recommending a quadro 1400?

[digdenton]

I would definately recommend the Quadro. Here's a link to a good comparison of the Quadro line vs. the 7800.
http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=3321&page=2

[RPG2006]

Thanks CG_Joe,

We've both seen that thread, and I think that's the direction to go.

Cheers

RPG

[Arcon]

I have a 7800 gtx in my kit, but have recommended to him that maybe he consider getting a quadro 1400 installed in his. This is taking into account all the hassles I've been experiencing with nvidia drivers, and also opengl performance.
RPG

there is always a driver version (heh somewhere) that works. what do you mean by poor openGL performance....? in maya i can manipulate over 1,000,000 polys with my 7800GTX at 1920x1200 resolution and its buttery smooth. i doubt a quadro 1400 can beat it, the next one up maybe could.

[RPG2006]

Poor is maybe not the right word. Agreed. It also varies considerably it seems from package to package. 1,000,000 polys isn't buttery smooth in Lightwave with this card, and I have tested that. Re. drivers you can read my other thread regards feedback from nvidia, they acknowledge problems and are on the case.

That said, if you read the thread that cg-joe has provided a link for, you will see that the 7800 gtx is the slowest of the bunch, when compared to quadros and 3d/opengl. I mean it makes sense doesn't it, otherwise how would nvidia justify the cost of the quadro cards. Why would you spend more on a quadro 1400, if you could have an excellent gaming card, which could beat or match it in all aspects?

Just an edit, I didn't actually say poor perfomance in this thread. heh heh

RPG

[Crayox]

Arcon, I've never used Maya but do you get smooth performance in 3D viewports (I'm guessing it's organized the same way MAX is) or in 2d wireframe ports?

[Arcon]

Arcon, I've never used Maya but do you get smooth performance in 3D viewports (I'm guessing it's organized the same way MAX is) or in 2d wireframe ports?

i don't know about max, but all viewports in maya are 3D, even when they're orthographic (eg. a flat top view), its still openGL with Z calculations. they're all fast.

[Arcon]

Just an edit, I didn't actually say poor perfomance in this thread. heh heh
RPG

right you are - i don't know where i got poor from? lol. spec for maya, all cards are basically the same in that review, and i've had bad personal experience with low end cards such as the quadro1000 which is basically the same core as an outdated FX5700Ultra.

i'm sure they've updated the quadro features and performance with the 1400, but still... i would never choose it over a 7800GTX. the 8x.xx drivers are the ones causing problems - i'm on 77.77 and rock solid. gaming is unbelievably awesome ;) a 1400 would suck as a gaming card, but i guess if gaming isn't an issue then you may have apps other than maya that could use the quadro features.

[Crayox]

Let me be anoying, and ask this again. Just another user asked this in his thread.

Who can say for sure if GPU renders 2d wireframe viewports?

Seriously people, there must some tech guru here who can CLAIM that that's the fact. I mean, we all are getting a horrid performance out of our expensiev, but granted, gamer cards.

Than again, if CPUs render those in 3D Studio MAX, will there be a patch that will make all cores to be used for such task?

Maybe we should all go to that forum where those famous CG artists answer question and get a real answer for all our problems once and for all :-)

[Arcon]

Let me be anoying, and ask this again. Just another user asked this in his thread.



any openGL viewport, 2d or persp, will use the GPU. that has ALWAYS been the case, because modern cards have hardware support for openGL. if you're getting bad performance its a driver issue that is restricted to 3Dmax - no-one in other applications are getting "horrid" performance with geforce cards, only max.

[thomaspecht]

since you stated that this will be a work- and not a gaming machine, i'd suggest going quadro as well. for one, if it will be used for a lot of work in 3ds max, there's a special maxtreme driver available for the quadro that's around 30% or so faster than standard OGL and simply works in my experience. the card is certified for a lot of other apps, as well.
another reason would be that you surely can expect higher overall quality and reliability standards than from a gamer's card. if the budget is there and you don't have to count every penny, get a proper kit, damnit. ;)

if speed is a major issue, i'd rather consider a faster cpu and/or more ram than the highest end card model. this seems to help much more than a faster 3d accelerator card in apps. newer geforce cards doesn't seem to feature major improvements in raw polygon pushing power anyway and the pixel shader stuff isn't going to help much.

but - be careful with those benchmarks posted in the cgsociety-article. card manufacturers are known to tune their drivers specifically to shine in those tests.

[lots]

Lightwave and Modo here, on a 7800GT with 82.12, and everything is just peachy. It takes about 1.5 mil polys to make things slow down for me.. at least to the point where its annoying :) But I hardly ever have that many polys showing at once anyhow (yay layers :P)


Though Modo seems to be able to handle more polys at a time than LW :)

[spydre]

I would definately recommend the Quadro. Here's a link to a good comparison of the Quadro line vs. the 7800.
http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=3321&page=2

Here's the basic difference between the Quadro vs. the 7800:
1) Quadro line has extra hardware features such as Stereo support, SDI, etc.
2) Quadro has qualified stable drivers compared to the gaming driven drivers on the 7800 which are not tested extensively by NVIDIA on Pro applications. The Quadro drivers are much more thoroughly tested with Pro applications such as Maya, etc.
3) As GIJoe mentioned the biggest performance difference between the Quadro line and the 7800 is achieved by tuning for the benchmark in the Quadro driver and is not a hardware feature. For the most part the hardware is almost identical. As an example, one can see a 2x improvement in the maya-01 viewperf test (a synthetic benchmark) but an almost minor gain (1.88 vs. 2.01) in the maya application test (using SpecAPC for Maya which uses Maya the application).
4) The extra money for the Quadro is NVIDIA milking the market because they can :-)

I would buy the Quadro only for the first two reasons more than the 3rd. If you have an opportunity to try the application you are interested in on the two cards with your datasets then you may find a better way to compare the performance than relying on those benchmarks.

[Crayox]

Using Direct3D for 3d viewport makes 1 mil faces scene smooth as there are 10 faces on my GF 7800 GTX. It's an awesome card. If I use OpenGL it will drop (3d view) to 1-0 fps. Now am I correct to assume if I use Direct3D driver, 2d viewports will still use OpenGL for wire stuff? Because there is the same frame rate in those views as is in 3D with OpenGL, it's like a pattern. So basically, it's an OpenGL problem? Will there ever be a driver that will correct this? Wheather from nVidia or from Autodesk.

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