Beginner student would like your comments on system issues

# 1 07-01-2007 , 12:18 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2002

Location: Adelaide Australia

Posts: 201

Beginner student would like your comments on system issues

Hi all,

I’m currently a student with a limited budget looking to run Maya.
My pc is as follows:

IBM P4 2.6 gig
1 gig pc3200 ram

The video card slot is AGP and needs upgrading so my first question is:

Which of these video cards would be best for Maya? (I won't be doing any gaming).

• VGA Sapphire 256 RADEON R9550 DDR, DVI card
• VGA Leadtek fx 540 QUARTRO card
• Leadtek 256 7600GS AGP

Also, I know my system will be slow but am I likely to have any other problems and, if so, what?

Thanks to anyone who can make some comments about this as I am not having much luck dealing with the sales staff at computer shops.

Cheers,

Jim.

Mayan elder......only in years.....

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# 2 07-01-2007 , 03:21 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: Oct 2006

Location: Melbourne

Posts: 313

Gday!
Was just reading up a few benchmark results, found here.

Although I couldn't find a vendor for the chipsets that matched the ones you listed, I did find some result for the chips in cards from different manufacturers.

the radeon 9550 scored from 182-393
the 7600GS scored from 842-1200
the 540 quadro scored 205

There is some variability in speed, depending on which manufacturer has put together a card with the chipset on it, but it's often not a huge amount, and the above figures give a rough idea of the expected performance.

About the 7600 and the 540 I can tell you nothing much else.
The 9550 is a card I've just bought and _for the money_ I'm quite happy with it. There has was the occasional hiccup, but overall, it's been fine. It won't render subds in hardware, and from time to time 'mystery' pixels pop-up in the viewports (like an LCD with dead pixels), but the renders all come out fine.

That said however, without knowing any more I'd be inclined to choose the 7600 gs if it's inside your budget.
UNLESS you were planning on upgrading to a PCI-e motherboard in the near future (assuming the 9550 is a fair margin cheaper than the 7600, AND that you weren't going to sell it afterwards to recoup some of your outlay)

You may have an issue with the way image planes are displayed with a 7600 (they get stretched in a circular fashion, a bit like water going down a plughole) but the fix for that issue has been posted plenty around the forums.

As for the rest of your rig, I'm only using a celeron 2.66 and 1GB and that's fine for my needs. I will point out however that my ram is all but consumed when working with a basic scene consisting of around half a million polygons... Not that I've ever need that many yet for anything other than benchmark comparisons between my current and previous cards. user added image

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# 3 07-01-2007 , 08:04 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2002

Location: Adelaide Australia

Posts: 201

Thank you enhzflep,

Very helpful indeed.

Cheers

Jim

Mayan elder......only in years.....

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# 4 13-01-2007 , 01:44 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2002

Location: Adelaide Australia

Posts: 201

recommendations for a new system to run Maya

Hi there,

I have come to the conclusion that it is better to purchase a new system to run Maya than to attempt to upgrade my current machine.

I have no idea about suitable hardware that will run Maya. I won't be doing any gaming, just Maya and post production.

Could people suggest a list of hardware (not too expensive) that I might take to a shop and request for a building a system. I don't want state of the art, just something mid priced. Around $1800 Australian (if possible) including Win XP pro.

Eg.

cpu (dual core 2 probably)
motherboards
ram
video cards
etc....

Thanks again

cheers

Jim

Mayan elder......only in years.....

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