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Some years ago IBM exited the graphics chip development business, but continued to manufacture some chips for use with its platforms. Now, with the rapid pace of graphics hardware technology, IBM has turned to the independent graphics ship/card manufacturers to source its graphics hardware needs. In the case of the UNIX based Power Series line, the entry point for graphics was the GXT-135P card, until the recent introduction of the GXT-145P card. Both are Matrox Graphics' G series cards, rebranded by IBM.
Xi Graphics developed 2D support in the Wall Display (HX) Series for these two cards for an IBM customer for use on POWER 5 and Power6 platforms and AIX v5.x and AIX v6.x. Neither card is really powerful enough for good OpenGL 3D performance, so work has begun at Xi Graphics, using a much more capable card, to put 3D capability onto the P:ower Series and AIX. This will also be a major enhancement to the OpenGL feature - from v1.5+ to v2.1 - in the Summit Series for those systems that need the capability/complexity of v2.x of OpenGL.
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Comments: Xi Graphics, Matrox and IBM have recently begun a cooperative effort to make available to the AIX/Power Series users a broad choice of graphics options to cover a rather broad range of graphics requirements of commercial/military systems that need the reliability/security/power of IBM, the graphics quality and long term availibity of Matrox cards and Remote Graphics Units, and the quality, performance, and maintenance support of Xi G+raphics' Accelerated-X™ Summit Series software. We believe this is a pretty potent combination of players who are tops in their respective fields when it comes to commercial, industrial, and military systems that are graphics intensive.
NOTE: The aforementioned cooperative effort was halted due to the bizzare episode of events beginning in April 2011 that involved the near suicide of out CTO, attempted extortion, litigation instituted by Xi Graphics, and so on, and the suspension of graphics SW development activities. Development will be resumed pending acquisition of sufficient capital to resume (and expand) operations.
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