Mac Graphics Cards - some advice.

[AAAron]

Check out barefeats.com they usually tests stuff like that.

[tcastudios]

If it is a choice between cards or more RAM, the difference in cards is minor.
RAM is not.
I'm moving to octas right now and I got to this.

First, 16GB RAM, period. (as you're running AFX)
This will still only give you 2GB per core, and that is not very much actually.

Second. Do not migrate (using the OSX install transfer function)
nor try any attempt using things as CarbonCopyCloner.
It has served me well from G3 up to G5 (all PPC's) but is -not- an option
going to Intel/Leopard.
Go thru -each and every- program and -each and every- of their plugins to be sure all components are Intel/Leopard compatible.
You need to go to Adobe support and read all about AE and Intel.
(Short version, it is basically a Rosetta issue and you need AE8.02)

Cheers
Lennart

[GrahamWilson]

I just bought two 2.8ghz 8-core MacPros. One has the ATI 2600, and the other has the Nvidia 8800. The 2600 system is rock solid. The 8800 system has video problems. Redraw problems, refresh problems. It isn't fully compatible with my BlackMagic Decklink card. I don't see any speed increase when using Cinema 4D between the two. I'm not a gamer, so I can't comment on how the cards differ when playing games.

Skip the 8800 until the drivers mature. Get more RAM. You'll need it.

Thanks
Graham

[Blabberlicious]

The barefeats site suggests the Nividia is a 'no brainer', but my instincts, and the last two posts tell me otherwise!

I was one click away from getting the custom build from apple with the Nvidia, but now I think I'll go for the base version.

Just found out that I can buy the Mac Pro from John Lewis, I and get a 3 year warranty for £70!

So I saved myself about £259, which will go into ram, rather than Apples and Nvidia's coffers :-)


Thanks all for these excellent testimonials!

[Blabberlicious]

If it is a choice between cards or more RAM, the difference in cards is

First, 16GB RAM, period. (as you're running AFX)
This will still only give you 2GB per core, and that is not very much actually.

Lennart

Ouch!

Can C4D 'get by' on 4 gig of ram?


:-)

[mogh]

I had the XT2600 and now updated to a 8800GT on a Mac Pro 2.8

so why did I?

first the ATI has more or less the same score in cinembench you wont feel the 200 pints difference. 5900-6100 point under osx

but i have teh feeling that the driver in repsect to C4D are better on the nvidia side since i had selection problems with the ATI and a ver slow redraw under OSX

downside on the 8800 is that the windows drivers are not OGL optimized so its the same speed but i have no EOGL at the moment still searching for the right driver on Windows

but since you on mac perhaps someone can coment on that redraw selection problem with the ATI on OSX

In overall i would prefere the 8800 just from my stoumach.

and just a reminder one application can only have 4GB in OSX as far as i know so why 16 GB if you are not planning on running 4 times AFX ;-)))

(by the way i anybody needs a 2600 i have one for spare now)
regards mogh

[ChrisCousins]

and just a reminder one application can only have 4GB in OSX as far as i know so why 16 GB if you are not planning on running 4 times AFX ;-)))

Because you want to run 8 times AFX :-)

Rendering in AE CS3 can take advantage of the multiple cores by running instances of itself, but each instance needs 2Gb to launch. So rendering in AE on an 8-core mac with only 4Gb will be the same as rendering on a dual processor Mac...

[Navstar]

Keep in mind that Cinema 4D on the Mac is a 32-bit app, so it'll never access more than 4GB of RAM.

[govinda]

Yes but:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=47&t=613803

Post 8 and after.

[lllab]

the ram is fixed on 32 bit per application not per core. sad but true.

so c4d will render in 8 cores but can only use max 4gb(in real less) in totall!
so the 16gb are pure luxury and only good to run several apps in paralell.
so i would get 6 or 8gb for now, only when c4d will be 64bit osx sometime then the more ram will bring benefit.

cheers
stefan

[StructAural]

I would've got the 8800 (it'll have a driver update soon and is more future proof) and bought my ram from a third party as Apples ram has about a 400% markup.

I run 6gig at the moment on an 2007 8-core. Cinema 4d utilises the cores the best out of all my apps. AE needs more memory as mentioned - though I'm interested in checking out Nitro.

[skydistortion]

Hi,

Like most of you now I bought my MacPro Octo few days ago and I started to explore the very different possibilities to enhance the open GL performance.

(As i'm waiting my 8800 GT) So fare the best results I had was running that native 2600 under leopard got a result of 6352 vs 5306 (in Xp64)

On the other side XP64 in XCPu gave me a sweet result of 20486 counter 18059 in leopard.

I was talking with rob(Barefeats)about the possibility of puting one of those Radeon 3870X2 in the MacPro.
Today iti's possible to use a 2600(for macosx) and the 3870X2 for Windows.
I was quite surprised about the very poor results you get in cinebench on the open gl side:
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1356/5/page_5_benchmarks_cinebench_r10/index.html

I thought those beast cards (Radeon 3870x2 or Nvidia 9800x2)'ll rock in C4d but looks like it's not for today.
Is it just a matter of poor developement of open gl hat limits them so much ?

So finaly appart the Quadra FX what could be the best card to use on the windows side for the macpro ? the 8800GTX ?

Cheers.

[Navstar]

AFIAK, Cinebench only tests with very simple shaders, textures and minimal lighting. The focus on today's boards isn't raw polygon power, but all the programmable shaders, lighting, normal mapping, HDR and the rest. So even if you have a screaming top notch card, I don't think the Cinebench score will always reflect that.

(It would be cool if Cinebench ran an Enhanced OpenGL benchmark, which would probably be a more accurate gauge of today's cards)

[designbytes]

stupid mac graphics card question(s):

how can I tell how much video ram on my graphics card is being used? I have a nVidia GeForce 7300 GT (256MB) on my MacPro 4 way and sometimes graphics response in C4d starts grinding.

I'd like to be able to look at something and be able to tell I have X% used and Y% available, etc

Kinda like the info I get about cpu/ram usage with the Activity Monitor or load info I get when I use "top" from the command line

...and the question probably shows I don't understand how these things work...

thx

[Srek]

(It would be cool if Cinebench ran an Enhanced OpenGL benchmark, which would probably be a more accurate gauge of today's cards)
We actualy tried for CB 10, but the results were varying so much and were extremely dependent on the exact settings used as well as the drivers that the over all gain from those tests was not useable.
Especialy with ATI we had the effect that some cards simply displayed the content in a much simpler way then it was set up and the resulting speed values were simply unusable and incomparable to others.
Cheers
Björn

[Shademaster]

Hm I am having absolutely not a single problem with my 8800GT. I use it extensively in Cinema 4d and After effects using Magic Bullet Looks and it renders it's effects almost in realtime compared to our other mac with the 2600XT which does almost no acceleration.

I also run bootcamp and somehow every game I throw at it is eaten up like it is a hungry cookiemonster. Zero compatability issues so far.

AS for RAM over Videocard preferences, I'd go for extra ram anytime soon. Graphics cards are the first components to drop in price and RAM is just way more important.

Having said that I'd also like to point out that for every person having a problem there are at least 10 others who have no issues. Coming to a forum like this and asking for advice is very clever and will give you some sound advice on what to avoid, but also keep in mind there are many users not having any trouble at all but not anyone know about it. So far I am one of ehm :).

Anyway, hope you'll get your money's worth!

[ernia]

Shademaster, what hardware and software are you using?

ernia

[Shademaster]

Shademaster, what hardware and software are you using?

ernia

MacPro octo core 3.0 ghz (latest model) , 4GB Ram, 4x500gb Spinpoint disks in Raid 0, Geforce 8800GT

Software is Cinema4D 10 and Adobe Producion Bundle with After Effects CS3 and Magic Bullet Looks.

Also run bootcamp with Windows XP Pro (not 64 bit, just 32 bit for compatibility issues)

[Navstar]

I have used both Early 2008 Mac Pros with the standard ATI 2600 HD and Nvidia 8800. The ATI had terrible Enhanced OpenGL -- results were either black or just about the same as standard OpenGL. The Nvidia 8800 is like night and day with E-OpenGL. I don't know if this is a Maxon, ATI, or Apple problem.

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