For the 3D gamers on the list, this may be no surprise. But for the CAD/CAM artists who appreciate excellent 3D acceleration for an amazing price, I thought this was worth sharing:
Number Nine Revolution IV 32MEG OpenGL Graphics Accelerator
http://www.nine.com/products/revolution4/specs.html
Mail Order Price: $157.95
http://www.buy.com/bc/noframes/product.asp?sku=483365
Combine this with COSMO World's VRML Authoring (Free Download)
http://www.cosmosoftware.com/download/main.html
Now you've got your own high powered workstation!
I'm looking forward to seeing visualizations of microrobots, nanosystems and neural interfacing implants. If you can code in Java, you can even write your own 3D animated mandalas, kaleidoscopes, and other hallucinatory visual mind trips.
http://www.cosmosoftware.com/products/player/developer/eai/
This link is too long to fit on one line, so it will need to be pasted back together. It shows sample Java code for writing directly to the VRML External Authoring Interface (EAI) for real time scene updates and generation. This is probably the easiest method for creating realtime 3D, although it still requires some concentration.
P.S. Any suggestions to http://define.com/brandX/ ?
Probably no Linux drivers for the video and surround audio, but NT should perform pretty well for those who can afford a copy. http://www.cosmosoftware.com/developer/movingworlds /spec/ExternalInterface.html#Examples