Graphic card for 3d animation

[Nod]

Im going to buyan Athlon MP 2400+ and use it on my ASUS A7V8X motherboard or on a NF7 motherboard. Im going to use that computer for 3d animation and wounder what grafic card i should choose.

I have a ASUS GF4 Ti4200 ( i think it is a V8420). But i have also looked at a Sapphire Radeon 9600XT FireBlade editon (fireblade editon since i want to try to oc). Now my quastion is will i see any great diffrence if i buy the radeon? or is the diffrence to GF4 ti42000 minimal in 3d animation? Is there any better grafic card that i can buy that will perform better in 3d animation? I don't want it to cost more than the 9600XT.

Thank you for your help.

 

[Sabbathian]

In real 3D aplications you will not see any difference between Radeon and Geforce, becouse they are not really used by that aplications. If you want real performance difference, go for real 3D Graphic cards, like 3D Labs Wildcats, Quadro or FireGL, but that will cost lot more, but performace boost is great, especialy with quadro cards.
Also check if your 3D application is supported by those cards drivers.

I've been visiting a psychiatrist for some time now. He plays
mind games. He asks things like 'do you masturbate'? and I say
'do you breathe?

 

[cleeve]

I have to disagree with Sabbathan.

Different 3d cards do make a good deal of difference with 3d applications.

Also, note that there are hacked drivers out there that will convert Radeons and Geforces into working like their expensive FireGL and Quadro counterparts.

If you want a good graphics card for 3d animation that's cheap, get yourself a Radeon 9700 PRO or 9800 and use the hacked FireGL driver. I believe a 5900XT has a hacked quadro driver available as well.

But first you should look into finding a hacked quadro driver for your Geforce4 Ti4200. You should get respectable gains simply by doing that...

________________
<b>Radeon <font color=red>9500 PRO</b></font color=red> <i>(hardmodded 9500, o/c 322/322)</i>
<b>AthlonXP <font color=red>~2600+</b></font color=red> <i>(o/c 2400+ w/143Mhz fsb)</i>
<b>3dMark03: <font color=red>4,055</b></font color=red>

 

[Sabbathian]

I have to slightly disagree with Cleeve

Have you ever tried those drivers ? Do you have them ? Have you ever seen them work ? ....
I remember when it was popular to mod GF2 into Quadro by repositioning one chip on the card so it represents itself as quadro to the system. Performance gain ? same as if you OC`d the card for 10-20Mhz.
Real Quadro and Wildcat card ...... as it is said here in Croatia..... eat little children especialy in LW or Maya ......

But if you are right, please provide me with some links, I would like to check it out ;-)

I've been visiting a psychiatrist for some time now. He plays
mind games. He asks things like 'do you masturbate'? and I say
'do you breathe?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I'll look for the links (kinda old now), but I have posted them here many times before; however the increase is more than simply a small hop. The performance boost is quite large. The head to head soft versus true GL and Quadro tests I have seen (in Russian) have shown between 90ish-100% performance of the retail workstation cards.

I'll see what I can dig up at work.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[cleeve]

Things have chaged, sabbathian.

The only difference between quadros/FireGLs and their commercial gamer counterparts are the drivers.

The hardware is identical; if the drivers recognize the cards as professional versions, then the profesional 3d app optimized versions are used.

Makes a big difference...

________________
<b>Radeon <font color=red>9500 PRO</b></font color=red> <i>(hardmodded 9500, o/c 322/322)</i>
<b>AthlonXP <font color=red>~2600+</b></font color=red> <i>(o/c 2400+ w/143Mhz fsb)</i>
<b>3dMark03: <font color=red>4,055</b></font color=red>

 

[krazynutz]

wow...I'm so in the dark. I never knew about the workstation Quadro/Fire mods. I have 128MB 5900 and I'm interested in a 256 version for the reason of high-res textures having to refresh sometimes in my Open GL viewport. I'm very interested in the driver mod, as well as anyone being able to tell me if I'll notice a gain in performance with 3D apps with a 256MB card over a 128MB card, as far as handling textures goes (needing to refresh less).

<font color=blue>Asus P4P800 Deluxe, 2.6C @ 3.25Ghz, 512 MB Geil Platinum PC4000, Antec TruePower 430, Swiftech MCX4000 w/Sanyo Denki 92mm - 26 deg idle.

 

[Sabbathian]

Cleeve, Cleeve ......

Why does anyone buy Quadro/FireGL cards ? we should all buy normal gaming cards and mod them, using your technicque, talking about it.... you take normal .... for instance FX 5950, put it in your hands and start saying: I will mod you, couse you know, the only difference between you and quadro is in drivers.... and after saying that for 2 days and 2 nights, you will have Quadro FX card ! Voila ! nothing easier........ I`ve just started this on my radeon 9600 to see what will I get from it......

If you think that this is whole lotta BS, then enlight me with some links.......

I've been visiting a psychiatrist for some time now. He plays
mind games. He asks things like 'do you masturbate'? and I say
'do you breathe?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Saba... Sabbaa.. Sabab... whoever you are,

Why does anyone buy Quadro/FireGL cards

People softmod, because it DOESN'T take 2 days, that's the HARD MOD. The Softmod can go back and forth, and back and forth, etc. Some people want the ability to play games, and the ability to work (personally I have two rigs, and don't use/know Maya enough to give a rats...).

Why doesn't eveyone do this? Because of a thing called certification and support. These are very important in the industry, and when you can writeoff so much of your hardware, why not get what is support and meets the certification process of your industry?

For dabblers, those are not big concerns, and there's no way a tax write-off would get us anything considering that there is NO profit in dabbling alone.

An here's a quicky review with a SoftQuadro 900XGL and a SoftQuadro DCC.

<A HREF="http://www.digit-life.com/articles/profcards/profcards-06-2002-svp7.html?97029" target="_new">http://www.digit-life.com/articles/profcards/profcards-06-2002-svp7.html?97029</A>

And the perfromance difference hovers in the 98% area. Huge Improvement over not modded too. The only test that didn't offer similar results was UGS1 and only for the 900, the DCC was the same (within margin of error)throughout.

Ther's alot more out there, but I'm really not going to go diggin much more, the point is made.

So what's your evidence to the contrary now?


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I'll post a link in your thread, didn't intially because it's a busy week and thought someone would get to you first.

Simply put very high resolutions and very large texture set will benifit, but it's not worth the price difference unless someone is paying you for the owrk or you can write it off IMO.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[Sabbathian]

hm........ July 2002, isn`t that a bit old ? GF2 and some GF4 could be moded, but not the new cards.......

Please, take a look at this :
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040323/opengl-fx1100-x2t-03.html

Have you noticed something ?
Ok, this is over for me, I have no more time, and nerves to spend on this ))

See ya guys

p.s. - "whoever you are" - someone who is in 3D for a long time.... nothing more

I've been visiting a psychiatrist for some time now. He plays
mind games. He asks things like 'do you masturbate'? and I say
'do you breathe?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I have seen every THG article to date, so no point in pointing it out, and as for it's relevance to the topic it doesn't compare soft mod to full on retaul. There are more reviews/articles, but after my backup problems of mozzilllaa bookmarks I'm not about to waste time looking for more. The above should be proof enoug that they are close enough even if it is 2 years old, the new card are 1+ years old. And the Quadro series was used as the example to begin with. I KNOW that they are within 90-100% even in the FireGL Xx and Quadro FXxxxx series.

I am not about to spend more time proving the point that the soft mod is 'good enough', your link only shows the retail versions, nothing new there. Digit-life would show a better spread, and there are many more better reviews out there. THG does a good job, but doesn't support your argument at all.

SoftMod is good enough for people who really shouldn't waste their money on retail versions.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[Sabbathian]

TheGreatGrapeApe - lets head to new threads... see ya

I've been visiting a psychiatrist for some time now. He plays
mind games. He asks things like 'do you masturbate'? and I say
'do you breathe?

 

[Nod]

wow, thanks for the help evryone.

My english isn' very good so i didn't understand exactly. Do you mean that i can hack my ASUS Geforce4 Ti4200 to run 3d programs better?

If i do that can I still play games whit that computer or will it drop in performance?

Since i guess its hard to find the software too hack Geforce4 Ti4200 i won't ask for sites, but what word should i look for in forums and rewievs?

Thanks again for all the help.