Last Updated: November 21, 2002

Maya 4.5 for IRIX Qualification, Sept 12 2002

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 4.5 will only run on IRIX 6.5.x.
Products Version Software Date
Maya Builder
4.5
200208160514
Maya Complete 4.5 200208160514
Maya Unlimited 4.5 200208160514

Please Note The Following:
  • Maya 4.5 has been qualified under IRIX 6.5 (only):

    • The OS versions specified in this table are the ones used for the qualification process.While it may be possible to use Maya successfully on earlier or later versions, Alias cannot guarantee their performance or behaviour.
  • 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.

    Mental Ray for Maya: Is qualified for the same platforms that Maya is qualified on.

 

File Compatibility:
Maya 4.5 Windows and IRIX Maya 4.5 can read Maya 4.0.x, 3.x, 2.x, and 1.x format files.
Alias Maya 4.5 IRIX reads Alias 10.0 wire files.
MediaStudio Maya 4.5 will import OBJ files.
StudioPaint Maya 4.5 IRIX is compatible with StudioPaint 9.5
(with plugin) 
See the StudioPaint documentation for more details.
Others Maya 4.5 reads OBJ, DXF, IGES. Alias Wire, Illustrator, MOV, and IMAGE
Maya 4.5 exports OBJ, DXF, IGES, Alias Wire, VRML2, RTG, MOV, and GE2 files.

General Configuration
  • At least 128 MB of RAM is required and 256 MB or more is strongly recommended for any practical use of Maya.
  • It may be possible to successfully use Maya with a non-qualified or partially qualified configuration, but support and maintenance programs will be subject to the Alias Support services guidelines.
  • The configurations shown are subject to change, and additional qualified configurations may be added after qualification testing has been carried out.
  • The OS versions specified in this table are the ones used for the qualification process. While it may be possible to use Maya successfully on earlier or later versions, Alias cannot guarantee their performance or behaviour.
  • We do not recommend saving data directly from Maya to NFS or Novell Netware or other remote mounted file systems. We have received several reports of data corruption when saving in this method although we have been unable to reproduce this. We strongly recommend that you save the files locally and then copy the data to the mounted storage system.
  • When texture images are stored on systems remote from the rendering process; depending on network speed, specifications and load it is possible that the renderer may be unable to access a texture file on demand and may 'drop' individual textures on a frame by frame basis. To reduce this occurrence store textures on a system local to the rendering process.
  • 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 4.5 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 4.5.


 

Maya 4.5 Qualification Chart
Supported Platforms
Hardware Qualified on IRIX... Known Problems
Octane2 R10000/R12000 V12 IRIX 6.5.15m +patches [10]
Octane2 R10000/R12000 V10 IRIX 6.5.15m +patches [11] [14]
Octane2 R10000/R12000 V6 IRIX 6.5.15m +patches [11] [14]
Octane R10000/R12000 SI/SSI/MXI/ESI/ESSI/EMXI IRIX 6.5.15m [12]
Fuel R14000A V12 IRIX 6.5.15m + patches [15]
O2 R5000/R10000/R12000 IRIX 6.5.15m [9]
Indigo2 R4400/R4600/R10000 Impact Graphics  IRIX 6.5.15m [1][2]
Origin 200/2000 IRIX 6.5.15m
Onyx2 Infinite Reality2 IRIX 6.5.15m +patches [6]
Unsupported Platforms
Onyx R12000 InfiniteReality3 Unsupported: IRIX 6.5.16m +patches [13]
Onyx R10000 InfiniteReality Unsupported: IRIX 6.5.15m [6]
Onyx R4400 InfiniteReality Unsupported: IRIX 6.5.15m [6]
Any Indy with 8bit graphics  INTERACTIVE APPLICATIONS CANNOT RUN. For other purposes refer to Indy above
Indigo R4000 with 24 bit graphics  Unsupported: IRIX 6.5.12m  [8]
Indigo R4000 with 8 bit graphics  INTERACTIVE APPLICATIONS CANNOT RUN. For other purposes refer to Indigo above
Untested Platforms
Octane2 R10000/R12000 V8 Untested: IRIX 6.5.15m [10]
Octane R10000/R12000 Dual/Duo Untested: IRIX 6.5.15m  
Fuel R14000A V10 Untested: IRIX 6.5.15m  
Indigo2 R4000/R4400/R4600 Extreme Untested: IRIX 6.5.12m [5]
Indigo2 R4000/R4400/R4600 XZ Untested: IRIX 6.5.12m [5]
Indigo2 R4000/R4400/R4600 XL Untested: IRIX 6.5.12m [5]
Power Indigo2 R8000 Untested: IRIX 6.5.12m  
Onyx R10000 VTX/RealityEngine2 Untested: IRIX 6.5.12m [7]
Onyx R4400 RealityEngine2 Untested: IRIX 6.5.12m [7]
Power Onyx R8000 Untested: IRIX 6.5.12m  
Crimson All Models Untested: IRIX 6.5.12m  
Challenge R4400 Untested: IRIX 6.5.12m  
Power Challenge R8000/R10000 Untested: IRIX 6.5.12m  
Indy R4000/R4400/R4600/R5000 with 24bit graphics Untested: IRIX 6.5.12m [3][4]
  • 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. 
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] You should install patches
4523 (Onyx2/3000 IR2/3 6.5.(12,13,14,15) graphics crash fix rollup) and
4567 (Onyx2/3000 IR2/3 opengl/microcode fixes - 6.5.(12,13,14,15)).
Infinite Reality and Infinite Reality 2 graphics: you may encounter the following known problems:
  • 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.
  • Occasionally segments of the attribute editor will be drawn in the buffer too.
[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 4.5 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] You may encounter the following issues on O2s:
  • image planes containing alpha channels do not display correctly and the Alpha Gain control for images planes does not work.
  • Dynamic playback of uncached particles at 24fps may not be adequate and may result in gaps in emitted particle streams.
  • Hardware shadows do not display as they are not supported.
  • Running Maya for long periods of time may result in slow-downs and assorted unexpected behaviours. Quitting and restarting Maya seems to resolve this.
  • Hardware sprites do not display correctly in Hardware Render Buffer on SSI and ESSI graphics.
[10] You should install patch 4609 [VPro graphics limited-release bug fixes].
You may encounter the following issues:
  • Clearing the selection turns all wireframe outlines white.
  • Poor paint effects performance. You may not be able to see what you're painting in 3D (paint effects window) while in shaded mode, or the display may become garbled.
[11] You should install patch 4609 [VPro graphics limited-release bug fixes].
You may encounter the following issues:
  • Clearing the selection turns all wireframe outlines white.
  • Poor paint effects performance. You may not be able to see what you're painting in 3D (paint effects window) while in shaded mode, or the display may become garbled.
  • Dynamic playback of uncached particles at 24fps may not be adequate and may result in gaps in emitted particle streams.
  • On V10 Image plane set to alpha may not display until selected.
  • Hardware render of particles failed.
[12] You may encounter the following issues:
  • Dynamic playback of uncached particles at 24fps may not be adequate and may result in gaps in emitted particle streams.
  • Hardware sprites do not display correctly in Hardware Render Buffer on SSI and ESSI graphics. Occasionally segments of the attribute editor will be drawn in the buffer too.
[13] You should install patch 4707 InfiniteReality updates for 6.5.16
You may encounter the following problems:
  • A number of items, such as light manipulator pivots, stencil map manipulator handles, particle emitters, many NURBS items such as first and last CVs, pivot points, etc. may not display correctly
  • Alias has not been able to validate the performance of sound on this system.
[14] The cards may not have enough memory to obtain a visual with depth buffer at larger screen resolutions (e.g. 1920x1200), so objects may display incorrectly in shaded mode.
[15] sgi Fuel systems running IRIX 6.5.15 require the following patches:
4674 VPro graphics limited-release bug fixes for Irix 6.5.15m and Irix 6.5.15f
4689 USB audio fix for Fuel for 6.5.15
4619 Poor NFS performance with if_ef on faster CPU's
You may also encounter the following situation:
  • The paint effects window may become garbled.
  • Moving the render view window while the IPR window is refreshing the selected region will cause a severe refresh problem. The selected IPR region will be refreshed from the original position on screen. You must redo the entire ipr render to work again.

 

NOT SUPPORTED
Maya 4.5 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