Video card for 3D animation, rendering and editing

[trakslacker]

Just trying to find out what type of card would be best for some 3d work of this nature. I know I don't need an ATi X1900XTX or anything(spend it on a good DC CPU instead), but how high do I realistically need to go?

[OmegaMerc]

someone once told me "purchase the most expensive hardware you can afford"

[[XC] Lead Head]

A FireGL or a Quadro, AFAIK the GeForce 6 series can be turned into Quadros with RivaTuner

[Jarrod1937]

A FireGL or a Quadro, AFAIK the GeForce 6 series can be turned into Quadros with RivaTuner
no...
the difference in quadros from other cards are the drivers, and the bios... and the gpu. you will not see a performance boost in 3d workstation apps by just using rivatuner... it and other apps may then reconize it as a quadro... but its not the same.

[Jarrod1937]

Just trying to find out what type of card would be best for some 3d work of this nature. I know I don't need an ATi X1900XTX or anything(spend it on a good DC CPU instead), but how high do I realistically need to go?
and as for your question, quadros and other cards of its type mainly are designed to render large amounts of polys in the viewports. however unless you're making something like a shrek movie a regular 7800 or x1800 or x1900 or 9800...ect will do. however of course you will notice more slowdown faster with more polys on the screen with the lower-end cards. so far i've experienced 3ds max 6 and 7 with a 9800 pro, an x800 xl, and a 7800 gt. and as you would imagine the 7800 gt works beautifully, however i don't do any kind of high poly modeling most of the time since i mainly do game modeling (i'm an environment/world artist).
as for rendering goes, unless you mean real-time rendering, rendering is all cpu based, so a good cpu willl help you here more than the video card.
maybe if you explain a bit more of what you do i can help you further.

[cirthix]

the only difference between a quadro and geforce or radeon and firegl is drivers.

[oasked]

Unless you're doing hardcore stuff any graphics card will do.

[DRDNA]

the only difference between a quadro and geforce or radeon and firegl is drivers.

hardhead

[[XC] Lead Head]

Ok, The 3D Labs Realizim 800 should suit you fine:p:

[Jarrod1937]

the only difference between a quadro and geforce or radeon and firegl is drivers.
well not quite, you must use rivatuner to get it to be reconized as a quadro, then use quadro drivers... however since i've been researching this myself i've noticed that many don't get near the performance of an actual qaudro even though they do get a good performance increase in 3ds max. so this leads me to believe that there is another major difference in the cards (perhaps something like the gpu). however as i said, unless you're doing some really high poly stuff then any non-special card will do.

[Mr. Tinker]

Just trying to find out what type of card would be best for some 3d work of this nature. I know I don't need an ATi X1900XTX or anything(spend it on a good DC CPU instead), but how high do I realistically need to go?
The first question is, what animation package are you using? Right off the bat, I can tell you to stick to nvidia cards for now.(are you taking animation classes at msu?)

[Mr. Tinker]

no...
the difference in quadros from other cards are the drivers, and the bios... and the gpu. you will not see a performance boost in 3d workstation apps by just using rivatuner... it and other apps may then reconize it as a quadro... but its not the same.
WRONG!!!

[Alec]

I used to model alsorts of things in 3dsmax 4.2 and 6 using a 1.7GHz P4 and a Geforce4 MX440, rendering high poly objects (>50,000), but other than that it worked fine.

When I upgraded to a A64 3200+ and a 9800Pro, rendering the same kinda high poly models was much quicker.

Your choice really dude, if your going PCI-e then maybe just an ATI X600 or X700, or a 6600 fro nvidia - really just depends on how fast you want to get the rendering done.

Hope this helps! :toast:
Alec


BTW what 3d modelling programs ya gonna be using? :)

[etherealrhythm]

Just trying to find out what type of card would be best for some 3d work of this nature. I know I don't need an ATi X1900XTX or anything(spend it on a good DC CPU instead), but how high do I realistically need to go?

my answer would be not very high. not in relation to the current climate anyway. my last video card was a 9800 pro, and although a solid card, there was a considerable lag during interaction with higher density meshes - so if youre gonna be doing higher poly stuff, like working with subdivision surfaces, maybe aim a bit higher. im using an x850 at the moment and even when throwing a couple of hundred thousand polys at it there's literally no slowdown in interaction.

and as for the "rendering" part of your question, as everyone has said and as i suspect you know, based on your CPU comment, it is the CPU that will be doing all the raytracing, and the graphics card doesnt factor. this being the case, actually do get the best you can afford - theres nothing worse than having to skimp on the accuracy sliders in the render settings.

and as for the "editing" bit, i have absolutely no idea what you'll need. does anyone here do any video editing?

[Mr. Tinker]

and as for the "editing" bit, i have absolutely no idea what you'll need. does anyone here do any video editing?
Matrox used to be king there. That was because they aimed their cards at having real-time effects. Now, newer versions of applications can do effects in real-time because A.) they found faster ways of doing it in software, and B.) the CPU's are much faster.

But again, Avid and Adobe and others all recommend nvidia cards for some reason.

And I'll say it once again, that the power of the card you get all depends on what 3d application you are using because some use OpenGL well and others not so much, so we need to know that.

[Mr. Tinker]

Your choice really dude, if your going PCI-e then maybe just an ATI X600 or X700, or a 6600 fro nvidia - really just depends on how fast you want to get the rendering done.

GPU takes no role in rendering. It's for workflow OpenGL previews.

[Something Sexy]

I currently use 3DS Max 7 for animations and modeling for both myself and a few side projects. Some of the animations we do are pretty graphic intense, we use the reactor physics engine in some of them. I am using a FireGL V5000 and a 7800GTX and I don't have any problems.

Also if you use a 3DS Max application it shouldn't matter what card you use because you can set it for OpenGL or DirectX.

As far as rendering is concerned, some of our animations take upwards of 2 or 3 days to render long scenes, so we setup a network render where we have 4 or 5 computers connected that share the work.

[Jarrod1937]

WRONG!!!
did you read my other half?
"however since i've been researching this myself i've noticed that many don't get near the performance of an actual qaudro even though they do get a good performance increase in 3ds max. so this leads me to believe that there is another major difference in the cards (perhaps something like the gpu)..."
this is only what i've observed, although i guess i should have stated that that is not a fact but a theory of mine based on my observations.
i've looked at both benchmarks from actual quadros and from benchmarks from those (whose model of quadro is supposed to be based off of) who have done the quadro mod and while they do get a performance boost in 3d modeling apps most don't get to the actual level of a quadro. however this could only be true for the types i've seen but... it is what i have seen. so please don't blatantly be annoying with really large red text.... however i do know for a fact that some of the older quadro's were exactly the same but i've only looked at ones done for 7800's (since that is my card), so you're right.

[Jarrod1937]

GPU takes no role in rendering. It's for workflow OpenGL previews.
quite true, actual rendering is done purely by the cpu (as stated in my first response). video cards only help with viewport rendering (atleast for what i use modeling apps for) however you can choose your renderer type (atleast with 3ds max, ex. dx 8, dx9, opengl, software). you choose your renderer based on what your cards handles best, as tinker said, some cards are better with opengl while others dx. but the actual rendering parts (for both still or video) is done by the cpu.

[Jarrod1937]

I currently use 3DS Max 7 for animations and modeling for both myself and a few side projects. Some of the animations we do are pretty graphic intense, we use the reactor physics engine in some of them. I am using a FireGL V5000 and a 7800GTX and I don't have any problems.

Also if you use a 3DS Max application it shouldn't matter what card you use because you can set it for OpenGL or DirectX.

As far as rendering is concerned, some of our animations take upwards of 2 or 3 days to render long scenes, so we setup a network render where we have 4 or 5 computers connected that share the work.
yeah, network renderers are quite nice, i have one myself, only of 5 computers though. i want to add more soon. although i prefer to use dr queue instead of the network rendering software max comes with since you get more control.

also, sorry for the multiple post... i'm used to forums that add your latest post to your last one.

[Mr. Tinker]

did you read my other half?
"however since i've been researching this myself i've noticed that many don't get near the performance of an actual qaudro even though they do get a good performance increase in 3ds max. so this leads me to believe that there is another major difference in the cards (perhaps something like the gpu)..."
this is only what i've observed, although i guess i should have stated that that is not a fact but a theory of mine based on my observations.
i've looked at both benchmarks from actual quadros and from benchmarks from those (whose model of quadro is supposed to be based off of) who have done the quadro mod and while they do get a performance boost in 3d modeling apps most don't get to the actual level of a quadro. however this could only be true for the types i've seen but... it is what i have seen. so please don't blatantly be annoying with really large red text.... however i do know for a fact that some of the older quadro's were exactly the same but i've only looked at ones done for 7800's (since that is my card), so you're right.


i guess we can never know unless one person tests the same exact system but switches out cards. I've never seen such a comparison.

[kiwi]

i guess we can never know unless one person tests the same exact system but switches out cards. I've never seen such a comparison.

Was gonna write that :D

I've also seen numerous @ fireGL and @quadro mods but never seen an actual comparison between true cards and modded

[Something Sexy]

I don't notice to big of a difference between my firegl and 7800GTX, my firegl is only a 128mb though.