Bang 4 Buck with Pro grade graphics cards

msim

Distinguished
Jul 12, 2006
5
0
18,510
I could use some advice,
I just spent a fair sized chunk of cash on a new PC, which I had built predominantly for 3D work & rendering (3d studio & Revit).
At the time I couldn't justify shelling out for a high end pro-grade card so I bought the fastest Gaming grade card I could get - a GTX 7800, and figured it would outperform the equivalent priced quadro (or ATI equivalent).
Sadly it is not really performing for 3D & I have come to the conclusion that I need to upgrade.
Bearing in mind that top of the line pro grade isn't an option. Which cards should I be looking at?
How far down the range can you go without the performance dropping down to what I already have?

Hopefully this makes sense and thanks in advance.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
In 3d Studio, the 7800 is a great card.

I'm not sure what you're expecting, but even pro cards won't give you a colossal performance boost over 7800 performance.

At a certain level of polygons, things are going to slow down... it's inevitable. Try modelling more efficiently/lower poly...
 

billsone

Distinguished
Jul 12, 2006
5
0
18,510
You do something useful with your computer and you are asking for advice here. The gallery here typically has two 7900GTX's running Sesame Street games. You might invest in a stronger processor and RAM. Some friends do architectual design for Boeing. They use Dell's with on board graphics for most of the work they do on a daily basis. If you are serious, search ATI's website. Check the forums and FAQ's there. They have professional video processors available and you can get reliable information regarding about them regarding your concerns.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
Ati's website is not the place to go.

Ati is great for gaming, but in the 3d visualization arena Nvidia's drivers are stronger and stabler in OpenGL.

I use 3dStudio on a daily basis for the last 10+ years and I can tell you that without reservation. If you're doing Pro 3d on a reasonable budget, Geforces are the way to go, no question... the 6600 GT is probably the best bang for the buck, and the 7800 GTX you have would be even better.
 

msim

Distinguished
Jul 12, 2006
5
0
18,510
Thanks Cleeve,

Any ideas on how I could boost my open GL performance on my existing card? I had a play with Rivatuner but the card wouldn't work with the settings.....
 

cleeve

Illustrious
Like I said, the card is probably working fine. If your scenes have so many polygons that you're getting massive viewport slowdows you need to optimize your models... and try viewing 'nth' number of faces in the viewport settings, that should speed things up (at the expense of viewport image quality).
 

msim

Distinguished
Jul 12, 2006
5
0
18,510
That is what I have been doing with my 3d studio stuff, its in Revit where I am having issues - I assumed it was due to the card not supporting open GL properly because I was getting slowdown issues even in unrendered images.
Will have to look at optimising my model components I suppose (sigh), so much for the easy fix.

Cheers for your advice
 

MrCommunistGen

Distinguished
Jun 7, 2005
1,042
0
19,310
Just throwing some more data into the grinder... Where I'm working now, many of the computers have workstation graphics (mostly low-end). I've seen FireGL V3100s, V3200s (which I can't find on ATI's site), and Quadro FX1100s. Anyhow, out of curiosity I ran Cinebench 9.5 on my FireGL V3100 workstation and got around 2500 points... on the HW OGL test I believe. I have run this same benchmark on the rig in my sig (7800GT OC) and only got around 3300. Now, based on the spec sheet I figure that the V3100 is basically an X300. With 1/5 the number of pixel pipes and significantly fewer geometry engines, its amazing what a workstation card can do (at least under certain conditions).

-mcg
 

msim

Distinguished
Jul 12, 2006
5
0
18,510
I am going to have to admit my ignorance here, when you mentioned faces earlier I had assumed you were referring to render settings ie. ignore back faces etc.
As I understand it 3d studio has lots of settings & tools for handling 3d models in sophisticated ways - unfortunately I have never been able to justify spending the time getting my head around them I normally only use 3d studio for rendering and export my revit or autocad model directly into it.
Faces to me are 3d faces - being a flat plane of nominally 0 thickness that can be used to build a 3d object, are these what you are talking about? Or are you talking about stuff like the number of faces used to display curves etc?
To answer your question as best I can I would say the answer is lots...
Elements in revit appear to be made primarily of primitive solids but the whole basis of revit is more focused on the idea that you are literally building a building - consequently the tools provided are more focused on building attributes rather than graphical tools, for instance a window component might contain the physical size of the window ie. the solid model & what render material is applied to it - but it could also contain the structural properties of the glass & aluminium frame, the powdercoat color for the frame etc..
Man this reply is getting away from me.... - apologies for the length does that answer your question cleeve?
 

biohazard420420

Distinguished
Jul 14, 2006
223
0
18,680
Honestly depending on how much you have to spend you should really check out 3dLabs cards. They are an open GL only card maker. They focus specifically on the 3d modeling and workstation market. There cards are pricey I belive but dont quote me on this that they start around $500 and go up to the $3000 range. From what I can find benchmark wise (mostly through them mind you, its difficult to track down open GL modeling benchmarks) they out perform everything on the market.