High-res printing

[Edward K. C. <ek...@lg...>]

So I have been running various tests on this printing algorithm I  
wrote and noticed that if I push things too far, I begin to see black  
bands occupy the right or bottom edges of the printout.  For example,  
an 11 x 17 page in landscape mode at 300 dpi is too far.  I am not  
certain whether I am hitting some sort of limit in the 3D rendering  
or the printer driver, but I suspect the former.  Of course, there  
could also be a bug in my code...  :-)

Assuming it's the rendering, would it help if I switched to a divide- 
and-conquer strategy, rendering it in pieces through careful  
manipulation of the viewport?  Am I likely to get noticeable  
artifacts along the borders of each piece?  If this is the way to go,  
does anyone know how large each pieces can safely be?  8.5 x 11 @ 300  
dpi seems to print fine.  Assuming a half-inch margin all around,  
that works out to 2250 x 3000 pixels or thereabouts.  My guess is  
that the limit lies somewhere in the range of 3000 to 5000 pixels.

-Ted