high-end cards and games

[amps211]

Hey this could be a dumb question but I am about to buy a workstation primarly for 3d animation and I was wondering if using a high-end 3d card (quadro) would work with Pc games? i.e Unreal 2003, Doom, etc. I thought maybe high cards might not be built for that type of use and there would be conflicts w/ drivers etc. any thoughts?

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[Ghostdog]

Proffesional cards are usually terrible at games, that´s what I´ve heard anyway. I would recomend having two PC´s, one for work and one for gaming, unless you´re planning on getting something like the FireGL X1, which is esentially a 9700Pro with 256Mb of RAM. A friend tried out the X1 in UT2003 and told me the extra memory bumps up the framerate quite nicely. Having two computers would of course get expensive since the both areas you mentioned benefit form a high-end machine. You could of course have different cards and just switch them from time to time, but that´s not a very practical solution.

If you want a powerfull 3D-workstation-card, get a separate machine, but if you just do some slightly lighter and less-profesional work the CAD-models of the popular gaming cards will be fine.

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[UDHA]

Yeah, I've always wondered about that too.

 

[Unit01]

FireGL X1 and a high end cpu as p4 2,8 or 3,06 or amd 2700xp+ or 2800xp+ and since you are using it for CAD and other stuff 1GB as 2x512MB ddr333. make sure it's high quality ram. That should fulfill almost all your needs when it comes to computers

 

[Jake75]

Why not buy a Geforce4600 and make it a Quadro by using <A HREF="http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner/softquadro/" target="_new">SoftQuadro</A>.
I am using 3D appz myself and will soon try this out and as the article said, it will only slow down performance slightly, I think it´s worth it.

<font color=blue>My sig, not yours</font color=blue><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by JAKE75 on 01/07/03 09:48 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Ghostdog]

Because Quadro´s aren´t as "serious" as workstation-cards as maybe the Wildcats. OK, so the FireGl´s aren´t either, but since the X1 is based on the 9700Pro VPU it should do fine. And he did ask for something that would be good for games too.

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[Jake75]

Ummm...sure, it was merely a suggestion from my side.

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[vacs]

An article on why SoftQuadro no longer fully works with GF4 TIs is available <A HREF="http://nvworld.ru/docs/sq4e.html" target="_new">here</A>.

It's rather lengthy but basically it's says that GF4 and Quadro4 have slighty different hardware and therefore softquadro does not work the way it worked with GF3 and previous series...

If you're working with 3ds max, this basically no better choice than buying a GeForce/Quadro4. The drivers are as stable and optimized for max as it is possible...<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by vacs on 01/07/03 08:14 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[paulj]

I use a 3DLabs Oxygen GVX1 Pro card for SolidWorks 2003. The card is not good at games. Age of Mythology won't even run on it. The card is great for SolidWorks but not in games.

My system at home has a Radeon 9700Pro and runs SolidWorks fine so far. I haven't really pushed it yet.

The question is what do you do the most, work or play, on this computer? Find out what cards work with your animation software. The software manufacturer should be able to give you recommendations as to which video cards are acceptable.

The best setup would be two separate computers as said earlier. I don't know about the quadro cards. I suppose this computer has to be able to do animations well for you to make your money. So you need to be sure that whatever you build does that well first.

Install your animation software on a system with a Radeon 9700Pro or GF4 4600 and see how it does. Or do the opposite on a system with a quadro card in it.

<font color=red>The solution may be obvious, but I can't see it for the smoke coming off my processor.</font color=red>

 

[flamethrower205]

A quadro will work fine with any game, basically at the performance level of it geforce equivalent. You'll be able to run ut2k3 just fine- I personally have a Quadro DCC, and it runs all games real well and 3d programs as well. BTW, Ghostdog u sure about your statement, look at tom's <A HREF="http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021231/fireglx1-linux-02.html" target="_new"> recent benches comparings various pro vid cards</A> you'll notice the wildcat gets beaten by the quadro pretty badly in some cases....Amps, thing is that the GF5 is coming out soon, and there probably will be a quadro 5 (I'll go hunting in the drivers to check it out in a few days) and that'll prolly offer some pretty sick features. How much are you looking to spend?

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti

 

[amps211]

Hey thanks for all the advice. Actually flame...205 that was going to be my follw up question. I kind assumed that a quad5 was going to show up in 4 or 5 months. But who knows (GFX). Money is of no concern...well it is but I would rather sink it all i one system then spreading it over two; just so I can play games. Especially with an onslaught of resource heavy games coming out. Wildcat is definetly not an option. I'm not a complete wizard at looking @ benchmarks but as far as price/perfomance goes it seems their pricing scheme outrageous in comparison to the Nvidia and ATI line. I guess if you need to squeeze out every polygon possible but I'm not pushing Maya that hard yet, but even then.

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[amps211]

I'd rather not go that way. I work with rather large models and complex scenes so a software type of acceleration doesn't interest me. Just curious though what type of performance hit do you experience? Thanks.

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[Jake75]

Performance hit?
Well, when I model large scenes and things start to get messy (slow) I can always hide geometry that I´m not currently working with, therefore I don´t prioritize a new graphics card as much as a new processor to speed my renders up.
I figure if I could 'convert' my Ti4200 into a Quadro I would save alot of money and be able to put them on a new processor instead.

Current system: XP1600, 512PC2100 and Ti4200 (128Mb).


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[flamethrower205]

BTW, there's the maxtreme driver for 3ds max which adds a nice performance boost and gives better picture quality....

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti

 

[Ghostdog]

BTW, Ghostdog u sure about your statement, look at tom's recent benches comparings various pro vid cards you'll notice the wildcat gets beaten by the quadro pretty badly in some cases

Well the Wildcat was just meant as an example for "true" workstation monsters compared to the workstation versions of gaming cards. The Quadro seems to be doing quite well, I would like to see a comparison between the 900XGL and the X1 in games, since I heard that the X1 does quite nicely in UT2003.

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[flamethrower205]

What makes the quadro non "true" workstation card? Several businesses I know of use quadros.....

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti

 

[Ghostdog]

I´ll rephrase myself.
Since the Quadro´s are based on the same graphical processors as their gaming counterparts (right?) they´re not custom made for content creation like the chips from companies that are aiming at the workstation market. That´s why I don´t think the Quadro´s are as "serious" as the cards from companies like 3D Labs. I could be wrong, but this is how I see it. I admit, "serious" isn´t a good word to describe it.

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