Graphics Cards and XSI?

[actarusprocyon]

My personal choice is with 3Dlabs.

I still got an old 1998 Oxygen Vx-1 Agp and I run Xsi fine on a p3 667eb 256mRAM...Usually only slows down when I reach 75,000 polygon but only in other applications than Xsi so far. :)

You can get the new Wildcats for a good price these days also.

[allawy]

Thanks allot, I was thinking about this kind of card too, but still this is good at design time, as your model get more complecated, but does it has any influance at render time? or is render totally on the CPU sholders?

[Signal2Noise]

Render output solely relies on CPU and RAM.

[swampthing]

There might be some software out there that proves me wrong, but as far as I know the graphics card has absolutely nothing to do with rendering, all rendering calculations are done on the cpu.

[allawy]

This is what I think too, but what about the new Open GL XSI 3.5 render optimization? there is something there called openGL something (sorry, I don't have 3.5, but I saw it in the movies in softImage site).

May other question is, I have 512 DDR 400, do expect much better render speed with 1G DDR 400? (much cheaper upgrade ):shrug:

[JDex]

I think that the OpenGL Optimization is related to the systems ability to refresh in real-time the shaded/textured viewport... particularly useful when working on those SubD's.

As far as the RAM... buy as much as your board can handle... it is the best upgrade you can do and is going to have the most significant impact on rendering times (next to upgrading a processor .5ghz or more).

[Signal2Noise]

Yup, RAM gives you immediate 1:1 performance boosts. Basically, by doubling your RAM you will double your render times. But doubling your CPU speed won't necessarily double render time. Always go for RAM!

[EdHarriss]

There are some mental ray options in 3.5 that use the videocard to speed up rendering. But for the most part the only thing that your video card will speed up is realtime rendering and interface interaction.

If I were going to buy a video card with that money I would probably get a good GeforceFX or a decent QuadroFX card. Keep in mine that many people have had problems in the past with consumer ATI card and XSI.

In the end, if your current card works fine and you are pretty happy with your speed, then don't get a new one yet. The longer you wait the better/cheaper your next card will be.

[SimonPickard]

"Yup, RAM gives you immediate 1:1 performance boosts. Basically, by doubling your RAM you will double your render times. But doubling your CPU speed won't necessarily double render time. Always go for RAM!"


er...???

Adding more RAM wont give any performance boost unless you were running out of ram to start with. Saying always go for the RAM is a little weird.

A 1gig AMD CPU with 3gig of ram isn't going to render faster than a 3gig AMD with 1gig of ram, unless you have a HUGE scene.

You say you have 512. This should be fine for small to middle sized projects. Basiclly just check in taskman. If when you render you run out of ram and it hits the Hard Disk then more ram would really help. If you've got ram to spare adding more wont do a thing to increase speeds.

As for the gfx card helping with rendering.. Well in 3.5 yes it does help. On some scenes it will speed up renders a lot, on others you wont really notice it. Depends on what's in your scene. But don't look at it as a replacement for a good CPU upgrade if you get me.

Regards,

Simon

[allawy]

Thanks Guys!

I will go for 2 things really, I will increase my ram to 1G and I will buy those new HD SATA, which is faster than normal PATA (IDE), as for graphics card, I will wait for prices to drop as Ed. suggested.

Ed. thanks on the advice for the QuadroFX, but it's too expinsive, maybe 9800 when it get's cheaper, the problem is by then new type will come out :)

Many thanks guys, I hope you will help me again with my next thread too :)

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