GRAPHICS CARD?

# 1 04-08-2006 , 01:32 AM

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Can anyone recommend what graphics card is good for using for rendering? I keep getting 'graphics card not sufficient for hardware rendering'

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Also, while we r on the subject, can anyone give me feedback of what memory and hard drive is enough to use for shorts.

Thanks

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# 2 04-08-2006 , 01:37 AM

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mine says that too, but its a compattibility with maya issue. my graphics card is GREAT... but it doesnt tie in with MAya well.

and i'd give about a gig of ram, hard drive... anything that can hold maya lol whatever even 10 gigs is enough (dont buy 10 gigs of hard... go for at least 80-160)

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# 3 04-08-2006 , 02:09 AM

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wicked thanx mate

I have just got my pc upgraded to a gig of ram so at least i know im on the right track. as for the hard drive im waiting for my local shop to get back to me, he's getting me 500gb hard drive for £220.

However, someone told me that if im gonna concentrate on spending on any upgrades, it should be for my RAM...is this true?? However he is not an animator, just fairly clever with pc's.

Before i do anything else though, in order to get good images (and lets face it, if im spending, i may aswell get THE best that my wallet will let me),.........i need to do my research on graphics cards and get myself a top powerful graphic card. Mine at the moment is a RADEON 9200 SE. Unfortunately im not too clever on graphics cards yet. Dunno what power mine is....like i said, ill have to do my research.lol

?????????

APPRECIATE YOUR HELP MY FRIEND

CHEERS

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# 4 04-08-2006 , 06:09 AM

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i think if you would like to go for an new graphics card
i would upgrade youre whole PC
inlcuding processor and mainboard
wait for when the intel conroe are good available that are fantastic processor and find an mainboard that is SLI compatible
buy either 2 nvidia 7950 in sli or a single quadro.

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# 5 04-08-2006 , 06:54 AM

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If you only want it for maya then have a look at the qualification charts on alias's site, but you can get a card that isn't qualified but will work, eg the GForces (On my PC I've got an old school 4400 but it works fine hardware rendering)

But I would ask for opinions on the one your thinking of as there may be problems with it when running maya

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# 6 04-08-2006 , 11:15 AM

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you dont have to go all out and buy a new comp just for a graphics card and a stick of ram.

upgrades- yeah you should go for ram, but depends on what you are going to do! If you want to do a lot of rendering of complex scenes, stuff that, i dont know, takes 3 hours or more a frame, you should upgrade your processor too. But still, if you upgrade, go for the ram. You should have one, if not even 2 gigs of ram for stuff like maya.

And graphics card, i'd go for the NVIDIA Quadro FX series, though most of them have prices that go through the roof, for graphics, they are great.

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# 7 04-08-2006 , 12:39 PM

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I was using an "off the shelf" Dell which I initially bought with Maya (or at least Flash or other 2D animation) in mind. It worked OK with earlier versions of Maya, but 6.5 made the ol' warhorse crash and burn! Earlier this year, I was compelled to retire the old warhorse (actually, it's still in use) and I decided to build a new PC from the ground up.

The first order of business is a motherboard which can hold a LOT of RAM and the latest processors. I chose one by Gigabyte Technologies which holds up to 8 GB of RAM ( I presently have 2 GB, all I could afford! :-) ). I used an upper mid level Intel 3.2 GB processor, and chose an ATI DirectX 9 compatible video card (which, BTW works great).

I had some "fun" building it (I bought all the components from newegg.com); some of the items didn't work right the first time out, one motherboard was dead in the water when I got it (quickly replaced), and I was advised to buy the wrong kind of RAM (choosing compatible RAM chips is a black art, but eventually I got it right). Finally, it worked!!!!!!!!

My only (and by far BIGGEST) mistake was choosing Windows XP 64 Professional as my operating software. As I learned, it was virtually obsolete upon release, and while it works GREAT with Maya (very stable), it is virtually UNSUPPORTED by just about everyone else! I had to unretire my old Dell to do all of my scanning and printing. BE ADVISED...NEITHER Symantec nor McAfee support 64 bit windows! I lucked out and found a small UK company called "Avast" which to my knowledge makes the only anti-virus software compatible with Windows 64. I have found that software easily the equal and in many ways the superior of Norton and McAfee! When the new Windows software comes out, I may wind up getting it.

If nothing else, upgrade your motherboard and get more RAM! Otherwise, I found building a new PC an interesting challenge, and you can buy as much or as little as you need!

"Ad astra per aspera..."

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# 8 04-08-2006 , 01:34 PM

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this is very interesting. thanx peeps! keep the comments coming. Its very good to know when you're starting out what you need etc.

I appreciate every comment, cheers

im only creating shorts, like most people. I want to get into to the industry as an animator, not to produce stills, but short films, hence why i want advice on rendering and memory etc.etc.

keep em coming!

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# 9 06-08-2006 , 12:11 AM

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for my next PC I will look for 2 things - as much RAM as possible (...whcih might still be 2 GIG) and a powerful CPU. for the graphics card thing - I used to work with an old ATI, and well it somehow survived maya. got me a nVidia 6800GT some weeks/months? after it came out. never had problems with it. at my old office we had a quadro FX 4500 - a very not cheap graca! in my current company, I don´t know what´s in..

and I tell you what. graphic cards really don´t matter in my opinion as long as you can plug 2 monitors into it.. no matter where I worked and with what high end components, my 1,5 year old homemade comp with 2 Gigs Ram, 6800GT and amd 3200+ is still as fast as the company stuff.

cause all that matters is CPU and RAM. and as long as apps are limited to 2 Gigs of RAM it wont get any noticably better (don´t speaking about CPU here), not to say that I can still buy my own processor Unit at the nearly same price from 2 years ago. I don´t want to sound pessimistic, just say - get you a small and real fast harddisc and use the first partition as pagefile - in case you use windows..

everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.

Last edited by Falott; 06-08-2006 at 12:14 AM.

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