Last Updated: May 1st 2001

Maya 3.0 for IRIX Qualification, June 2000

This chart indicates recommended Operating Systems, overlays, patchsets, and additional patches at time of press. Please check www.aliaswavefront.com/qual_charts or your local sales office or reseller for latest information. 
Important Notice
Maya 3 will only run on IRIX 6.5.x.
Products Version Software Date
Maya Builder
3.0
200005241558
Maya Complete 3.0 200005241558
Maya Unlimited 3.0 200005241558

 
Please Note The Following:
  • Maya 3.0 has been qualified under IRIX 6.5.8m (only): 

    • Maya 3.0 has been qualified under 6.5.8m only. Although it may perform reasonable under 6.5.6 or greater, it has not been tested. It will not run under IRIX 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4
     
  • How To Obtain IRIX 6.5 upgrades. 

    • Customers with valid SGI software support can gain access to overlays through the worldwide web at support.sgi.com. Customers in North America can also call the Technical Assistance Center at 1-800-800-4744. International customers should call their local SGI office. 

    Customers without worldwide web access should call the Technical Assistance Center or their local SGI office as indicated above. 

 

File Compatibility:
Maya 1.x NT and IRIX Maya 3.0 can read Maya 1.x/2.x format files.
Alias Maya 3.0 IRIX reads Alias 9.0 wire files. 
Maya 3.0 IRIX exports Alias 8.1 wire files.
MediaStudio Maya 3.0 IRIX will import any 3Design Geo files created since 4.2. 
Maya 3.0 will import OBJ files.
StudioPaint Maya 3.0 IRIX is compatible with StudioPaint 9.5 
See the StudioPaint documentation for more details.
Others Maya 3.0 can read Adobe Illustrator EPS files (via Invigorator), OBJ, DXF and IGES files. VRML2 files can be read via a standalone translator. 
Maya 2.5 exports OBJ, DXF, IGES, VRML2, RIB, RTG and GE2 files.

 

Maya Developer's Tool Kit:
To build Maya plug-ins, you must have MIPSpro C++ compiler version 7.2.1 or higher installed. We highly recommend upgrading to version 7.3.1.1m. Additionally, plug-ins for Maya 3.0 must be build on IRIX 6.5. Plug-ins built on IRIX 6.2, 6.3 or 6.4 will normally crash or behave improperly if loaded into Maya 3.0.


 

Maya 3.0 Qualification Chart
Hardware Qualified on IRIX... Known Problems
Octane2 R10000/R12000 V8/V12 IRIX 6.5.11m +patch [11][13][10]
Octane2 R10000/R12000 V6/V10 IRIX 6.5.11m +patch [11][12][13][10]
Octane R10000/R12000 SI/SSI/MXI/ESI/ESSI/EMXI IRIX 6.5.8m
Octane R10000/R12000 Dual/Duo Untested: IRIX 6.5.8m  
Onyx2 Infinite Reality2 Unsupported: IRIX 6.5.8m Severe: [6]
Origin 200/2000 IRIX 6.5.8m  
O2 R5000/R10000/R12000 IRIX 6.5.8m [9]
Indigo2 R4400/R4600/R10000 Impact Graphics  IRIX 6.5.8m [1][2]
Indigo2 R4000/R4400/R4600 Extreme IRIX 6.5.8m [5]
Indigo2 R4000/R4400/R4600 XZ IRIX 6.5.8m [5]
Indigo2 R4000/R4400/R4600 XL Untested: IRIX 6.5.8m [5]
Power Indigo2 R8000 Untested: IRIX 6.5.8m  
Onyx R10000 InfiniteReality Unsupported: IRIX 6.5.8m Severe: [6]
Onyx R10000 VTX/RealityEngine2 IRIX 6.5.8m [7]
Onyx R4400 InfiniteReality Unsupported: IRIX 6.5.8m [6]
Onyx R4400 RealityEngine2 IRIX 6.5.8m [7]
Power Onyx R8000 Untested: IRIX 6.5.8m  
Crimson All Models Untested: IRIX 6.5.8m  
Challenge R4400 Untested: IRIX 6.5.8m  
Power Challenge R8000/R10000 Untested: IRIX 6.5.8m  
Indy R4000/R4400/R4600/R5000 with 24bit graphics Untested: IRIX 6.5.8m [3][4]
Any Indy with 8bit graphics  INTERACTIVE APPLICATIONS CANNOT RUN. For other purposes refer to Indy above
Indigo R4000 with 24 bit graphics  Unsupported: IRIX 6.5.8m  [8]
Indigo R4000 with 8 bit graphics  INTERACTIVE APPLICATIONS CANNOT RUN. For other purposes refer to Indigo above
  • For any product other than Render Software, all SGIs require a z-buffer, except Indy XL, and Indigo2 XL. Eight-bit graphics configurations are not supported. 
  • A minimum of 128MB RAM is required, however, 128MB of memory will be insufficient for most practical uses of Maya.
Platforms marked Untested: have not been tested in any way by Alias, and at time of press are NOT Qualified. However, based on all the information we have, if you encounter any problems we recommend you configure your Operating System as indicated.
Platforms marked Unsupported: indicate that Maya cannot operate to our standard of performance, stability or quality and at time of press are NOT Qualified.
 

Tip for identifying current OS.

The installed operating system can be identified using the command uname -R. This command displays the text label of the current OS.

Tip when installing patchsets: applicable patches

When installing patchsets you should use the option to install all applicable patches. In inst by using the i A command. In Software Manager select Panes -> Command from the menu, and enter i A in the command field when in Customize Installation mode.


 

Known Qualification related problems
[1] Indigo2 High Impact w/TRAM: In some cases, fcheck activated from within the Hardware Render Buffer fails to play sequence of images created with the Hardware Render Buffer. The sequence of images can be viewed with the standalone fcheck.
[2] Indigo2 High Impact w/o TRAM: In some cases, Hardware Texturing produces banding and artifacts.
[3] Indy 24bit: you are likely to encounter the following known problems: 
  • CVs and vertices may show through polygonal geometry in hardware shaded mode 
  • Under some circumstances, sprites in hardware shaded mode may appear broken up. 
  • Some workflows may cause screen refresh to be incorrect as you tumble and track views. Although it is unlikely that you will encounter this, changing to shaded mode and back will often correct the display. 
  • Transparency does not display correctly in Hardware Render Buffer.
  • Indy graphic systems may encounter minor graphics related problems that are not listed here in detail. These problems should not affect your workflow. 
[4] Indy XZ: you are likely to encounter the following known problems: 
  • File textures not transparent in xray mode and you will be unable to see CVs, vertices or other components of objects that are behind file mapped objects. 
  • Some surfaces may incorrectly appear white when rendered in the Hardware Render Buffer. 
  • Sometimes rendering a region in IPR doesn't display correctly. 
  • Indy graphic systems may encounter minor graphics related problems that are not listed here in detail. These problems should not affect your workflow. 
[5] Indigo2 Extreme & XZ: you are likely to encounter the following known problems: 
  • Hardware Render Buffer output - particularly of particles, may differ between Indigo2 graphic systems and other graphics systems. As Hardware Render Buffer entirely depends on the graphic hardware or its emulation, use caution when combining HW Render images created on different hardware. 
  • Some surfaces may incorrectly appear white when rendered in the Hardware Render Buffer. 
  • Some transparent/translucent surfaces may appear opaque when rendered in the Hardware Render Buffer. 
  • Some surfaces may appear to alter colour when viewed in shaded mode with Hardware Texturing ON depending as the camera zoom changes. 
  • Some workflows may cause screen refresh to be incorrect as you tumble and track views. Although it is unlikely that you will encounter this, changing to shaded mode and back will often correct the display. 
  • Indigo2 graphic systems may encounter minor graphics related problems that are not listed here in detail. These problems should not affect your workflow. 
[6] Infinite Reality and Infinite Reality 2 graphics: you are likely to encounter the following known problems: 
  • Hardware shading and texturing in model view and hardware render buffer can cause the Operating System desktop to hang/crash or maya to crash
  • Rendering a sequence in hardware render buffer may cause Maya to crash.
  • Caching an image sequence in Maya Live on InfiniteReality may cause Maya to crash.
  • Selection Handles, 1st and 2nd CVs, emitters, fields, clusters and edit points appear as black squares instead of their correct graphic. 
  • All pulldown menus turn black after importing image or after viewing a rendered sequence in the Hardware Render Buffer. 
  • Occasionally unselected CVs are not displayed in the right color. 
  • Occasionally the wrong textures are displayed in Hardware Texture mode. This usually happen after using the Hardware Render Buffer. 
[7] Onyx-RE2 systems: you are likely to encounter the following known problems: 
  • Attempting to perform a Hardware Render Buffer - Render Sequence may result in all black frames. 
  • Occasionally the wrong textures are displayed in Hardware Texture mode. This usually happen after using the Hardware Render Buffer. You may also encounter a number of other problems with shaded mode with textures and Hardware Render Buffer.
[8] Although Maya 3.0 will run on R4000 Indigo and Indy systems, the performance of Indigo R4000s is inadequate for most practical usages of Maya. 
Alias cannot guarantee that all functionality in this or future versions of Maya will operate. Due to a limitation of some models of R4000 Indigo and Indy systems, some features of Maya may cause crashes, or Maya may not launch at all, resulting in WARNING: Too many contiguous end-of-page jump or divide problems in [maya.exe]. 
There is no workaround for this. Due to these reasons, Indigo R4000 is no longer supported.
[9] On O2s image planes containing alpha channels do not display correctly and the Alpha Gain control for images planes does not work.
[10] Octane2 V6/V8 was formerly qualified on 6.5.9 + patch 4089/4090. While this configuration may still be used with the following limitation we recommend the newer qualification indicated above.
Maya 3.0.1 is qualified with patch 4089 (for 6.5.9m) or 4090 (for 6.5.9f).
Some users may encounter an X-Server hang when using rotate manipulators quickly in shaded mode. Most users will not encounter this problem as the hang only occurs during a narrow range of timing circumstances. At time of press there is no workaround but SGI are working on a solution which will be made available in a patch or OS update as soon as possible.
If using Maya 3.0 a number of graphics refresh, colour table and draw order bugs will be experienced.
[11] Maya 3.0.1 is qualified 6.5.11 + patch 4191.
You are likely to encounter the following known problems:
  • With some applications, including Maya, occasionally the menus may get drawn with incorrect colours - potentially black on black, making them unreadable. Launching another graphics application (e.g. /usr/sbin/mediarecorder) may correct this.
  • Colours in the Outliner, Graph Editor and other graphic windows may be displayed incorrectly and be illegible. Opening the multiLister first will prevent this problem.
  • The current frame number in the timeline flickers and my be unreadable when you scrub. Increasing the time range will usually prevent this.
  • Cluster handles are not visible when behind geometry.
  • If using Maya 3.0 a number of graphics refresh, colour table and draw order bugs will be experienced.
[12] Octane2 V6/V10 graphics do not have sufficient memory to support depth buffer information when a Maya window is in shaded mode. This can result in background objects being drawn in front of foreground objects. This will definitely occur when the screen is configured to higher resolutions (e.g. 1920x1200) - reducing the screen resolution to 1280x1024 will reduce but not entirely prevent this problem.
[13] We have received reports that patch 4216 (which supersedes 4191) may cause Maya to crash on some systems. Our investigation is currently inconclusive so we suggest applying this patch with caution.

 

NOT SUPPORTED
Maya 3.0 IS NOT QUALIFIED and NOT SUPPORTED on R4000 Indigo, R2000 and R3000 based systems: 
  • R4000 Indigo 
  • Professional Series 
  • Power Series 
  • Personal Iris 
  • R3000 Indigo 
In addition, the following Graphics Systems ARE NOT QUALIFIED and NOT SUPPORTED: 
  • GT Graphics 
  • GTX Graphics 
  • VGX Graphics 
  • VGXT Graphics 
  • ANY 8-bit Graphics platform