Hi, I’ve been trying to Google up some information on this but haven’t reached a conclusive stance so far… it seems really mixed, the info I’m getting… so I thought I’d ask the kind minds (ha, that rhymes) here.
Basically, I am helping my bro put together what I consider to be a student’s entry-level computer for doing 2D/3D primarily graphics work and maybe a game of Half-Life 2 or whatever comes this way on the side. Problem is now, I’m wondering what graphics card to get, for say, in the $150-250 range in U.S. dollars.
My choice earlier would have been an easy one - Radeon 9600 XT as that seems to be fairly excellent, bang for the buck wise… but THEN… I read about numerous problems involving ATI cards and apps like Maya (OpenGL?). I’m not too familiar with these terms so please bear with me. I can’t afford something like a GeForce Quadro I think they’re called which are certified by Alias Wavefront, yet I heard there are ways to turn gaming cards into workstation cards via software (as disresputable as it might be; it seems to be fairly underground?).
What I’m hearing is that the higher end workstation graphics cards use the same cores as the gaming ones, just with different instruction sets enabled? Or something? So then I looked… I think if I got an Nvidia, I’d probably be looking at a 5700 Ultra or something like that… and yet, gaming performance is noticeably less than the ATI cards in that range, isn’t it?
Work is the #1 priority but I’m still confused as to all of these things. Will a Radeon 9600 XT, say, really run badly with Maya? and what does it mean exactly when the cards aren’t certified - will the app crash or glitch up somehow?
Lots of confusion here so any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.
Gaming graphic cards does not help with the rendering, at least in 3d Studio Max.I am not sure about Maya, but I am willing to bet that for most modelling program, this is the case.
However, those cards help in the rendering textures and the model when you are working on them, so it makes the editing process smoother. But when you actually get down to rendering to an AVI, or as an image, it’s your CPU and RAM doing the work.
So best bet is to get a Silicion Graphic card, or get better processor and RAM.
I can’t help you out too much with the comparsion between Nvidia and ATI. As far as games go, ATI’s newest laptop GPU has been rated much higher than Nividia’s (and I believe the same is true of the newest desktop GPU).
In any event, if you do go with ATI, their FireGL card ( http://ati.com/companyinfo/press/2004/4726.html ) was developed to work with OpenGL and is designed for CAD users. I think the difference between the FireGL and ATI’s other cards is the driver software.
In general, if you are going to be using MAYA don’t buy a graphics card that was designed for gaming. ATI in particular has a bunch of problems working with MAYA.
Thanks guys for your help… the number one priority of this card will be 3d graphics software like Maya, with gaming second… FireGL and Quadros and those pro workstation-level cards are too costly for us so that’s why we’re looking around. Hmmm.
ATI Radeon cards support the KTX_Buffer_Region Extension, which improves performance in 3DStudio MAX. It’s off by default, but can be turned on through a setting in the drivers. As for Maya, some cursory checking suggests that it relies on OpenGL, which the Radeons excel at. A Radeon 9600XT would be a good choice, it’s a faster version of the card the ATI FireGL T2 was built off of. FireGL cards use different drivers that are optimized for professional 3D rendering performance, you CAN download versions that have been modified to work on normal non-FireGL Radeons, thus giving you a significant speed boost in 3D rendering applications. A word on drivers: while it was true that ATI had poor drivers a few years ago, with the release of the Radeon they began to get steadily better. At this point in time, I’d say that their driver support is the best in the industry, superior to that of nVidia, IMHO.
I use 3ds max 3.1, but I’ve used Maya PLE 4.0 and Softimage XSI Experience 3.0 on my computer as well.
I’ve a GF4-4600 softmodded (disreputably? LOL) into a Quadro4 900XGL and by most reports (and personal experience) performs almost as well as a “real” Quadro4 900XGL. I purchased a Leadtek Ti4600 w/ 128MB ram for $120 off eBay and it works fine. The gaming-workstation convertor I use is called SoftQuadro4. I would definitely trust Nvidia over ATi for OpenGL performance.
Like others have mentioned, the card won’t make a difference in the final rendering. What it will make a difference in is in shaded viewport performance, which can really help when you’re tweaking with huge scenes and shading/texturing. I don’t do much animation work, so I can’t help you in that aspect.
BTW, you should visit the CGTalk board (particularly Technical/Hardware and the application forums) There have been countless people (incl. me) discussing these very issues.
Thank you Alereon and Gyan9 for your detailed advice. Although I am still confused between nVidia and ATI because your educated opinions differ of course… but I think I will check out a site like CGItalk and check around - google never made that site come up in my searches!
I have a TI4200 Nvidia on my own computer, I never softmodded it but it seemed to run Maya PLE alright. It seemed to work okay. But in the present state of benchmarks (gamer ones, admittedly) it just seems that Radeon cards are le grand choice and I don’t know for sure yet how much ATI has caught up. Maybe that bad reputation has stayed with them.
Hmmm… I’ll keep digging, thank you! Any more experiences would be most welcome.
Things are not so straightforward for Maya. If your brother has already decided on Maya as his choice, then he should definitely stick to Nvidia. Maya 5 has a new feature called Hardware Rendering which uses surprise the GPU (video card) to render the scene. The final output is virtually similar to the Software Renderer and is upto 20 times faster for some scenes. Alias recommends to NOT use ATI cards other than X1,X2,Z1 for hardware rendering[link].
Would you say, in your opinion, an Nvidia 5700 Ultra would be alright for Maya and such? Or should we stick with a Quadro… I’ve read about soft-modding, a little, and all but we have a limited budget like I said in my first post.
I was at CGtalk doing some digging up… seems like though the 5700 Ultras have to be run with older drivers or something to work right with Maya, and there’s this thing called “Forceware”. LOL I’m getting in way past my head but I do want to learn. Thanks again.
Just to confirm: this is for your brother who’s a student. Is this setup for commercial work or for learning 3D? Is it for indirect commercial work (bringing work from home)?
If it’s purely for learning, I see absolutely no need to spend money on anything greater than a Ti4600. Softmod the drivers and you have a decent setup.
Gyan9’s link indicates that ATI cards are fully supported, with hardware acceleration, in Maya. Here are instructions on Softmodding a Radeon into a FireGL card. Radeon 9600 XT cards run about the same price as a Geforce4 Ti4600 ($150), but are 10-25% faster. They also support Microsoft DirectX9, which Geforce4s do not (only DirectX8.1). This means more 3D effects are supported on the Radeon.
I’ve not read all the replies - but didn’t see a link to Alias|Wavefront’s site:
Look at their qualification charts, listing which cards and which driver revisions will work with Maya.
I’ve had issues with ATI FireGL 8800’s but they’re quite old now. Most of Nvidia’s cards have given me far fewer problems (except the old GeForces) & they have much better drivers. A mid range card will be fine for everything you’ll be doing for a while. Maya has a steep learning curve unless you only want to know one aspect of it and any of the latest (qualified) cards won’t give you grief. If you use display layers to hide unnecessary geometry and have clean, well set-up scenes you’ll be able to zip around with no problems. http://www.alias.com/eng/support/maya/qualified_hardware/index.jhtml;$sessionid$LB5NIHRWJ5KTJQCLCWSCFEWAJMK0KIV0
As for rendering: CPU speed & lots of RAM (1gb+). There are options in Mental Ray for Maya that allow you to render d-map shadows via the openGL GPU but if you want realistic shadows you’ll end up raytracing them anyway.
If Radeons can be modded to X1 and X2 then they’re a viable solution as well. DirectX extras won’t make a difference unless that’s the acceleration mode you select . Of course, it’ll help in games though.
Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. The DirectX standards define pixel shaders, but they are addressable using other APIs, such as OpenGL. Maya apparently uses Pixel Shader 1.1, part of the DirectX8.0 specification. You’re right that the extra features won’t be used unless the software implements them, but it would kinda suck to get a card that doesn’t support the latest 3D technology, and not be able to use the features of the next software update.
I think that’s a moot point. This is a budget system for a student. By the time Maya 6 comes along, we’ll probably have a new group of budget cards from both companies.
My final advice would be to get any cheap card off eBay that can be modded to one of the models that Maya 5’s hardware renderer supports. That leaves you with a preference for Ti4600 128MB (Winfast or Leadtek) or a moddable Radeon. With shipping, should come in under $125.
I would get a qualified card, if you mod an unqualified card into a ‘qualified’ card, it won’t neccessarily behave like one. No cite, but I remember reading about issues people had running modded cards with 3D apps.
You may end up with redraw problems; windows leaving garbled bits of themselves after you’ve closed them or odd lines where they shouldn’t be etc.
Overlay problems have also been an issue with Maya’s Hotbox in the past on certain cards, making one of the most useful features (IMHO) of Maya unusable and in Maya 5 the hypershade could be painfully slow when run over another openGL window, something that went away when I swapped my aging 3DLabs GVX1 for a qualified nvidia Quadro4 DCC (also now aging).
I’m not saying you WILL have issues, I know people running maya on laptops and homemade PCs with no issues at all. It may be better to ask on CGchannel or another 3D forum where more people actually use Maya.
and I don’t know for sure yet how much ATI has caught up. Maybe that bad reputation has stayed with them.