>> Write it in OpenGL or DirectX.  A modern machine should be able to draw
>> 10000 spheres in real-time (ie at least 30fps), with per-pixel specular 
>> and
>> diffuse lighting.
>
>  Are you sure about that?

Yes.

>  How many triangles do you need to make a triangle mesh to look even
> remotely as a sphere?

6, with a clever pixel shader it will look perfectly like a sphere :-)  If 
not, then I guess you'd need an average or 100 or so.

> Multiply that by 10000.

1e6 per frame

or 30e6 per second.

Modern cards (eg GeForce 8800) can do 10e9 per second...  Even a several 
year old card can easily handle 30e6 per second.

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