Two European projects-the Euroworkstation and Spirit-aimed at producing the next generation of multiprocessor, high-performance, extensible workstations are discussed. The goal is to compete with US products currently dominating the market. The two projects also aim to satisfy various levels of graphics performance: flight simulators that render scenes at interactive rates, various forms of animation, and high-quality, static scene rendering. The architecture, hardware and software of each approach are examined. >