i'm getting a new graphics card.. need your opinions :)

# 1 18-05-2004 , 10:07 AM

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i'm getting a new graphics card.. need your opinions :)

hi everyone. i'm getting a new graphics card later this week and i need your opinions. now, bear in mind i'm a college student in the philippines and i can't really get my hands on workstation cards like the quadro series since a) i don't have the cash, b) they need to stock up on them via special order here, thus raising costs, and c) if they do get them via special order, they tend to add on to the price for profit, thus putting workstation cards wayyy beyond my reach at this point.

that said, i'm looking into two graphics cards: a Sapphire Radeon 9800 Atlantis Pro 128MB, and an ASUS V9560 Video Suite GeForce FX 5600 256MB. the latter is cheaper, for some reason. anyway, given that these can emulate Quadro or FireGL with SoftQuadro and SoftFireGL, which is a better buy? i'm working with Maya 5.0 on a P4 1.8 GHz, 256MB RAM.

they also have a Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600XT Atlantis 256MB, with bigger memory but a lower end model compared to the 9800. dunno if that makes a huge difference. it costs a lot less than the 9800 Atlantis Pro though.

help please. i used a GeForce2 MX400 with maya 4.5 but all of a sudden, i got fatal errors, unreferenced memory errors, illegal operations, and other errors even after reinstalling windows so many times. funny that i used to even render maya movies on there. so i decided to upgrade to 5.0. works fine but it shuts down automatically when i render a scene or batch render. my guess is because of my hardware. hence, i decided to upgrade.

for those who are really nice and would like to view all of the possible video card upgrades i can make and give a suggestion based on the full list, here's the link to the store i visit: https://villman.com/products/product_...sp?catid=vcard .

thanks everyone! user added image

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# 2 18-05-2004 , 01:20 PM

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https://villman.com/products/specs/as...s/v9560_vs.asp

that is a good grfx card ... but i cannot compare it to radeon cards as i have always stuck to NVIDIA cards.

[ps edit]

id also look into at leased doubling your memory if your budget can stretch it, maybe selling your current 256 chip to put towards a 512 will save a small amount.

Last edited by Techi; 18-05-2004 at 01:24 PM.

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# 3 18-05-2004 , 03:11 PM

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thanks!

is this sure to work with maya? a huge problem with it is that maya only fully supports a few graphics cards.

what do the other people on these boards think? user added image

keep the suggestions coming!

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# 4 18-05-2004 , 04:25 PM

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i dont use maya, i have 5, but dont use it - i took a peak...need others to coment b4 you decide

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# 5 19-05-2004 , 02:37 AM

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FX5600 vs. FX5700 Ultra

ok thanks!

i'm looking into that card, which is based on the GeForce FX5600 design. plus it has dual out, meaning i can use two monitors. BUT... i saw a GeForce FX5700 Ultra for about the same price but without the video editing perks (most significantly the dual out). which is better, in this case? which is my best bet for good performance with maya? the FX5600 with dual out or the FX5700 Ultra?

thanks! user added image

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# 6 19-05-2004 , 02:42 AM

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oh, another thing.. which is better?

GF FX5700 256MB DDR or GF FX5700 Ultra 128MB DDR

does the ultra make up for the extra 128MB of the non-ultra version?

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# 7 19-05-2004 , 04:01 AM

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deryk the ultra has a little bit more clocking speed , but the it will not make up for extra ram, you could actually overclock the non-ultra but you won't have to for use with maya.
I would definately go for the extra ram.

2 x Modeling Challenge Winner

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# 8 19-05-2004 , 04:09 AM

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thanks!

i was thinking of that too. so the extra clock speed makes very little difference? what differences does the extra 128MB RAM on the non-ultra version make?

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# 9 19-05-2004 , 04:34 AM

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RAM on a graphics card is the memory devoted specifically to handling images and graphics output to your monitor. Complex graphics, like in sophisticated games and movies, require some graphics memory.
For high-tech games, the graphics card has to display a new screen continuously. The purpose of video RAM is to refresh the display as fast as is needed. A part of the graphics card’s memory that holds information before it is sent to the monitor is called the video buffer. The video buffer is also called a screen buffer or a regeneration buffer. Buffers that can hold more than one page, allow quicker display updates because one page is displayed while another is being loaded.
For complex scenes in Maya navigation becomes easier with more ram.

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# 10 19-05-2004 , 05:06 AM

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hmmm thanks! i think i'll go with that then, unless some other people make suggestions here. the non-ultra version is also a lot cheaper, even with more RAM. i'm also upgrading my memory from 256MB DDR to 768MB (adding a 512MB chip), or a full-on 1GB.

how do these specs look for maya (considering on my current set-up, a 12 second video at 640x480 with water dynamics took a full 24 hours to make)?

(old specs in parentheses)

Pentium 4 1.8 GHz
768MB or 1024MB DDR RAM (formerly 256MB)
GeForce FX 5700 256MB (formerly GeForce 2 MX400)
Windows 2000 Professional (formerly Windows XP Professional)

how much would those specs improve performance from the older ones in parentheses?

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# 11 19-05-2004 , 12:40 PM

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formerly GeForce 2 MX400

Originally Posted by

this card has bugs, i used to have one, you will notice a huge differance with the new one user added image

also moving to 2000 pro is a good thing, start up will be tons slower but the additional reliability is worth the wait, if you could try one of the server family 2000 os's the differance in reliability greatens even more

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# 12 20-05-2004 , 01:10 PM

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HELP!

i have a HUGE problem...

so i have my new video card and more RAM, but still Maya 5.0 shuts down automatically when i try to render a scene or try to create a texture. there are probably more cases when this will happen that i haven't seen yet, but what the heck is wrong? i'm working with a fresh install of winXP (don't have my Win2k yet) and already this is happening.

any suggestions pls? i'm desperate to get this to work.

thanks.

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