is a CAD card necessary?

[peterfagg]

I'm an automotive engineering student in the UK, and part of my course involves using EDS Solid Edge program (think cut-down Unigraphics).

I'm wondering whether to upgrade, but on a limited budget. Would a CAD card be worth it? What about a convert from the equivalent gaming card (eg rivatuner)? Or would my money (£200 tops) be best spent elsewhere to get more usable performance in other non-cad applications?

I'm running a 2000+, in an ASUS A7S333 + 512pc2100 and a radeon 7500 with a 19" monitor running at 1400x1050 (all my eyes can handle!). Everything seems to run fast enough (given the limited budget), apart from serious cad usage.

Thanks

Peter

 

[cleeve]

I'm not sure about other CAD programs, but there are lots of video card comparisons for 3dsMAX. Xbitlabs in particular does some very good comparisons.

They suggest that the Nvidia Geforce4 Ti's are the best price/performance solution for professionally optimized OpenGL drivers. And it really does make a difference...

Have a look at these numbers, keeping in mind the Radeon 7500 is far inferior to the worst performing card reviewed, the Radeon 9500:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/3dsmax5-atiprof.html

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/3dsmax5-atiprof_2.html

- Cleeve

 

[peterfagg]

I'm fairly capable with computers - I could manage installing the SoftFire bits over the top of an ATI 9500 Pro to create a Fire Z1 or X1. Would it be worth my while do you think from the graphs? A TI card wouldn't let me have this opportunity.

Both the TI 4800 SE and the 9500 Pro (Sapphire built, not ATI) are about £125, so within budget!

Would this be a sensible mod?

Cheers, Peter

PS VIVO would be preferable on any card as I may use it connected to a playstation2 soon!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by peterfagg on 05/13/03 05:35 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[voelser]

I'm going through the same paces as you at the moment: can't decide Nvidia or ATI, but that article seems to favor Nvidia. However I was not able to acces the "Modify the Gaming Cards on ATI Chips into Professional Ones!"-link (broken), do you think you can mail me the lowdown on that?

Thanks

 

[peterfagg]

I've seen http://nvworld.ru/docs/sfgl_e.html - gave me a few ideas!

Peter

 

[voelser]

very interesting indeed. Will you consider that approach? Allthough the methode seems straightforward, it'll always be a bit of a risk.

 

[peterfagg]

well people seem to rate the 9500pro pretty well anyway, so if it all goes wrong you can just reset all the drivers etc and you should have the basic card back and working. This is the advantage of this method - no hardware alterations.

Does this sound sensible? Peter

 

[voelser]

I'm trying to make my mind up between two nvidia's at the mo, with a R9700 pro on the backburner. So if I'd go for it, I'd go for the 9700.
The fact that you can reset it all makes it a bit more interesting. You can save it when it all goes horribly wrong.
But again, it seems a proven fact that MAX5 runs better with Nvidia....

 

[peterfagg]

That's all well and good for you but I need the card for Solid Edge! The Fire X1 conversion looks promising, and seems to be consistently better than NVidia. P

 

[RCPilot]

I don't know why it's that big of deal. I've got Unigraphics 16.0 & 18.0 running on my rig right now. I've been a solid modeler for like 12 years now. I went on UG V 8.0 in 1992. & have been running UG every since. I do know about Pro Edge as well. I actually run faster here at home on my rig than I do on the Sun workstation at the office. Here's my rig:

ASUS A7V8X
XP 2400 T-Bred, 266 FSB
2 x 256 Kingston Hyper X 2700/333
G4TI4600
80 gig WD JB 8 mg cashe.

So it's not a big mystery what it takes to run it. I have all the modules running as well. Maybe I'm missing the point or something here.

If it ain't broke, take it apart & see why not!