Graphics

Infinite Reality

Introduction

General

InfiniteReality (code name "Kona") was the "new" family of graphics options for highend workstations and servers of the Onyx, Onyx 2 and Onyx 3000 series.

InfiniteReality has been introduced for the original Onyx systems in 1996 and has been improved since then for the newer Onyx systems. 1998 InfiniteReality 2 came, 2000 InfiniteReality 3 was introduced during the time of the Onyx 3000 systems and since January 2002 it is also available with Onyx 300 (End of Production: June 27, 2003). The last addition to the InfiniteReality family was InfiniteReality 4, which had been announced in summer 2002.

The naming and the way hinv reports the different InfiniteReality options is a bit confusing, a little help is provided by this small table:

Onyx IR        | InfiniteReality   | 12  | 6  | 4  | 
Onyx2 Reality | Reality | 14 | 8 | 5 |
Onyx2 IR | InfiniteReality2 | 14 | 7/9| 5 |
Onyx2 IR2 | InfiniteReality2e | 16 | 7/9| 5 |
Onyx2 IR3 | InfiniteReality3 | 16 | 10 | 5 |
Onyx 3000 IR4 | InfiniteReality4 | 16 | 11 | 5 |

Technology

Boards

InfiniteReality for Onyx

GE12-4 Geometry Engine
 
RM6-16 (16 MB TRAM) or RM6-64 (64 MB TRAM) Raster Manager
 
DG4-2 or DG4-8 Display Generator
Capable of output to two or eight channels.

Reality for Onyx 2 / Onyx 3000

GE14-2 Geometry Engine
 
RM8-16 or RM8-64 Raster Manager
All RM boards do have a connector for calligraphic lights which is used with specially equipped display systems.
 
DG5-2 or DG5-8 Display Generator
Capable of output to two (DG5-2) or eight (DG5-8) channels. The DG5-8 comes with the VIO5H daughtercard to supply the additional channels. Also available is the graphics to video option (GVO) which is a DG5-2 that comes with a daughtercard that has two CCIR601 connectors.
KTOWN
The KTOWN board is used in rackmount configurations to connect the graphics pipelines installed in the graphics module to the host system. The upper connector connects to the pipeline #0 on the right of the KTOWN board, the lower one to the pipeline #1 on its left.

InfiniteReality 2 for Onyx 2 / Onyx 3000

GE14-4 Geometry Engine
 
RM7-16 or RM7-64 Raster Manager
All RM boards do have a connector for calligraphic lights which is used with specially equipped display systems.
 
DG5-2 or DG5-8 Display Generator
Capable of output to two (DG5-2) or eight (DG5-8) channels. The DG5-8 comes with the VIO5H daughtercard to supply the additional channels. Also available is the graphics to video option (GVO) which is a DG5-2 that comes with a daughtercard that has two CCIR601 connectors.
KTOWN
The KTOWN board is used in rackmount configurations to connect the graphics pipelines installed in the graphics module to the host system. The upper connector connects to the pipeline #0 on the right of the KTOWN board, the lower one to the pipeline #1 on its left.

InfiniteReality 2E for Onyx 2 / Onyx 3000

GE16-4 Geometry Engine
 
RM9-64 Raster Manager
All RM boards do have a connector for calligraphic lights which is used with specially equipped display systems.
 
DG5-2 or DG5-8 Display Generator
Capable of output to two (DG5-2) or eight (DG5-8) channels. The DG5-8 comes with the VIO5H daughtercard to supply the additional channels. Also available is the graphics to video option (GVO) which is a DG5-2 that comes with a daughtercard that has two CCIR601 connectors.
KTOWN
The KTOWN board is used in rackmount configurations to connect the graphics pipelines installed in the graphics module to the host system. The upper connector connects to the pipeline #0 on the right of the KTOWN board, the lower one to the pipeline #1 on its left.

InfiniteReality 3 for Onyx 2 / Onyx 3000

GE16-4 Geometry Engine
 
RM10-256 Raster Manager
All RM boards do have a connector for calligraphic lights which is used with specially equipped display systems.
 
DG5-2 or DG5-8 Display Generator
Capable of output to two (DG5-2) or eight (DG5-8) channels. The DG5-8 comes with the VIO5H daughtercard to supply the additional channels. Also available is the graphics to video option (GVO) which is a DG5-2 that comes with a daughtercard that has two CCIR601 connectors.
KTOWN
The KTOWN board is used in rackmount configurations to connect the graphics pipelines installed in the graphics module to the host system. The upper connector connects to the pipeline #0 on the right of the KTOWN board, the lower one to the pipeline #1 on its left.

InfiniteReality 4 for Onyx 2 / Onyx 3000

GE16-4 Geometry Engine
 
RM11-1024 Raster Manager
All RM boards do have a connector for calligraphic lights which is used with specially equipped display systems.
 
DG5-2 or DG5-8 Display Generator
Capable of output to two (DG5-2) or eight (DG5-8) channels. The DG5-8 comes with the VIO5H daughtercard to supply the additional channels. Also available is the graphics to video option (GVO) which is a DG5-2 that comes with a daughtercard that has two CCIR601 connectors.
KTOWN
The KTOWN board is used in rackmount configurations to connect the graphics pipelines installed in the graphics module to the host system. The upper connector connects to the pipeline #0 on the right of the KTOWN board, the lower one to the pipeline #1 on its left.

DPLEX

The Digital Video Multiplexer Option (DPLEX) is an additional board that lets two or more Infinite Reality 2 (or better) graphics pipelines on Onyx 2 systems work simultaneously on a single video output. For each pipline one of the DPLEX daughtercards is required. The option is added to the system by replacing the DG5 board with a DG5 with DPLEX dual boardset.

Setup

Onyx Deskside

The following shows the configuration for a Deskside Onyx system.

8 GFX GE12  
9 GFX RM6 Bridged using cardedge connector.
10 GFX  
11 GFX RM6
12 GFX  
13 GFX DG4

Please note:

  • For systems equipped with only one RM this must be placed into slot 09.
  • It is not supported to mix RM6-16 and RM6-64 boards in a system.
  • Empty slots must be filled with baffle boards to provide the appropriate airfolw for cooling.

Onyx Rackmount

The following shows the configuration for a Rackmount Onyx system (Cardcage 2).

8 GFX GE12  
9 GFX RM6 Bridged using cardedge connector.
10 GFX RM6
11 GFX RM6
12 GFX RM6
13 GFX DG4

The following table shows the configuration for the third cardcage in a Rackmount (Onyx) system:

5 GFX GE12  
6 GFX RM6 Bridged using a carde edge connector.
7 GFX RM6
8 GFX RM6
9 GFX RM6
10 GFX DG4
...      
16 GFX GE12  
17 GFX RM6 Bridged using a carde edge connector.
18 GFX RM6
19 GFX RM6
20 GFX RM6
21 GFX DG4

Please note:

  • Setups using one (slot 9), two (slot 9 and 11) and four (slot 9, 10, 11 and) RM are allowed.
  • It is not supported to mix RM6-16 and RM6-64 boards in a system.
  • Empty slots must be filled with baffle boards to provide the appropriate airfolw for cooling.

Onyx 2 Deskside

The Onyx 2 deskside system allows one InfiniteReality graphics pipeline:

3 GFX GE GM14 or GM16
4 GFX RM RM6, RM7, RM8, RM9, RM10 or RM11
5 GFX RM RM6, RM7, RM8, RM9, RM10 or RM11
6 GFX DG DG5

Onyx 2 Rackmount / Onyx 3000 graphics module

The Onyx 2 / Onyx 3000 graphics module can contain up to two InfiniteReality graphics pipelines:

1 GFX GE GM14 or GM16
2 GFX RM RM6, RM7, RM8, RM9, RM10 or RM11
3 GFX RM RM6, RM7, RM8, RM9, RM10 or RM11
4 GFX DG DG5
5     KTOWN Interface to host system
6 GFX GE GM14 or GM16
7 GFX RM RM6, RM7, RM8, RM9, RM10 or RM11
8 GFX RM RM6, RM7, RM8, RM9, RM10 or RM11
9 GFX RM RM6, RM7, RM8, RM9, RM10 or RM11
10 GFX RM RM6, RM7, RM8, RM9, RM10 or RM11
11 GFX DG DG5

Diagnosis

For Infinite Reality graphics options a diagnostic tool exists. It is called irsaudit and is located in the folder /usr/diags/IR/bin. The manpage describes it as follows:

     The irsaudit program is the diagnostic software for InfiniteReality
manufacturing verification and burn-in, field service hardware diagnosis,
and component fault isolation.

Before running irsaudit the X-Server should be stopped by invoking /usr/gfx/stopgfx. By default irsaudit will test the whole graphics option in one pass, it's behaviour can be tuned by command line options.

The following is an abbrevated output of a complete irsaudit run. In the end it shows one hardware error:

REV                 Rev:3.3.2 Thu Jul 20 18:13:09 PDT 2006 sherwood on splat
CMDL ./irsaudit
TEST reset Reset
RSLT reset PASS
TEST xgid Report XG ID and test MAP RAM config
INFO Revision: 00, Part No.: c102, Manufacturer No.: 2aa
INFO MAP RAM Config = 128Kx32 bits, SSRAM type used = 32K*36
INFO bits
RSLT xgid PASS
TEST xgregs Test the XG registers
RSLT xgregs PASS
TEST xgram Test the XG MAP RAM
INFO Found XG MAP RAM to have 128K entries
TRCE Doing XG MAP RAM data path test
TRCE Doing XG MAP RAM address path test
TRCE Doing XG MAP RAM cell test.
RSLT xgram PASS
TEST xgerr Test the XG Error Behavior
INFO Running Bad Map RAM Parity Tests
INFO Enabling parity checking...
INFO Running Bad Map RAM Parity Tests
INFO Disabling parity checking...
INFO Running XT Configuration Tests
RSLT xgerr PASS
TEST hh_reg HIP Host Registers
RSLT hh_reg PASS
TEST ha_reg HIP ARM Registers
RSLT ha_reg PASS
TEST jtaginit JTAG Master
RSLT jtaginit PASS
TEST mbox ARM-Host Mailbox
RSLT mbox PASS
TEST sysprobe JTAG System Probe
TRCE GE board has 2 GE ASICs.
INFO GE board is a GE14.
TRCE BEF has 4MB of memory.
TRCE RM #0 is an RM8.
TRCE RM #0 has 16MB (256Kx16 parts) of texture memory.
TRCE RM/TM #1 not detected via JTAG.
TRCE RM/TM #2 not detected via JTAG.
TRCE RM/TM #3 not detected via JTAG.
TRCE DG has 2 VOC configuration.
TRCE No option present in DG option slot.
TRCE DG has 32K colormap RAMs.
TRCE DG has no external gamma/deep colormap RAM.
RSLT sysprobe PASS
TEST nicprobe NIC Board Probe
TRCE Checking XG NICs
TRCE Reading ARM ucode from: /usr/diags/IR/ucode/arm1_nic.u
TRCE GE NIC #: 0000.0012.631e (family: 0b)
TRCE Serial #: DZV174
TRCE Part #: 030-1051-002
TRCE rev_code: K
TRCE name: GE14-2
NIC# PNGE-030-1051-002 SN-DZV174 (0000.0012.631e)
TRCE RM0 NIC #: 0000.0004.b62a (family: 0b)
TRCE Serial #: DCJ807
TRCE Part #: 030-1130-001
TRCE rev_code: A
TRCE name: RM8-16
NIC# PNRM-030-1130-001 SN-DCJ807 (0000.0004.b62a)
TRCE DG NIC #: 0000.0047.47c8 (family: 0b)
TRCE Serial #: KGL431
TRCE Part #: 030-1055-001
TRCE rev_code: P
TRCE name: DG5-2
NIC# PNDG-030-1055-001 SN-KGL431 (0000.0047.47c8)
RSLT nicprobe PASS
[...] META TOTAL 76 1
CODE SUM Hardware error
CODE BSUM 0R 0Y 48G PNGE-030-1051-002:SN-DZV174 (0000.0012.631e)
CODE BSUM 1R 0Y 12G PNRM-030-1130-001:SN-DCJ807 (0000.0004.b62a)
CODE CSUM 1R 0Y 12G IMP1
CODE BSUM 0R 0Y 21G PNDG-030-1055-001:SN-KGL431 (0000.0047.47c8)
TRCE Sending crashlog to availmon... (Use +nolog to avoid this.)

Pictures

GE14-2 Geometry Engine board.

RM8-16 Raster Manager board.

DG5-2 Display Generator board.

Links

Articles

  • An SGI product guide featuring the Onyx, Reality Engine and Infinite Reality graphics. Page: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Websites