Video Card Issues?
 

So I have just bought an Apple Mac pro 8 Core with 2 2.26 intel xeon "Nehelem" processors and I upgraded to the ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5. It seems to work pretty good, but in Cinema 4D its not so good...From what I understand C4D runs better on a native open GL card (nvidia)...My question is will Maya still be good...I was told that Maya likes ATI better, but could totally be wrong....THis is very important as I still am withing the two weeks of Purchase and can swap out the card....I was thinking of this card:http://store.apple.com/us/product/TW387ZM/A any help would be great

hm
 

well i have mac pro, too. it's one of the older models, but either way one year ago i also had to chose between the ATI x1900XT and the Geforce 8800 GT. in that time i read that the Geforce is better for gaming performance whereas the ATI is suposed to have better 3D attributes, whatever that means.

while rendering, you mostly won't notice any difference to which graphics card you use, since the rendering will only challenge your CPUs.
you WILL notice the difference, if you're working with hires models, especially in the shaded node because that's where your card comes in. but since maya (even 2010) only arrives in 32bit for mac, it'll be wiser to buy a windows computer if you work a lot on such hires models (but of course that's not really an option. its windows.. )

so in this article http://www.evga.com/articles/00479/ which of course isn't very objective the producer reclaims this card to be suitable for 3D modelling, too. i know that the ATI is bought a lot for film producers since it has a HDMI but that's not relevant for you.

but what is relevant is MAC OSX 10.6 which is sold next week! as you surely know, this OS will work a lot with openGL, so other apps may use some power of your graphics card and then i'm pretty sure the Geforce will be a lot better then the ATI.

Phew, sorry for my lame english, but i hope you get the point. i didn't find any benchmarks for your new card, but i think with that 100$+ you make a investment for your future. that won't hurt and you will profit when using other apps as maya ,too.

solong

have you read the reviews in the apple page?
http://store.apple.com/us/reviews/TW387ZM/A
some guy said "Great performance in Maya and After Effects" which is without comparision a rather unhelpful remark, but anyway.

just wanted to add, IF you buy the geforce, install the drivers first bevor connecting the card! seems to be a common problem!!!

The ATI 4870 should have OpenGL 2.1 support.

Personally I would not get the nVIDIA card UNLESS the drivers were specifically written by nVIDIA and not Apple! Matter of fact, I would never buy another nVIDIA card for a mac again. Apple writes the worst drivers (in conjunction with the manufacturers) for their cards. I settled for a nVIDIA 8800GT card when I got my mac and I might as well have gotten the ATI 2600. I've had screen tearing issues, lag issues and kernel panics due to the driver. Card works fine in Windows XP and Fedora & Ubuntu.

If you have Photoshop CS 3 try and pan across a large image. The whole image tears up and goes all blocky! Playback in Shake is near useless as the screen tears in half with ANY playback, even scrubbing doesn't work. ( and this happens on two monitors with clean installs)

I vote save your money and keep the ATI.

What issues are you having with C4D?

-J

FOR THE POWER I HAVE IN THIS MACHINE IT JUST SEEMS TO RUN REALLY SLOW...SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS, TOO LAZY TO RE-TYPE