avoid ATI v3750 with maya 64 bit :(

[olson]

What the title of this post should say is "avoid everything except for Quadro if you want Maya to work properly" which is closer to the reality of it. I've had great luck with ATI cards on all other fronts, and even with Maya when I was still using it (with a Radeon X700 Pro and X1900 XTX). Cheers!

[cgbeige]

on OS X, Radeons and Geforces work flawlessly with Maya. The reason you see problems in Windows is because of the corners cut for performance. Apple's single OpenGL implementation means that devs use that and it's officially supported by Autodesk with gaming cards. So, no you don't need a Quadro for stability in all cases. I use a GTX 285 with Maya 2010 and the 2011 beta with no issues.

[Jettatore]

GTX 260 works just fine here, no problems with Maya x64 (Windows 7).

[cgbeige]

ya, I know a lot of people are running consumer cards on Windows fine. I should have mentioned that. But Radeons in Windows traditionally have the worst time with Maya.

[meleseDESIGN]

I don´t know if this problem is hardware or software related.
But the HD 3850 is (was) technically actually a good gfx card, to bad Autodesk is testing their Maya application only with Quadro cards. There is a bad communication between Autodesk and ATi/nVidia´s consumer products. Maybe this will change some day, so ATi/nVidia will be able to code good drivers for Maya.

While there's life, there's hope. ;)

[SuryanshuRai]

hey... I was just planning to buy a system and the card I was going was a FirePro v7750 or v7700?? Should I Play safe and go in for nVidia QuadroFX 1800??

[sentry66]

well I personally can't say all ATI cards are trouble in maya because I've used maya on 3 different laptops each with different common ATI consumer cards and maya worked just fine.

That impressed me enough that I thought these benchmarks must be on to something if a cheap ATI card is giving middle-class Quadro cards a run for their money. These sites even listed the Windows 64 bit driver they used, but the ATI XP64 and Windows7 drivers break the V3750 in maya making me rather use a 4 year old Geforce instead than try to live with this bad implemented driver that makes you wait 5-7 seconds just to select anything with a medium polygon count

[meleseDESIGN]

hey... I was just planning to buy a system and the card I was going was a FirePro v7750 or v7700?? Should I Play safe and go in for nVidia QuadroFX 1800??

If you use Maya, then yes go for a Quadro or one of the Geforce GTX Serie.

[sentry66]

hey... I was just planning to buy a system and the card I was going was a FirePro v7750 or v7700?? Should I Play safe and go in for nVidia QuadroFX 1800??

if you use 64 bit windows, I'd personally say don't risk it and go with the quadro. I've only tested the V3750 though. I don't feel comfortable spending good money for a high end video card if I'm not yet convinced that the drivers will work well with maya and be rock solid.

I feel like I did everything by the book x10 with multiple clean installs, multiple computers, tried all the drivers and nothing worked. When I got the quadro card, I was up and running in 5 min with zero issues...

My hunch is all the current firepro cards are going to have the same issues. It didn't give me any confidence in their products that on all the machines I tested with clean installs of xp64 and win7 that the driver control panel had so many weird basic bugs and that it happened with all the drivers I tried until their newest 8.683 driver came out on jan 21

also, the quadro FX1800 supports smoothwireframe mode better where it draws dense wireframe models differently (better) than the ATI cards with no performance penalty. The firepro seems to want to AA the entire maya viewport even when disabled, but it does have a super high frame rate so I guess that's a good thing. However even with the best AA settings, the ATI card doesn't draw wireframe in smooth wireframe mode like the Quadro - it's a BIG difference, like a whole new algorthm that the quadro uses to sort the depth and density of the wireframe and not just simply smooth it. It's really neat and you're able to actually see the shape of the wireframe instead of being a solid dense color of the wireframe.

[cgbeige]

Like I said in other related threads - the Quadro's life as a product line is limited since the future of GPU previews are gaming display tech (think of Mudbox) and the Quadro drivers suck for these types of GLSL things. They are really only fast for wireframe and untextured modes. A $100 Radeon 4870 is faster in Mudbox than an $1800 Quadro FX 4800 for this reason.

[sentry66]

That's exactly why I wanted to try the V3750, because it seems that it's so much more advanced than the Nvidia chips in terms of speed.

But unfortunately most people in maya work with wireframe and untextured shaded modes primarily. Aside from moving geometry around, selecting objects is probably one of the most important things a person does in maya and if doing that isn't quick and snappy, it's a big issue.

I've seen this sorta thing with old geforce cards when nvidia first started pulling features from their drivers needed to run maya. Everything would lag and take forever to select and lag at getting underway at moving and object/view around. I had to use an older driver for the longest time before nvidia brought those features back into their drivers.

So I really do think the issue I've had with the V3750 card is driver related. It really does draw faster than my FX1800 card. I'll get 88 fps in the maya viewport in a scene with the v3750 AA enabled and only get 67fps with that same scene with the FX1800 and no AA (well I use smooth wireframe mode with the quadro, but that doesn't impact performance whether on or off).

The ATI hardware itself I think is amazing, but if it doesn't play nice with maya then there's no point until they update their drivers to fix those issues which who knows when that'll be or if it ever happens.

[meleseDESIGN]

if you use 64 bit windows, I'd personally say don't risk it and go with the quadro. I've only tested the V3750 though. I don't feel comfortable spending good money for a high end video card if I'm not yet convinced that the drivers will work well with maya and be rock solid.

So why did you do it with the Ati 3750?
If you want a stable combination but without to spend more as needed get a GeForce GTX 260-285!
It´s really that simple ;)

[sentry66]

Maybe I should have gone with a high end geforce. Geforce cards are great and I've used a lot of them with maya, but I was reading some people having driver problems with the new GTX ones with maya and all sorts of benchmarks that showed the new quadro cards doing better anyway even if the hardware wasn't as advanced as the top geforces

I just wanted a professional level card with a solid, reliable driver and the quadro delivered that. I'm used to geforce cards, but am tired of fiddling with drivers and message boards trying to find the right combination of driver and settings

[nogojoe]

ATIs new drivers are apparently crap for everything across the board. Gamers are complaining about the 5 series cards left and right due to driver issues.

[olson]

ATIs new drivers are apparently crap for everything across the board. Gamers are complaining about the 5 series cards left and right due to driver issues.

At least they're not burning up cards. :shrug:

[SuryanshuRai]

I am so confused now. :p

Okay here is the final scenario. I have $1500 for my card.
What is a good bet?

FireGL v7700(2), FirePro v 7750, QuadroFX1800(2) or 3800 or Geforce(NO idea about these as I though these were gaming cards).

[sentry66]

I wouldn't bother with any dual SLI card setup since results with 3d apps have been null or a mixed bag at best. I've seen websites report 40% increases in speed with dual SLI vs single cards with cad or other misc 3d benchmark software. IMO it's hard to justify 2x the cost and the higher wattage power supply you'll ned, especially when I don't think maya particularly does well with SLI cards in general. Actually, I don't think the FX1800 even supports SLI so getting two might not even be an option for it even though mine came with an SLI connector cable.

You'll have to decide if the FX3800's extra 6% speed over the FX1800 is worth almost twice the price...

IMO, get a top end geforce or FX1800 for maya if you want a good card for the money, but it'll be a waiting game hoping that ATI releases a good set of drivers that actually work well with maya in the real world.

[cgbeige]

I just wanted a professional level card with a solid, reliable driver and the quadro delivered that. I'm used to geforce cards, but am tired of fiddling with drivers and message boards trying to find the right combination of driver and settings

get a Mac :p

This is the ironic benefit to having fewer graphics card options and a slightly slower but stable OpenGL stack that's supported by the OS developer. Unless it's a brand new OS release, I never get inconsistent behaviours with graphics drivers with either the Radeon or Geforces. Although Mudbox speed with Nvidia cards on OS X is current a problem but Nvidia is working on it. Anyway, the GTX 285 is great with Maya and everything else I throw at it.

[sentry66]

I'd think being stuck with a 32 maya would be a deal breaker for most people. But maybe maya 2011 will be 64 bit on mac :)

[phaedarus]

Right now I'm currently using a BFG GTX 275.

I have yet to work on any heavy scenes but I'm crossing my fingers that it will be a largely trouble free experience.

[Jettatore]

Sentry, it's mostly just FUD. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. The NVidia GTX 260 is phenomenal. It runs Maya, Softimage, 3D Studio Max, Mudbox, ZBrush, Photoshop, etc. with no issues. I can't recommend it highly enough.

[phaedarus]

get a Mac :p

This is the ironic benefit to having fewer graphics card options and a slightly slower but stable OpenGL stack that's supported by the OS developer. Unless it's a brand new OS release, I never get inconsistent behaviours with graphics drivers with either the Radeon or Geforces. Although Mudbox speed with Nvidia cards on OS X is current a problem but Nvidia is working on it. Anyway, the GTX 285 is great with Maya and everything else I throw at it.

As much as I love OSX, it makes little sense to invest in a Mac Pro system if 3D is your primary application. The price simply doesn't justify the means unless you can land a second hand 2008 eight-core Mac Pro or Hackintosh a PC.

[cgbeige]

I'd think being stuck with a 32 maya would be a deal breaker for most people. But maybe maya 2011 will be 64 bit on mac :)

ya, that's not all. I have two other major 64-bit releases on my machine that should be out soon. When you see the OS X 10.6 64-bit benchmarks vs. Windows 7 64-bit, I think you'll change your mind as to which is the best system for 3D.

As much as I love OSX, it makes little sense to invest in a Mac Pro system if 3D is your primary application. The price simply doesn't justify the means unless you can land a second hand 2008 eight-core Mac Pro or Hackintosh a PC.

It's true that Apple doesn't make a good workstation computer to compete price-wise with i7 gaming machines (good 3D, low cost) but the dual Nehalem Xeon Mac Pro I have is very competitively priced. What little more you spend on OS X is made up for by the fact that you get full support from Autodesk with gaming cards on the Mac, so you don't have to spend $1500 more on a Quadro graphics card, like you do with Windows and Linux machines. It's not a cheap option but I was just pointing out that if you want a stable workhorse machine without ubiquitous graphics glitches, a Mac Pro is a good option. Anyway, I don't want to start a flame-war. But it is a cost-effective workstation solution if you don't have to pay ridiculous prices for slower graphics cards just to get support. How'd you like to have just spent $2000 on a Quadro, only to see all these juicy gaming cards that will eat through CUDA and OpenCL stuff at 3x the speed?

[Jettatore]

"but the dual Nehalem Xeon Mac Pro I have is very competitively priced"

No it isn't. You can build one for a lot cheaper than what Apple sells it for. The reason people around here recommend the i7 rigs over trying to just copycat a Mac Pro build for cheaper is because the i7 machines are an even greater value.

As for the other stuff, Autodesk doesn't go around certifying every piece of hardware on the market. Sometimes they certify consumer end gaming cards. Sometimes they skip over certain model Quadro's in testing. Check the lists available on the following links to see what hardware has been tested and confirmed working in Maya.

Links for all systems.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=13583898

Direct link for Windows.
http://download.autodesk.com/us/qualcharts/2010/maya2010_qualifiedgraphics_win.pdf

If you need further information about cards not listed in the above charts, you should contact other Maya users, or bring a copy of the Maya demo to your local hardware reseller for testing purposes before purchase.

[meleseDESIGN]

No it isn't. You can build one for a lot cheaper than what Apple sells it for.

Comparing a self bult PC with an of the shelf PC - and saying last mentioned isn´t competitively priced - is stupid. Sure, you can built yourself a House if you have the knowlege, time and fun and you want to safe some money. Buying an of the shelf PC is allways more expansive for many good reasons.

I don´t know any company who builts you a PC without to get payed for!
And not everybody has the time, fun or knowlege to build a PC by himself.

So yes, a Dual Nehalem Xeon Mac Pro is competitively priced compared to other vendors like HP or BOXX!

;)

[Jettatore]

Agreed, however he was comparing custom built i7's to Mac Pro's. So I responded with that in mind. In general, you can't compare pre-built to custom built.

[cgbeige]

no - I wasn't comparing the Mac Pros to i7s. I said that Apple doesn't have a good competitively-priced i7 (non Xeon) workstation BUT the dual Nehalem Xeon Mac Pro workstations are competitively priced relative to the other vendors. Honestly, if you're going to spend a few thousand dollars on a machine, spend $500 more for predictable behaviour. When you have a $20,000 TV commercial gig and are losing two days because of graphics driver problems, maybe you'll think twice about nickel and diming when buying your hardware. 3D work is stressful enough without having to fight your OS and drivers on a deadline. If you're a student on a budget, then it's a different story.

That doesn't necessarily mean buying Mac - but look at the certified graphics cards you linked to. The only 64-bit system that you know you can run a GTX 285 on is the Mac.

[Jettatore]

CGBeige, I seriously recommend that you take a good look at the Maya 2010 Qualified hardware guide for OSX. At the moment, there is only 1 single card qualified for use on Maya 2010 and OSX, and it's a Quadro. Other cards have been tested, but only the Quadro® FX 4800 is qualified for OSX v.10.5.8 the same card actually reports some caveat issues in OSX v.10.6.2.

Link: http://download.autodesk.com/us/qualcharts/2010/maya2010_qualifiedgraphics_mac.pdf

[sentry66]

Apple makes a nice package and I'm not knocking OSX, it's great. But I have never liked apple's pricing and several other things about their systems. Right now they have fairly competitive pricing for their higher end mac pros, but it's just a matter of a few months before that starts slipping away.

My take has always been to buy the machine that's 90% as fast for half the price and then spend that other half of my money on 2 or 3 rendering machines. That way I have more 3-4x more overall rendering power and in my experience over the years, I've found that the bleeding edge high end stuff tends to break more often, especially in the case of video cards.

I've been enjoying 64 bit maya for 3 years now and IMO it's been a godsend. I personally don't think xp64, win7 64, or even vista 64 (with service pack) are awful to use in production at all. I'm sure OSX and linux are a better core OS, but IMO these days in the real world it's like arguing which brand of shoes is better

BTW I've been extremely happy with thinkmate computers and their pricing and support for the last 4 years I've been using them for many people at my dept at work as well as home. www.thinkmate.com (http://www.thinkmate.com). My only gripe is they use the standard intel/AMD heatsinks and fans, but they've been a great company that builds computers with full 3 year warranty for just a few hundred $ more than if you spent the time to build it all yourself. The base warranty alone is worth that.

[cgbeige]

I looked at the charts. It says there's one minor caveat to running a GTX 285 with 2010. On Windows and Linux, it's a crap-shoot since they either don't plan on testing it (Linux) or it's scheduled for Windows 64-bit (that's Autodesk speak for "never going to happen"). Incidentally, I couldn't get hardware overlays working with Maya in Vista 64-bit with a Quadro 4800.

I've been running the 2011 beta without issues on the GTX 285 and OS X 10.6.2 64-bit.

yeah for the money I'd spend on a mac pro, I could get a faster workstation and a couple rendering computers. I'm not knocking OSX, it's great, but I have never liked apple's pricing or that they seem to always be stuck using older hardware

they were the first company with Nehalem Xeons and have exclusive arrangements with Intel. When the new 6- and 8-core Xeons come out, I guarantee that they will be the first company shipping machines with them.

[Jettatore]

Regardless it's not officially supported either way. It was only tested, not qualified.

[sentry66]

they were the first company with Nehalem Xeons and have exclusive arrangements with Intel. When the new 6- and 8-core Xeons come out, I guarantee that they will be the first company shipping machines with them.

I edited my previous post too late.

Apple does currently have competitive pricing with the nehalem xeons and is the first to market, but just give it a couple months when the other vendors get their new motherboards and shipments from intel and you'll be able to buy the equivalent mac pro for probably considerably less. Being first is only important for a month or so I've found.

It's a great time to be a mac maya user if maya 2011 really is 64 bit for the OSX release. In my eyes it'll finally become a pro-level maya platform able to work with modern heavy scene files.

[cgbeige]

ya, I wouldn't argue that it's the cheapest option. Like I said, it's cost effective when you consider hardware/OS/driver stability. Any problems you might have are consistent among users so a fix is quick to come - 10.6 had issues with Maya but everything was fixed by 10.6.2 for all users.

[SuryanshuRai]

Hey guys, I am still not able to decide... ATI is out of contention now. Which card should i go in for now? QuadroFX 1800 or GeForce 285-295??

[cgbeige]

Geforce card, for sure. It's not even comparable:

Quadro FX 1800
CUDA Cores 64
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 38.4

GTX 285:

CUDA Cores 240
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 159.0

I noticed on the Nvidia site that they don't have OpenGL 3.0 support for the GTX 285. Is that a typo? It's 3.0 compatible on OS X - I'm running it now.

[SuryanshuRai]

and 285 or 295??

[cgbeige]

whatever you can afford, I guess. But the 295 is just a dual 285 from what I can tell. I don't know if that actually benefits for all 3D programs or not.

[sentry66]

cgbeige, are you recommending the 285 based on how it performs with maya on the mac platform or have you actually used it with windows as well?


it's just odd that in regards to these current nvidia cards, I've seen benchmarks posted online that show quadros beating out similar geforces in maya tests by a factor of 2-6 on windows machines. I have no doubt the 285 is nice. I almost went with one since geforces have always worked fine on all sorts of machines I've encountered.

I've also read people with personal experience with FX3800's being about 10% faster than a 285 in maya even though the 285's specs are way better

Also memory bandwidth IMO doesn't really mean much in terms of real world performance with such a relatively low tech drawing engine such as maya's viewport. And what currently uses CUDA to make it worth worrying about?

either way, obviously you'll need a stronger power supply with the 285 than an 1800

[cgbeige]

The old style of CAD drawing isn't going to be of much use to Maya users - trust me. All the current benchmarks of wireframe/untextured mode aren't going to matter much if you're looking for performance with a lot of polygons. Like I said, the future of drawing tech is GLSL and ask how many Mudbox users who bought Quadros are happy about their decision. It is ALL memory bandwidth and clock speed combined with good GLSL performance (it's basically a game). My experience is based on experience in Windows - I know the Quadro is faster in old-school GL 1.2 drawing with no textures but that's not going to matter. On the Mac, the Quadro drivers are garbage but I tested it in Vista for comparison.

And, like I said, OpenCL and CUDA is far faster on the gaming cards. Those are going to be used a lot in realtime GPU previews and AO processing, etc.

[Jettatore]

Sentry, like I said earlier. The Nvidia GTX 260 is a phenomenal card for use in OpenGL 3D applications.

It works great in Maya, things like Artisan perform beautifully. No problem with selections or anything like that. Other users with the same or similar cards are reporting great performance as well. I have personally tested it in both Vista and Windows 7 x64 editions and I have had no issues with it whatsoever.

I can sculpt 25 - 45 million poly models in Mudbox smoothly without issue, depending on topology and the rest of my hardware isn't all that updated (dual core 2.4ghz CPU, DDR2 memory, etc.) You start bringing in models with weird topology and it's a slightly different story, it definately gets slower after 10 million polys, but even that is manageable/workable. I had one strangely built model that sculpted fine at 29 million polys but ran much slower than a more even mesh at 45 million polys.

The card also performs beautifully in other applications, Photoshop, ZBrush, Softimage, 3D Studio Max and on down the list. I haven't had opportunity to test it in video editing applications (Nuke, After Effects) but so far all of the apps that I have demo'ed phenomenally on it and the applications I work in every day run like butter.

The 260 in most cases is the best bang for your buck in terms of value. Unless you can manage to snag a good deal on one of the higher end cards, the 275, 285 etc. then this one is a great start at about $215 USD give or take and is very comparable in terms of power to it's big brothers.

With that said, thank you for giving end users a report on the 3750, that kind of information is very valuable and sometimes difficult to come by, so thank you.

[meleseDESIGN]

I've also read people with personal experience with FX3800's being about 10% faster than a 285 in maya even though the 285's specs are way better.

What, 10%, where have you read this? :surprised
Even a HD 3870x2 wont be faster as the 285.
The 285 was recently the fastest single gfx card out there, even a 4890 couldn´t reach the performance of the 285. The 260 is even faster as the 4890 and definitally faster as any 38XX.

Personaly I don´t know much about the newer Ati 5XXX serie, but a friend of mine uses a 5850 with Maya 8.5 64-bit under Windows 7 64-bit and the latest driver without any issues. ;)

[sentry66]

What, 10%, where have you read this? :surprised
Even a HD 3870x2 wont be faster as the 285.
The 285 was recently the fastest single gfx card out there, even a 4890 couldn´t reach the performance of the 285. The 260 is even faster as the 4890 and definitally faster as any 38XX.

Personaly I don´t know much about the newer Ati 5XXX serie, but a friend of mine uses a 5850 with Maya 8.5 64-bit under Windows 7 64-bit and the latest driver without any issues. ;)

it was some forum guy who said their studio has FX1800's, 3800's and 285's. He said with 3dsmax the 285 blew the doors off the quadros, but in maya the 3800 was roughly 10% faster than the 285. Sorry I don't have a link. He posted it on some forum in the last couple months.

after the v3750 issue, it was all about quadro vs geforce for me. And I decided to go with the quadro this round because I was so sick of fiddling with the video card. Now it'd seem I should have gone with a geforce anyway and just saved money, but I was reading a lot of reports and benchmarks that seemed to show the quadro being faster in maya for whatever reason

[cgbeige]

the Quadros are tuned for Maya so certain scenarios (untextured, wireframe, lots of polys) will be faster with a Quadro despite the specs. Otherwise, the GTX 285 will be faster, especially in Mudbox. ZBrush doesn't use the GPU - you could have onboard graphics and it would be just as fast since it uses the CPU to draw. So, like I said, the Quadro is only good if you never plan to upgrade Maya or use CUDA/OpenCL. Let's revisit this topic in a few weeks...

[sentry66]

Yeah I didn't know about maya's 2011's viewport possibly updating to work more like mudbox. I thought it was just going to be about how menus drew and docked.

We're probably not getting maya 2011 at my work soon anyway since we recently just spent a bunch of money on new computers and other software etc. We went off maya yearly maintenance a long time ago since we didn't find upgrading to every version to be a worthwhile upgrade, having plugins breaking, and the overall costs involved vs putting that money towards hardware and other things. So we'll probably end up picking up maya 2012 when that finally hits.

The geforces don't offer 30 bit color support for 30 bit monitors right? I thought that was a neat feature for when that becomes more mainstream with LCD's.

[cgbeige]

ya, 3D out and 30-bit Displayport out are the only thing not offered by Geforces. That'll probably change as consumer 3D LCD stuff starts becoming popular. That's the main thing that's removing demand for Quadros: the alignment of consumer needs and gaming with high-end 3D. Once the driver tweak advantage is gone for Quadros, all you're paying for will be support, which isn't necessary if you know a gaming card will work anyway.

and ya, the yearly Maya supscription upgrade burn is bad. I'm finishing a 3D article for Ars now and basically letting new users know how Maya works: Look at a new feature from a press release from 4 years ago and you might be able to use that feature now. mia_material_x_pfft

[Johnpv]

Just to give the flip side of the coin in this thread. I'm running a ATI Fire Pro V8700 with drivers 8.634.0.0 (which are older drivers I believe) on Windows 7 64bit. I don't have any of the issues or problems that the OP had. In fact I can say the card has run fantastically well for me with Maya 2009 64bit. It's given me great performance and I've been damn happy with it. I should clarify that its a 4870 1gb with the software modded drivers running as a V8700.

[sentry66]

ah so it's not a real firepro to begin with...

[Johnpv]

ah so it's not a real firepro to begin with...

The hardware is 99% the same. The difference is in the device id and the drivers.

[meleseDESIGN]

The hardware is 99% the same. The difference is in the device id and the drivers.

Would you mind to explain how you converted a ATi 4870 into a ATI Fire Pro V8700, so you´re able to install Fire Pro drivers? Because it sounds a little bit unbelievable.

;)

[Johnpv]

Would you mind to explain how you converted a ATi 4870 into a ATI Fire Pro V8700, so you´re able to install Fire Pro drivers? Because it sounds a little bit unbelievable.

;)

It's nothing new. Using Rivatuner, a patchscript, and the right driver you can softmod a lot of "gamer" cards into "pro" cards. There used to be a sticky on this very forum on how to do it. I don't know the rules on linking to other forums and what not. If you go to the forums for Guru3d.com and look in their rivatuner and advance rivaturner discussion sections you'll find info on what drivers and what cards can be modded, and how to do it.

[sentry66]

just an update:

For the v3750, I'm now using the new 8.702 driver that just came out march 10 and maya is running much much better now. Smooth wireframe mode now works, the frame rate is higher, and selecting heavy poly objects is fairly reasonable now, though still slightly laggy.

It still does weird things like gray or black out the move/rotate/scale handles in the viewport, and doesn't work well with soft selection mode where it'll glitch out and move the wireframe, but leave the shaded model in place so it's like two models on top of each other.

It's still not ready for production use...at all and it's a shame because the card really truely is faster than the FX1800 in terms of raw speed, if only they'd get the bugs worked out. I have a 7 million poly model that gets 24 fps with the v3750 in an old athlon x2 4200 machine which is the same framerate I get on my brand new 3.75mhz quad core i7 950 machine with the nvidia FX1800.

[jipe]

Glad the new drivers are working better for you. I gave up on my v5600 last week after hitting a brick wall with AMD's support, who explained away my troubles by noting that my card was not qualified for Maya 2010 on Windows 7 x64 (if you look at Autodesk's PDF -- published a month after the Win 7 release -- barely any cards have been tested on Win 7).

Apparently if you do not purchase a new workstation card every year from AMD, they have no interest in supporting you or your hardware. I picked up a GTX 260 and all those annoying troubles have disappeared. Added bonus: it's way faster (39 vs 11 FPS in Cinebench 11.5). We all know the gaming cards are faster, but more stable? AMD needs to get its act together.

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