60FC or 4/60C) and a GX accelerated
adapter (4/60FGX or 4/60GX). We are using a SparcStation-1, but the GX
option is offered for other systems as well.

Our experience is basically that there is little or no difference in speed
in our application. We originally purchased a GX on the recommendation of
the software vendor, who is porting applications from Vaxes to Suns, and
apparently doesn't know much about the Suns. We can't tell if:

1) they don't know how to use the GX
2) the GX adds little or no performance gain for color 2D polygons
3) we are missing some key software component

Has anyone installed the Graphics System Software patch "GFX-4.0.3-0x"
purported to be required under SunOS 4.0.3, and for what kinds of
applications did it make any difference?

Any experiences are valuable. I will summarize in due course.

Mark Wiederspahn
Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas
(512)471-0490