Visual Workstation 540: Difference between revisions

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The '''SGI Visual Workstation 540''' is an x86 workstation manufactured by SGI and designed to run Windows NT and GNU/Linux. The Visual Workstations are notable for their use of the Intel Pentium II and Intel Pentium III processors (rather than the 64-bit MIPS RISC architecture usually used in SGI computer products), but are fundamentally ARCS firmware systems regardless of their ISA used.
The '''SGI Visual Workstation 540''' is an x86 workstation manufactured by SGI and designed to run Windows NT and GNU/Linux. The Visual Workstations are notable for their use of the 32-bit Intel Pentium II and Intel Pentium III processors (rather than the 64-bit [[MIPS]] RISC architecture usually used in SGI computer products), but are fundamentally ARCS firmware systems regardless of their ISA used.


== Hardware ==
== Hardware ==
The 540 is capable of taking 4 Slot-2 Pentium II Xeon or III Xeons with up to 2GB of system memory, shared between the GPU and CPU. Otherwise, it can take 3 3.3V PCI expansion cards. Architecturally, the COBALT graphics processor is related to the MIPS-powered O2 system.
The 540 is capable of taking 4 Slot-2 Pentium II Xeon or III Xeons with up to 2GB of system memory, shared between the GPU and CPU. Otherwise, it can take 3 3.3V PCI expansion cards. Architecturally, the COBALT graphics processor is related to the MIPS-powered [[O2]] system.


== Operating System Support ==
== Operating System Support ==

Revision as of 04:44, 21 September 2025

The SGI Visual Workstation 540 is an x86 workstation manufactured by SGI and designed to run Windows NT and GNU/Linux. The Visual Workstations are notable for their use of the 32-bit Intel Pentium II and Intel Pentium III processors (rather than the 64-bit MIPS RISC architecture usually used in SGI computer products), but are fundamentally ARCS firmware systems regardless of their ISA used.

Hardware

The 540 is capable of taking 4 Slot-2 Pentium II Xeon or III Xeons with up to 2GB of system memory, shared between the GPU and CPU. Otherwise, it can take 3 3.3V PCI expansion cards. Architecturally, the COBALT graphics processor is related to the MIPS-powered O2 system.

Operating System Support

It was designed to run Windows NT 4.0 and 2000 as well as several GNU/Linux distributions.

Caveats

These systems are OpenGL-only. No DirectX support is provided for the COBALT chipset. All games will either run in software or OpenGL mode.