Kick ass Graphics Card

[natty]

Well thanks guys for the advice, i think i'll save my money and go with geforce option, sounds like the best option.
None has mentioned the FireGL range any thoughts on those cards?

Natty

[DaForce]

THere is a good reason they havnt been mentioned

They aint so crash hot.

[charleyc]

It should be mentioned clearly that if you work with heavy spline data (imported 2D CAD data) or a lot of wireframe data, the Quadro's with Maxtreme drivers are unbeatable as far as nVidia goes. Also very high polygon count scenes will benifit from the higher end Quadros. One of the misleading things about the GeForce and Quadro performance is the way max caches its geomety in DX mode. As long as you have the memory, most of the cards appear to perform the same. But when you push beyond that or delve into other areas that require more on demand GPU power (like heavy animated deforming mesh), you will notice the differences with the more expensive cards.

[joconnell]

Use to do flythroughs of 5 / 6 million polygon scenes with no problems on a 256mb geforce 6800gt - not bad...

[charleyc]

A fly through is stationary (or at least non-deforming) geometry. Also, the DX cache will use system RAM when the video RAM is full. So it is very easy to get great performance out of even the GeForce cards under the right circumstances. I am not saying that they are bad. Perhaps for 90-100% of a certain users task they are more than adequate, thus making them the obvious chioce on price/performance. However, depending on what you are doing, they do not shine near as bright as the equivelent Quadro can. This is most likely why muzzy asked the question about the nature of max usage. It really matters what you are doing.

[mike.edel]

afaik, deforming geometry is not handled by the gpu
unless you do the deformations using vertex shaders inside the card(which max doesn't do if i'm not completely wrong)

so my guess would be that especially if you are dealing with high density deforming geo you need the fastest cpu you can get instead of the fastest gpu

as a side note: it is very difficult to predict which factors of a system limit the framerate of realtime 3d
could be everything from bus transfer rate, video memory, rasterizing speed, cpu, polygon rendering to pixel/vertex shaders
for games, you typically have determined scenes that are optimized for the specific cards (profiling)
nvidia even has specific applications giving hints which factors are currently limiting the speed
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nvperfkit_home.html
http://developer.nvidia.com/docs/IO/...timisation.pdf
it aint that easy

ps: seems some people at discreet haven't done their optimisation homeworks

[priad]

Sure you make the good choice Natty in buying a geforce.

[natty]

yeah ..... im going to go for a 512 7800 ..... thanks again chaps
Long live the pixel

[charleyc]

The point is not whether the deformations are happening by the GPU, but that deforming geometry within max does not utilize cache in DX as it does with non deforming geometry as it is constantly updating.

But as I said, if your needs are filled with a GeForce, then there is little reason to spend more for something you aren't going to use.

[mike.edel]

The point is not whether the deformations are happening by the GPU, but that deforming geometry within max does not utilize cache in DX as it does with non deforming geometry as it is constantly updating.

more or less what i was trying to say
i wanted to indicate that no matter what gpu/graphics card you've got - deforming high-density meshes in max will be as slow as the cpu and the bus transfer rate permit
might even be the same speed with a geforce4 mx (i'm on a gf4 4800 here and it's fine for me)

[cpnichols]

Keep in mind that a lot of the "issues" with graphics in 3dsmax is 3dsmax and not the GPU. You notice this mostly when switching to Maya which can handle things a lot better in the viewport.

[natty]

Hi cpnichols ..

what would you personally recommend ?

[DaForce]

i dont think he is recommending a different piece of hardware.. he is just saying that max itself has alot of limitations for the viewports. Where as in maya its alot better.

So still get the card that you were planning on getting, but if you ever move to Maya you will notice things run even faster.

[cpnichols]

i dont think he is recommending a different piece of hardware.. he is just saying that max itself has alot of limitations for the viewports. Where as in maya its alot better.

So still get the card that you were planning on getting, but if you ever move to Maya you will notice things run even faster.

Yeah... plus I am a little out of the loop with Hardware. I have not gotten myself a workstation in 3 years, and Sony just gives me whatever they are going to give me. Also, at work, I am on Linux running proprietary software so I have NO idea about what is fast and what is not. All I care about is if I can play FEAR and HL on my laptop... I can (using a 6600go)

Oh yeah... get whatever card you want to get. I think most GPUs are basically good enough for most 3D apps. These days it is the Games that are pushing it.

[natty]

Yes i understand all of the above ... i was just asking cpnichols's thoughts.