Graphics card?

# 1 17-11-2006 , 12:26 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2005

Location: Boston, MA

Posts: 2,314

hi everyone!

what kind of graphics card would you recommend to me? i plan on getting one, but i just want to know if its good and works with maya before i buy it..

Thanks!

-Andy

Environment Artist @ Plastic Piranha
www.joopson.com

Quote

# 2 17-11-2006 , 01:04 PM

Moderator
Join Date: May 2005

Location: Manchester Uk

Posts: 6,300

Any of the NVidia quatros work with it, have you had a look at the limitations and recomendations from Autodesk? Somethis there are probs with cirtian ones (ATI seem to crop up a bit) even though they are qualified.

Myself, I've got a NVidia Gforce Go 7900 GTX 512Mb, but thats on my laptop.

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

Quote

# 3 17-11-2006 , 04:37 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2006

Location: NY

Posts: 208

Yeah, any of the Quadros are your best bet, IMHO. Presently, I work with an nVidia QuadroFX 4500, and it handles the job nicely. But, that's an expensive card. At home, I am using an nVidia 7800GTX, and it has hiccups every once in awhile, but nothing major. gster123 was right, though. Check Autodesks site for qualified cards. It shows every card that you can use, as well as their limitations. Good luck!

Eric Tacti
3D Artist

Quote

# 4 17-11-2006 , 06:20 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2005

Location: Boston, MA

Posts: 2,314

thanks for your help everyone, i will probably get a quadroFX one. user added image

cheers

,
-Andy

Environment Artist @ Plastic Piranha
www.joopson.com

Quote

# 5 17-11-2006 , 06:26 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2006

Location: NY

Posts: 208

Cool. You should be happy with it. But, keep in mind, the QuadroFx cards are Workstation Gfx cards, meaning games either run like garbage, or won't run at all on them, for the most part. So, if you plan on using it as a gaming card, you may want to try a different card. But, if not, then definitely go with a Quadro.

Eric Tacti
3D Artist

Quote

# 6 17-11-2006 , 07:15 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: Sep 2005

Location: Palm Springs, Ca

Posts: 459

erictacti, you have touched on a point I might ask alittle more about. I guess it was lack of investigating when I bought my Alienware laptop. Then the fact that a card is good for games, does not necessarily make it good for 3D work.

Well I guess that is what I get foe assuming, huh?

I have the ATI Mobility Radeon X1800 and it seems from what I hear that ATI is no a real good choice.

Just curious in your thought, and maybe you have heard of the card.

Thanks!!!

Quote

# 7 17-11-2006 , 07:31 PM

Moderator
Join Date: May 2005

Location: Manchester Uk

Posts: 6,300

Originally posted by oldhippie_tom
erictacti, you have touched on a point I might ask alittle more about. I guess it was lack of investigating when I bought my Alienware laptop. Then the fact that a card is good for games, does not necessarily make it good for 3D work.

Originally Posted by

Dont know if I got this wrong but wasnt that what erictacti said??

In the Nvidia scope, GFORCE are gaming cards that can be used for 3d work, in the right circumstances (which I have in my laptop, which works fine) and the QUATROS are the 3d workstation cards, purposfully made for creating 3D, (and from what I can gather they can play games quite well, (that is looking on other forums, cgtalk for one, which I must also seem to have the opinion that a quatro card is very similar to the equivlient gforce card too! lol)

ATI's are good cards but they do seem to have the GFORCE/QUATRO, thing, the Radion's are more orientientated to gaming and the FIRE series of ATI are the workstation cards, as from what I can gather, but they do seem to have some glitches with maya, again as far as I can gather.

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

Quote

# 8 17-11-2006 , 08:37 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: Sep 2005

Location: Palm Springs, Ca

Posts: 459

Well, yes I probably did misunderstand. I appreciate what you mention about the cards. I have used it with Maya 8, but not much yet as I want to use the 64bit with my new computer, and they had they drive locked at 32bit, and are sending another drive. I haven't had any problems and seems to be much faster in refresh than my other computer. But 2 gigs of ram probably accounts for some if not all.

Thanks for your reply, and sorry if I misunderstood. :-(

Quote

# 9 17-11-2006 , 10:42 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2006

Location: NY

Posts: 208

So the word now is that the Quadro series works with games? Not from my experience, but that's not saying it isn't true. I have went through 2 workstation cards, and I can tell you that the ATi FireGL X2 I had completely sucked for games. I couldn't run anything on it, which I painfully found out when I couldn't run BF Vietnam the day it came out. And, the same went for the QuadroFX 1300 I was using at one point. It could run some games, but once the action picked up, it would either crash the app, or become extremely unstable.

Then again, those cards are kinda old now, so who knows. Maybe nVidia and ATi have worked on this issue. That'd be pretty cool. I know I'd love to test drive it on the QuadroFX 4500 at work! :p

Eric Tacti
3D Artist

Quote

# 10 17-11-2006 , 11:31 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: Sep 2005

Location: Palm Springs, Ca

Posts: 459

Well apear that NVIDIA certinaly is in the top positions. But my ATI Mobility seems in a good position anyway. I know this is only abenchmark, but seems ATI didn't fare too badly.

Below is a list of notebook graphics cards and there 3DMark06 scores so that new buyers can compare. All credit goes to and benchmarks from www.notebookcheck.net

NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX: 5214
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX SLI: 5000
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GTX: 4700
NVIDIA Quadro FX 2500M: 4690
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX: 4000
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1500M: 3900
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS: 3800
ATI Mobility Radeon X1800: 3000
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 GT: 2800
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7700: 2700
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 Ultra: 2500
ATI Mobility Radeon X1700: 2330
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800: 2200
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600: 1900
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600: 1800
ATI Mobility Radeon X800: 1300
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6600: 1150
ATI Mobility Radeon X700: 900
ATI Mobility Radeon X1400: 900
ATI Mobility FireGl V5200: 900
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400: 800
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300: 700
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7200: 674
ATI Mobility Radeon X1300: 560
ATI Mobility Radeon X600: 280
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700: 280
ATI Mobility Radeon X300: 200
Intel (GMA) 950: 170
ATI Radeon Xpress 200M/X1100: 140
Intel (GMA) 900: 60

Quote

# 11 18-11-2006 , 04:29 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2006

Location: /dev/null

Posts: 891

Hmm. Isn't 3DMark06 a benchmark for DirectX and games?

Quote

# 12 18-11-2006 , 07:21 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: Sep 2005

Location: Palm Springs, Ca

Posts: 459

Architect, well I checked and you are right!!

3DMark®06 (Build 1.0.2)

3DMark06 is the latest and hottest version of the very popular 3DMark series. By combining full DirectX®9.0c support including HDR, SM3.0, SM2.0, new CPU tests and more, 3DMark06 continues the legacy of being industry standard benchmark.

I had checked on Benchmarks as I got this with my ATI Mobility Radeon X1800:

III. Burn-In/Benchmarks

Doom 3

Doom 3: 78.8 fps

3DMark 2005

Game Tests
3DMark Score: 5,475.00 3DMarks

GT1 - Return To Proxycon: 23.54 FPS

GT2 - Firefly Forest: 16.52 FPS

GT3 - Canyon Flight: 27.00 FPS

CPU Tests
CPU Score: 7,760.00 CPUMarks

CPU Test 1: 4.27 FPS

CPU Test 2: 6.27 FPS

Quote

# 13 19-11-2006 , 02:31 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2005

Posts: 25

Graphics Card

I am currently using a Radeon 7500 and have not ran into problems yet. I only mention this to point out that newbies don't have to run out and spend alot of money on the hottest new card to make maya work. 64MB is plenty to get started with, so you can save your money for more memory, a faster CPU, bigger HDD, better MoBo to handle newer hardware (not to mention maya's footprint), etc.... I have used this card for games and CAD for quite a while and have yet to run into anything that slows it down. However, I AM EXPECTING MAYA TO SEND ME BACK TO BEST BUY IN THE NEAR FUTURE. I have been rendering cars, people, and game props up to this point, so my system hasn't really seen that much strain.

Spend your money to match your learning curve.

Quote