Kicking the dead horse...

[dudders]

if you're learning the ropes then i reckon a gaming card will do fine and will not impede your learning process at all.

I wouldnt recommend softquadding as there are some reports of unstability and its definately not mandatory to do this to run Maya. Stability is the main issue with these cards and Ive found gainward cards to be reportedly more stable than other cards of this quality.

Although ive no personal experience with quadro 500, i seem to get the idea thats it not worth buying. But i could be wrong on that.

Hope that helps

[status quo]

you can only softquadro the geforce 4 line of cards.

[elvis]

Originally posted by status quo
you can only softquadro the geforce 4 line of cards.

Yeah I was gonna say... I'm fairly certain there was no "SofquadroFX/5" nor will there ever be (or at least that's what the word was 6 months ago when people were asking on the Guru3d forums).

At any rate, a GeForce5900 will do just fine for both Maya and Doom3 (and other next-gen games).

And personally speaking, I would avoid a QuadroFX 500 at the best of times (especially if you are a gamer). In very basic terms it is the Quadro cousin of the GeForceFX 5200 cards which suffer from both shocking clockspeeds and horrible memory bandwidth. A Quadro4 900/980 or QuadroFX 1000/1100 would be my starting point.

I have not yet played with a QuadroFX 700. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who's used one of these and compared it to the 1100 in both price and performance.

[Tarrbot]

To answer the last question, I've used low-end (and high-end) workstation cards for gaming. They aren't bad at all.

I think the bottom line on the whole enchilada is to just get a Very Good&tm; gaming card and work into the 3D stuff. You'll know soon enough when it's time to get something else (i.e. when you load one of your scenes, move an object and the thing takes 25 seconds to redraw the screen. :D )

[MCronin]

You can SoftQuadro a 5900... sort of. You use softquadro and 4X.XX series drivers (45.28 is good). The only noticeable difference performance wise as far as bechmarks are concerned between a 5900 and a 3000 are the Unigraphics scores in Spec. Though your Unigraphics scores will be lower than a real 3000, they will be about 20 percent better than a 5900. Go to the Guru 3d forums. There's a sticky thread that tells you everything you need to know in the RivaTuner section.

Performance wise, in my experience, Softquadroed 5900's are much more stable in Maya and Houdini that running as a FX with Forceware drivers.

To answer your questions though...

No, you won't need alot of horsepower to learn and it won't impede you unless you work really stupidly. You can always hide objects in your scene or use proxy geometry if your computer is chugging along. Really if you have a decent CPU, even a GeForce 2 or 3 would be sufficient.

No, most applications play pretty well with nvidia's gaming cards, however, I have lot's of trouble with the forceware driver series, even in Linux. I run 4X series drivers in both Windows and Linux with no trouble.

Workstation cards handle games just fine. Yeah you'll lose a frame or two here and there, but it's not something that should influence your purchasing decision because no matter what card you buy, gaming or professional, you are always going to find there is some game you want to play that runs like ass on your current hardware.

[Joel Hooks]

You can get a Quadro4 980 XGL for a steal on Ebay. It's a great card.

[elvis]

Originally posted by Joel Hooks
You can get a Quadro4 980 XGL for a steal on Ebay. It's a great card.

No DirectX9 support on those babies which is bad news for people who also want to play modern and future games on their modelling rigs.

Still, if I were after a pro card on the cheap or for study pruposes, that's what I'd be getting too.

[Steinspinne]

Thanks for all the replies! This will give me something to chew on for a while at least. I've pretty much decided that I'm going to go with the 5900 as planned, and as Tarrbot noted I'll know when the time is right to move on up to (most likely) a mid-level workstation card. Thanks for all the help guys!:thumbsup:

[Joel Hooks]

That's true Elvis. Well, you can still play the games, they just won't be as pretty :>

[elvis]

Originally posted by Joel Hooks
That's true Elvis. Well, you can still play the games, they just won't be as pretty :>

Yeah true. Although these days I have separate gaming and work machines, which makes life a heck of a lot easier when choosing hardware for the right task. :)

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.