Hi all. I have a question that may be silly, but i was wondering if anyone here knew if 3d cards like the Radeon 9700 Pro and GeFORCE FX cards do anythign for 3d viewport speeds in Max and Maya, or are they only gaming cards. Do they still run OPEN GL? Are they all in the same boat or am i being very confused here…
i know for a fact they run opengl. i’m using a geforce3 ti200 and it runs opengl absolutely fine. 
yeah, there is only a very fine line between “workstation” and “game” cards these days. A game card with 256 megs of ram will perform very nicely.
GREAT! then i shall be the happy recipient of a Radeon 9200 PRO next week…Man, first glastonbury weekend, then THIS! I am truely blessed
Thanks guys..
Marc
You may want to rethink the Radeon, from what I’ve read not the best card for Max viewports.
the radeon is better than the FX, but only the later radeon, 9700+ basically when ati got good driver support.
Have you think in 3dlabs wildcat VP cards? I have one of these and I’m very happy with it. Its ready for the upcoming OpenGL 2.0 and i´t’s in the same price that the other cards.
PS: I’m not a 3dlabs guy 
OK, i will have a look at the wildcat cards as well. the only thing is i REALLY cant spend more than £250 ($400), so my options may be limited, and it definately has to have dual screen capability…About the Radeon 9200, from what i understand, its a brand new card, so hopefully will have the better driver implementation of the 9700. I will do some more research. Thanks guys
Marc
take a look at the matrox parahelia then as well. it has 2+ monitor support and supports opengl as well i believe.
I have to say that the matrox is overpriced and a poor openGL performer, It is a great 2d card if you are doing Photoshop, post or something.
If we are naming names I would say look at NVidia fx5200 , fx5600 and fx5800 they come in a range of memory configuration and price points. They are a little slower than the ATI’s but their position has had a nice impact on their price.
I wouldnt recomend matrox parahelia either, I bought a couple a months ago…Its not a strong card for 3d, I believe I got better performance from my patched geforce2pro card..
I though it would be cool to have to screens and a tv setup…Its lying in a box right now..
I am currently working on a ATI Fire GL X1 and am very happy with this..
-Tom
Your best bet would probably still be a GF4 Ti4400, Ti4600 or Ti4800 in your budget range for 3dsmax. The Radeon and GF FX cards are newer but for viewport rendering the GF4 will give you the best bang for your buck while being 10X quieter and the drivers will be more stable than the Radeon also. The 3d Labs cards are supposed to rock in Maya but in 3dsmax the Nvidia cards tend to out perform them and are usually much cheaper. I also agree with the above Matrox cards where as there great for Photoshop and some video editing but for hardcore 3D there seriously lacking in the OpenGL arena.
Have a look at the forums at http://www.3dluvr.com or http://www.cgarchitect.com for more info on the continuing video card debates…
Just a thought,
-dave
best card for little money IMHO is the GF4 ti4200 128mb thats what im running. Sure i cant load up a few billion polygons and run that realtime, but i can still bring up a few million and still work comfortably
Fantastic. Thanks for the suggestions guys. I am also going to require good Maya viewport speed too as i am in the process of learning it. But im sure that the cards suggested will be great for both. Cheers for taking the time to answer.
Regards,
Marc
I agree on the TI4200, it out performs lots of the lower end FX cards unless talking Directx 9.1. Most good Ti4200’s overclock to 4600 speeds, many Ti4800’s are Ti4200’s higher clocked with AGP8. I have one at home it performs well, I haven’t applied soft-quadro because it’s easily fast enough for home use. I use a Quadro 900 at work so I have some sort of speed reference. We are testing a Leadtek Quadro FX2000 here at the moment that’s pretty darn fast though. I would buy a cheap Ti4200 now the wait for Nvidia to bring out something worth buying.
hear, hear!
nvidia is really the best way to go. i was only suggesting matrox for some reason unknowmst to myself. my bro in law likes his, but all he does is 2d work, so you can sorta work out what market its good for.
go w/ the gf4 ti’s. they are basically the best bang for the buck that you can get.