Hardware choice for modeling

[tomikarjalainen]

Is the graphic card the most important when texture on object doesn´t appear correctly in the hardware-texture setting in checked?

[ThomasTheToolman]

I would say RAM-memory is the most important, followed by the graphics card and a good display setup. Recently graphic cards are allways the best, but they aren´t cheap, like the Quadro FX 5800. You might be happy with buying a GeForce GTX285 instead for your needs!


Regards!

[tomikarjalainen]

I think Nvidia Quadro family is the best when working with Maya 8.5 x64.

What is everyones opinion for Nvidia Quadro FX 1800?

Like I have told before I´m using today nvidia quadro fx 370 256MB and need an upgrade but importent that it will not cost more than $900.

All imput are welcome as long as you have good explanation why the graphic card that you mention is a must :)

[imashination]

Memory will only affect the speed if youre running out. If you have 4 gigs and the scenes you make only use 2 gigs, then more memory will do absolutely nothing at all. So yes it could potentially help. but unless your harddrive is going insane its a waste of money.

gfx card: press the search button, and go make your own mind up. I suggest you pick up a geforce 285gtx, it will be the fastest card you can get and its only 200-300 dollars

The main thing to speed up your computer is a faster cpu, but you told us nothing whatsoever about what you have so its hard to give any useful advice.

[tomikarjalainen]

The main issue why I want to upgrade the graphic card is that when i´m doing bigger modeling work, it happends that I can´t see the whole texture on my object in the view windows like perpektive, front, side and so on(when hardware texture is checked)
And what I´m suspecting, it is that a new graphic card will fix this issue, because I´ll get a faster graphic processor and more memory (on the graphic card), or am I wrong with this claim?


Memory will only affect the speed if youre running out. If you have 4 gigs and the scenes you make only use 2 gigs, then more memory will do absolutely nothing at all. So yes it could potentially help. but unless your harddrive is going insane its a waste of money.

gfx card: press the search button, and go make your own mind up. I suggest you pick up a geforce 285gtx, it will be the fastest card you can get and its only 200-300 dollars

The main thing to speed up your computer is a faster cpu, but you told us nothing whatsoever about what you have so its hard to give any useful advice.

[ambient-whisper]

when it comes to modelling only, a really fast dual core is better than a slower clocked quad core, because most applications are single threaded in the modelling department.

so the faster your single core is, the better. however. the i7 processors are badass, so try to get one of those :D

as far as videocards are concerned, even if you get a slower one you will be fine. ( when i mean slower, i mean current generation but a few steps down from the king of the hill.

most times when you work you don't want EVERYTHING visible anyway. no matter which graphics card you get, when you end up assembling your scenes and have almost everything visible, you will get slower frame rates.

a geforce gts250 and up will be good. I know that the 250 is a newer version of the 9800 (which is an older card ), but the 9800 is a great card for modelling. its cheap as well, and comes with 1gb ram on the card so it should be good for texturing. a geforce 275-285 will obviously be faster, but in terms of modelling, not as much as you would expect. most of the improvements to newer cards tend to be in the direct x and shading departments and not as much in general poly pushing. what i am trying to say is that some of the higher end cards wont give you 2x the performance just because they cost twice as much. not even close. for moving points, splitting your geometry and stuff like that, the computer processor and ram are more important.

if you plan on playing games though... the newer cards will eat the older ones for breakfast. however i am writing only from a modelling point of view.

ram wise. it all depends how smart you are with your textures.

8gm ram should be more than enough for now to have multiple applications running, some high rez textures loaded, and be able to render.

you might also want to do some research on parts that are quiet too ;). its soo nice working on a computer that you cant hear.

[tomikarjalainen]

The problem with showing texture is not for many models right now, this problem apairs already on like two high res models which is disturbing because then I need to render all the time when im doing some changes, so I dont need to see everything textured :)

Just to clear up things:

*with processor is best for Maya 8.5x64? i7 processor or Intex Xeon?
*8gb ram should be enough, right?
*PNY Nvidia Quadro FX graphic cards I have noticed work really well if you need to work with 3d, because I´m not looking for high fps rate like for playing games.

And to summary all: a bad ass processor, at least 8gb ram (excluded graphic cards memory, right?) and ofcourse It is always nice to have a silent computer.. :)





when it comes to modelling only, a really fast dual core is better than a slower clocked quad core, because most applications are single threaded in the modelling department.

so the faster your single core is, the better. however. the i7 processors are badass, so try to get one of those :D

as far as videocards are concerned, even if you get a slower one you will be fine. ( when i mean slower, i mean current generation but a few steps down from the king of the hill.

most times when you work you don't want EVERYTHING visible anyway. no matter which graphics card you get, when you end up assembling your scenes and have almost everything visible, you will get slower frame rates.

a geforce gts250 and up will be good. I know that the 250 is a newer version of the 9800 (which is an older card ), but the 9800 is a great card for modelling. its cheap as well, and comes with 1gb ram on the card so it should be good for texturing. a geforce 275-285 will obviously be faster, but in terms of modelling, not as much as you would expect. most of the improvements to newer cards tend to be in the direct x and shading departments and not as much in general poly pushing. what i am trying to say is that some of the higher end cards wont give you 2x the performance just because they cost twice as much. not even close. for moving points, splitting your geometry and stuff like that, the computer processor and ram are more important.


ram wise. it all depends how smart you are with your textures.

8gm ram should be more than enough for now to have multiple applications running, some high rez textures loaded, and be able to render.

you might also want to do some research on parts that are quiet too ;). its soo nice working on a computer that you cant hear.

[aglick]

If you spend most of your time MODELING, then there is no good reason to buy DUAL XEON.

I7 is sufficient for even the most demanding MODELING tasks.

8GB should be enough to open and work in most 3D scenes in Maya.

However, if you use many extremely large textures and have very very complex geometry (+6 Million triangles) - or if you need to do alot of heavy multitasking that uses up significant amount of RAM for other processes, then 8GB may not be enough.

As far as GPU - there are differing opinions. If you want maximum raw performance and are willing to put up with the risk of occasional viewport/GUI issues in Maya, then go with a nice fast single Geforce card - the GTX 285 seems to be the best bang/buck these days.
There seems to be valid arguements for both pro and con on this issue...

If you don't want to risk any problems in Maya - and don't mind paying extra for the same performance as a Geforce card, then you should consider going with Quadro card.

As always, any GPU can be easily pushed to its limits - and you will likely need to be smart about "hiding" stuff in the viewport once your scenes get to a certain level of complexity.

[tomikarjalainen]

If you spend most of your time MODELING, then there is no good reason to buy DUAL XEON.
Ok, but if Im going work with special effect like particle animation, then I should buy Xeon, right, (Im considering Intel Xeon Processor W3580 (Quad-Core 3.33GHz) ).

However, if you use many extremely large textures and have very very complex geometry (+6 Million triangles) - or if you need to do alot of heavy multitasking that uses up significant amount of RAM for other processes, then 8GB may not be enough.
I see..so how much RAM is needed to make big scene where there is lots of spacehips, explosions and in background planet, stars, sun and so on?

As far as GPU - there are differing opinions. If you want maximum raw performance and are willing to put up with the risk of occasional viewport/GUI issues in Maya, then go with a nice fast single Geforce card - the GTX 285 seems to be the best bang/buck these days.
There seems to be valid arguements for both pro and con on this issue...

If you don't want to risk any problems in Maya - and don't mind paying extra for the same performance as a Geforce card, then you should consider going with Quadro card.
It is the hole idea that I want to avoid to get any issue with viewport, so I will go for PNY Nvidia Quadro FX1800..thanx :)


As always, any GPU can be easily pushed to its limits - and you will likely need to be smart about "hiding" stuff in the viewport once your scenes get to a certain level of complexity.
Absolutely, Im doing this all the time when I have theese issues already and try to hide as much as possible.

Thanks so far for all of your help, I don´t know what I would do without your help :)

[ambient-whisper]

how much experience do you have with creating 3d imagery.

the reason I ask is because it might be a good idea to get something less expensive than go all out and spend thousands on a new machine.

it seems like you are new to 3d, so i am thinking that by the time you learn to do 3d well, you will probably want to upgrade to something much faster ( and cheaper ).many movies you see being made are made on worse machines than you are planning to get. 3d is all about making smart decisions, and putting detail where it needs to be seen. infact, if you ever plan on doing 3d as a career, i would even suggest against going with a top end machine, and learn to live with what you have. this way you will learn the art of creating optimized clean scenes. the other thing is, i wouldnt bother going with a 3.33ghz machine. reason for this is that prices for hardware that is just slightly faster grow exponentially. you might end up paying twice as much for something that is only 5% faster ( or less ).

i remember at work the company ended up getting machines with quadros, 2x single core processors, 4gb ram (back when it was still expensive ). they spent something around 5000 dollars per machine. a month later..., dual core machines were released and i bought myself a machine that cost me 1500 dollars. it was actually faster than what i had at work because the geforce card i bought was a newer generation. houdini was faster on the work machine though, because it utilized the quadro a lot. maya was about the same speed. the only area it was better in was the refresh. zbrush, modo, and all other applications i was using, were slightly faster on my machine.

what i am saying here is that going with a highend xeon will be a waste of your money. you might as well invest money into other areas of your machine. ram, a wacom tablet, a better montior, or even a better power supply/ case and fans... it all adds up.

After doing 3d for over 10 years now, I find that there is no real need for a quadro card, except unless you will use maya, or houdini. those are the only two applications which still use quadro calls. all other applications work just as well.

i make sure that i never spend more than 2000 on any machine.

[imashination]

Ok, but if Im going work with special effect like particle animation, then I should buy Xeon, right

No, the i7 is still the best bet. Xeons will only help in any significant way when rendering. Calculating physics and particle interactions will barely use 2 cores, let alone fill 16 threads of a xeon.

I see..so how much RAM is needed to make big scene where there is lots of spacehips,
Holy crap, we're measuring ram usage in spaceships now? And i'd just gotten used to libraries of congress. Look, saying you want to make a space ship tells us nothing, absolutely zippo. Telling us you want an explosion... nothing again. telling us you want to have the sun in there, once again it tells us nothing.

If you want to make a space ship scene, you can do this with half a gig of ram and a 200mhz cpu from 10 years ago. Youre starting out in 3D, get a computer with 4 gigs of ram, maybe 8 if youre planning big things, if you use all that ram up, youre doing something horribly wrong.

[Jettatore]

Build a cheap Dual or Quad Core machine, throw in 4 to 8 gb of affordable ram and a decent Nvidia based gaming card and your fine for modeling and experimenting with particles. You shouldn't need to spend more than $1,000. Can be done for less, even with a nice monitor included if you need one -depending on how good you are at shopping and building.

3D does not require the insane hardware many assume. A solid mid-range Asus motherboard, a Dual or Quad Core Intel processor, a few sticks of name brand memory (Corsair would be fine), a solid SATA Hard Drive (Western Digital or Seagates are nice), a nice Power Supply (again Corsair is nice) and Case of your choice and your pick of a Gaming level Nvidia video card that fits your budget range (think $120 - $200 price range off Newegg, EVGA and ASUS are great but so are the rest, check the reviews) a copy of Windows 64 or Linux and you have yourself a 3D workstation on the cheap, that will be stable and reliable if you know how to maintain a workstation.

[tomikarjalainen]

Thanks all for your time responding all my questions.

Why I started this whole discussion was the main problem is that the texture is not showing correctly, the texture shows strangly and im sure that im not using any high res for the moment and what I have heard from you, that I don´t need any high-end computer, so what is wrong then?

I have today..

Hardware:
*AMD Processor Speed Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4450B 2.3 Ghz Processor Cache 1 MB L2 cache Memory
*4GB 800MHZ DDR2 NON-ECC CL5 DIMM
*Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black (7200RPM / 32MB Cache / SATA II / NCQ)
*PNY Nvidia Quadro FX 370 256MB

Software:
Windows7 64-bit version
Maya 8.5 x64

As I can see I have good enough hardware and software but still have problems to see all the texture when im modeling..any ideas what is wrong with this picture?

[tomikarjalainen]

it looks like it is the Open GL that is the main issue when the hardware texture is checked on and there is some issue with the texture showing in viewport...

What do you all boys and girl think about this?

[ambient-whisper]

i think the best thing you could do is provide us with a screenshot.

it would give us an idea of what you are talking about.

maybe its a texture resolution issue in viewport?

or maybe its a filtering issue?! or mip mapping gone wrong.

we wont know for sure until you take a screen cap.

[imashination]

Have you tried updating the drivers or changing the driver settings? Throwing out a decent computer because some textures look a bit wonky seems over the top.

[tomikarjalainen]

Here (http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=1443907029#/photo.php?pid=706600&id=1443907029) is the image that there is some texture problems, like the shadow.

I have updated the graphic card driver but still have theese issues.

[imashination]

Hold on, youre showing us a black model on a black background and youre telling us you have a problem with the shadow? I can barely see the model let alone any problems you have with it :P

[tomikarjalainen]

:) The picture is full HD 1920*1080 but facebook unfortantly limits the size.

If the image is full size and showing from a projector like 15*15m then everyone will see all the details and on the top, I´m perfectionist :)

Here (http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=1443907029#/photo.php?pid=354126&id=1443907029) is another object where texture+shadow appairs strangely..

[ambient-whisper]

it looks like you are showing us renders..

the graphics card has nothing to do with renders at all. if you have an ATI card then sometimes there are issues with displaying renders within the render window, but if you look at the image outside of maya it will be fine..

however what you are showing us is something that you could fix within your light shadow settings. perhaps adding more samples to your lights, or upping the resolution of the shadow maps.

definitely no reason to get a new computer for sure hah. you just have to learn the package.

[imashination]

:) The picture is full HD 1920*1080 but facebook unfortantly limits the size.

Hold on wait what? Theyre rendered images?

*smacks his head on the nearest wooden desk repeatedly*

Your gfx card has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with your rendered images, nothing, nada, nout, feck all. It doesnt cause any errors, it doesnt break your shadow. And, please upload a decent image somewhere that actually shows the problem, stop showing us useless 640 facebook low compression rubbish.

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