Graphics card with 3d Studio Max 2011 design

[3DMK]

The main Thing to remember is that Quadro's are made for fast & accurate line drawing [Cad lines.etc] &Geforce are made for fast texturing.

It all depends on what is most important to you!!! Textures or lines.

Also remember that a big scene with too many models will be slow on ALL cards....you are far better getting a better workflow with Layers & isolating objects to make things faster.

Cheers
Jamie

[nvanherpt]

Win 7 + ATI FirePro V7750 + 3ds Max 2011.

[Janosik]

what is different between ati fire pro and ati fire gl ?? i tought fire pro is designed for 2d , and post processing maybe ...

[mike_kennedy]

Fire Gl are 3d and fire pros are 2d, mainly for stock traders...

[3DMK]

Guys, are you using win7?
I've noticed a slow down performance while using win7 + max2011 + nvidia graphic cards. Since I switched back to win xp x64 everything is going fine here.

I will back you up on that!!!!

Have recently got a new computer with windows 7[64bit] & a new gtx 480 & max design 2011......and it is soooooo Fu%*ing slow it's not funny...in fact it's making me quite sad & angry
After a bit of research I have come to the conclusion that I am totally over Nvidia cards for working in max with windows 7 .
I used to get really good performance out of a GeForce GTX 275 with max on XP 64[bit] but the performance of the GTX 480 on windows 7 [64] is not even a fraction of what the pervious setup was getting. In fact it is so messed up in directX mode that it can't even draw some scenes [goes completely blank] that I used to fly around in the previous setup [XP]

Maybe I have been drinking the Nvidia cool-aid too long! It's time to change flavours!

After even more research I am convinced that Nvidia quadros are soo over priced that I won't even go there.

ATI ...here I come! Have a look at this spec link for comparison between ATI firpro & Nvidia Quadros ......my jaw dropped when I saw this....and the price difference is just not even worth talking about it's so redicules

http://sites.amd.com/us/atwork/promo.../autodesk.aspx

The price difference [In Australian Dollars]

ATI PCIe FirePro V4800 $357 [AUD]
Nvidia Quadro FX 4800 -- $2500 [AUD]

The price difference is basically a new render node!!!

Anyone have more thoughts/ideas on this

Cheers

PS . working in max 12 hours a day with a bad video card experience... is just not fun at all ...I need help befor I kill myself out of frustration

[davision]

I think it's pathetic that a nvidia 480 is sucking wind in max. My recommendation is COMPLAIN to nvidia. Email their tech support or do whatever. nvidia has to know that many people aren't every going to cough up the cash for Quadro cards, so they better improve consumer card performance or people are going to be jumping to ATI in a heartbeat. I've been using various incarnations of nvidia for 10 years or more, but I'm seriously considering a switch. nvidia needs to hear from the users because they aren't putting any effort into this problem. It's absurd that a 2010 card can be smoked by a 2006 card -- even if the 2006 card is "professional".

[3DMK]

I think it's pathetic that a nvidia 480 is sucking wind in max. My recommendation is COMPLAIN to nvidia. Email their tech support or do whatever. nvidia has to know that many people aren't every going to cough up the cash for Quadro cards, so they better improve consumer card performance or people are going to be jumping to ATI in a heartbeat. I've been using various incarnations of nvidia for 10 years or more, but I'm seriously considering a switch. nvidia needs to hear from the users because they aren't putting any effort into this problem. It's absurd that a 2010 card can be smoked by a 2006 card -- even if the 2006 card is "professional".

I hear ya Davision!!

But I am also convinced my complaining won't do anything.....I'm doing the only thing that will make a difference now.....I'm stopping giving them money any more.....which is the only way that will make a difference...!! [Especially for greed-based companies like theirs]

What really gets me pissed off more than anything is that the hardware components on a GTX 480 blows away nearly every Quadro card out there. The only thing making it different to a quadro is that it doesn't have the software drivers to make it perform properly in max [& other cad based programs]
...and the fact that this is done on purpose to extract more money out of professional users like us makes me sick to the stomach. It's just PURE GREED & I won't be a part of it any more.
There is huge community of nvidia users out there that know this & buy Geforce cards & hack the software to get them to run exactly like quadros ...but I don't have the time or patience to do that.....and as I said befor ...I'm putting my money where my mouth is.....somewhere else.

I'm just very glad to see I'm not the only one sick & tired of all this.....thx for your post again davision....It just helped me make my choice to change that much easier!!!

And by the way ...Long live VRAY for not choosing the path of greed!!! I've Never met a more sincere bunch of software developers!!

Enough said......!

[YoyoBoy]

My new laptop has a GeForce GTX 285M. I don't know what the desktop equivalent is. It's pretty bad on wireframe (compared to my very old Quadro 1400) , but I'm totally blown away by its performance on textured polys.

[Donald2B]

I hear ya Davision!!

But I am also convinced my complaining won't do anything.....I'm doing the only thing that will make a difference now.....I'm stopping giving them money any more.....which is the only way that will make a difference...!! [Especially for greed-based companies like theirs]

What really gets me pissed off more than anything is that the hardware components on a GTX 480 blows away nearly every Quadro card out there. The only thing making it different to a quadro is that it doesn't have the software drivers to make it perform properly in max [& other cad based programs]
...and the fact that this is done on purpose to extract more money out of professional users like us makes me sick to the stomach. It's just PURE GREED & I won't be a part of it any more.
There is huge community of nvidia users out there that know this & buy Geforce cards & hack the software to get them to run exactly like quadros ...but I don't have the time or patience to do that.....and as I said befor ...I'm putting my money where my mouth is.....somewhere else.

I'm just very glad to see I'm not the only one sick & tired of all this.....thx for your post again davision....It just helped me make my choice to change that much easier!!!

And by the way ...Long live VRAY for not choosing the path of greed!!! I've Never met a more sincere bunch of software developers!!

Enough said......!

I am part of the minority in the fact that I will ONLY use Quadro cards. How much time and effort have you exhausted in trying to get a game card to do the work of a professional card? How much time have you lost over the past couple of weeks fighting with things and complaining that they don't work. I completely agree with everything you say, but at some point, my productivity outweighs the cost of a video card. I don't know what your hourly rate is, but I am sure that you are losing money everyday trying to get your GTX to work properly.

I am testing a new GTX480 and have already expressed my disappointment in their drivers and performance within professional applications. But the simple answer is that they were NEVER designed for that purpose.

There are many differences between a Quadro card and a GTX card. The biggest difference to me is that the quadro card can do hardware accelerated wireframe modes, where the GTX line cannot. A GTX card is made to get the most out of the video games that we all play, not make Max/Maya/Softimage/etc...to work more efficiently. A Quadro card also has a different driver development team that tests the drivers with all of the major professional applications and continues to improve performance. These are video card drivers, not the software specific drivers like MAXtreme. Yes, MAXtreme does improve things even more, but is not needed to really get the most out of the quadro card.

I have been testing a 3+yr old Quadro 4500 vs GTX480 for the past month or so. I have also recently started testing other offerings from ATi all done within WinXP 64bit & Win7 64bit. In my simple testing, any card will work fine within Max as long as you are doing nothing really intense. Once I started getting into 20 Million poly scenes with tons of VRayProxies, there is a completely different story. The game cards, nVidia & ATi, just fall flat on their faces and completely fall apart to the point someone else mentioned, the viewport doesn't even refresh and Max becomes unusable.

Quadros are EXPENSIVE, yes! But my lost productivity and constantly fighting my software are well worth the price tag. I am easily 30%-40% more efficient with a proper video card. Take that productivity gain over the course of 3+ years and it pays for itself. I am gladly willing to pay that to know that I don't have to worry about installing a new driver for my GTX480 and it breaks more than it fixes, all just to get a 30% performance jump in BadCompany2.

I know that was long winded and I apologize, but at the end of the day, I am not going to use a screwdriver to do the job of a sledgehammer.

[3DMK]

I understand all of what your saying Donald2b.. but my main issue is that Nvidia is making so much $$$$$ out of a business plan that comes straight from hell.....& I hope they burn there.

There is nothing different between the hardware of Geforce & quadro cards except that nvidia know that they can extract MORE money out of us proffessionals for all the reasons you just described.

The only thing stopping Geforce cards working as well as a quadro is as you said a simple thing called a video driver......and a conscience! ..and as I mentioned previously they can be softmoded in 20 mins to do exactly that IF you know what your doing...unfortunately my skills are in colours not programs]

ATI seem to do a similar thing but they're prices are no where near as insane as nvidia's are.
So in the end ATI are getting my money for a proffessional card [and I don't have to sell my house to afford it...lol]

And I'm actually glad I wasted a few hours having problems because the research I was forced to do will save me much more money...and sanity.

Thanks for your input

[davision]

Troy,

But the simple answer is that they were NEVER designed for that purpose

There is one major oversight in your argument. Up until recently (not sure, maybe last 1-2 years), nvidia's gaming cards DID perform well in max. They might not have been 'designed' to do so... but they worked just fine. Over the years, I saw dozens of posts from different people saying yes, Quadros were faster, but the consumer cards offered very respectable performance. Perhaps the consumer cards used to choke on 20 mil poly scenes as you say -- but I don't think the average max user is working on scenes that dense. For some reason, the gulf between the professional and consumer cards is widening. I don't think this is caused by any physical limitations, rather it comes from either a calculated plan by nvidia to force people into Quadros -- or just general neglect of the consumer drivers.

[Donald2B]

@3DMK: I agree totally and it is a little frustrating, don't get me wrong. I would LOVE to pocket the extra money and more forward, but it isn't just nVidia. It is the entire market that does this. I was really disappointed after demoing many cards pro & consumer that at the end of the day, raw power was never the case. I would go ATi but I don't like how their cards perform in relation to the Quadro line. In some instances the ATi cards were even slower than the GTX480 card, which I couldn't even begin to explain why that was happening. Each card got at least 3 driver revisions before it was pulled out and something else was put in. So in my workflow, the nVidia Quadro card, being over 3 years old was still better than almost everything I tested from both nVidia and ATi. I would love to get my hands on a newer quadro to see how much better they perform.

@davision: I don't disagree with you, but I have been using Quadros and game cards for almost 6 years now. IHMO, games cards have never been as good as the Quadro line. As for drivers, the Quadro drivers have been very stable and almost never break anything. Now the same can not be said for the consumer grade cards, including nVidia & ATi. I think they are both horrible, and have been that way for at least a couple of years now.

The main thing to take away from all of this is that there is NO right answer. A Quadro may not be best suited for a lot of individuals, but that doesn't make it a waste of money or a company being overly greedy. All companies are there to make money. So to say that a Quadro is a waste of money is completely false. I couldn't do most of what I do without the quadro card.

It all boils down to driver development and support. I honestly can't recommend nVidia or ATi for their consumer grade cards. I think both companies do a pretty horrible job, especially when it comes to supporting professional applications. To complicate matters even more, how many different versions of an OS can a company properly support? I am still waiting for some really good Win7 drivers from ANY video card manufacturer.

[3DMK]

On a brighter note!!

It's true that game-style cards USED to give good performance in Max....obviously [& sadly] thoses days seem to be gone now.

I think at this stage what we need is someone who has recently used BOTH Quadro & FireGL cards to tell us their thoughts about comparisons regarding performance & price

Anyone out there???

[Donald2B]

What OS are you most interested in? WinXP or Win7? Which version of Max? 2011?

I have all the cards except for the FireGL which was sent back a couple of months ago in exchange for the GTX480.

What would be the best method to test performance? Would any type of GPU rendering need to be included also?

Most reviews I read are not really typical to what most users do, if we could come up with a better set of tests, maybe we could pitch it to someone to do for us. I would prefer it to be less about the persons thoughts and impressions and more about quantifiable numbers. Remember the old viewport tests that used to ship with max? I recently ran those, but because the poly counts were so low all the cards blew threw them and were almost all the same speed!

[beestee]

Max now has a way to show framerate in the viewport. One could make a scene with enough mesh to truly test the new series of cards by setting up an animated camera to simply circle around the mesh, previewing the animation in viewport, and then average the FPS for wireframe/shaded/textured/etc. Of course it would need to be the same machine and OS/software setup with all of the cards or it would be pointless.

EDIT: Come to think of it, this scene if shared could also help anyone with their current video card in choosing the best drivers.