Which PC graphics card does AVS recommend?
AVS does not recommend any particular graphics card. AVS/Express is not customized or optimized for any particular graphics card. AVS/Express hardware rendering uses uses OpenGL, so it is important to pick a card with good OpenGL drivers. We measure graphics performance in “teapots per second”. You can do this by building the network: Read_Geom -> Viewer3D. Use Read_Geom to load teapot.geo. Then bring up the View Editor in the data viewer (selecting that option from the Editors pulldown menu). At the bottom of the “General” page is a toggle for “Timer”. Turn it on. Now spin the teapot for a while (at least 20 seconds or so) and then stop it (click in the view with the left mouse button). You have to “spin” the teapot so that it continues spinning – not just rotate it interactively. When you stop the spinning, a message will be printed at the VCP (express console) telling you how many frames were rendered per second. Things change fast with graphics hardware! In early 1997 we measured a
