Choosing a Video Card? 1

[enginerd1959]

How important in the video card to the overall system performance (vs. processor, memory, hard drive)?

We have some P-III 1.0 GHz systems with Intel embedded video chips (82815) and newer P-IV 2.0 GHz systems with Nvidia Vanta chips - also embedded on the motherboard.

We're trying to decide if investing in high-end video cards is worth the money.

 

[MadMango]

The short answer is, "Yes, very important."

You might want to double check with your vendors for your computers. I had an HP system which I tried to move away from the embedded video processing to a dedicated graphics card, and was unable to do so.

The quality of the graphics card you need will depend primarily on how complicated your designs are going to be in SW. You should be shooting for at least a 64mb card, 512mb memory and a professional grade OS (W2k or XPpro). This set-up should cover you for assemblies up to about 500-750 parts with good productivity. "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[MadMango]

Oops, I forgot to add that memory is so cheap nowadays, you might as well get as much as you can get (1gb or so). "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[josephv]

Hello,

The SolidWorks benchmark shows that the most important factors that affect system performance are:

1) RAM - RAM gives you the most bang for your buck (and it is cheap!)

2) CPU - CPU is very important, but having a fast CPU with little RAM is no good

3) The video card is the third most important factor. Note that the video card affects shaded pans, rotations and zooms, and does not affect file open times or rebuilds significantly (RAM and CPU greatly affect the file open times and rebuilds).

It is important that you use a Video Card that is designed for Solid Modelling (e.g. Oxygen VX1 from

http://www.3dlabs.com,

the ATI Fire GL 8800, or the nVidia Quadro). These cards were designed for SolidWorks and offer optimal performance.

Please avoid using "gaming" cards, they are designed for multimedia not for SolidWorks (i.e. don't get an ATI Rage or nVidia TNT or Matrox).

SolidWorks has a video card testing site, here is the link:

http://www.solidworks.com/swdocs/support/html/videoissues/videotest.cfm

Hope this helps

Joseph

 

[dnvm1]

I totally agree with josephv
I have been using SolidWorks for over four years and I have found that you must stick with non-gaming video cards. At work I work on a P3 750 with 375 ram and a 32mb Oxygen VX-1. Just before recieving the new video card I was pulling my hair out waiting for the video to catch up to my pans and rotates. And now with 2001 Plus the only thing I believe keeping me from pulling my hair out is the video card. Because I have noticed with every upgrade SolidWorks has become more and more processor hungry.
I would also recommend staying away from Gateway computers for engineering purposes. My co-partners were all given Gateway computers P4 with the same video card I have and they were all slower than I am and they were constantly crashing SolidWorks. My computer is a no name build up done by a previous IT manager.
One other thing to verify before buying new video cards. Make sure that the on board video processor can be bypassed. I have run into a few on board systems that could not be bypassed. So check your owners manual.

 

[SBaugh]

I use a GF2 Ultra (64 Megs) and I don't have any problems with SW using that card. I used to agree Oxygen was the only way to go, but now with todays Nivida GF cards. I think they work just as well is the some of the Oxygen cards if not better in some ways. You have to get some good drivers though.

Regards, Scott Baugh, CSWP
credence69@REMOVEhotmail.com

http://www.3dmca.com

http://home.insightbb.com/~scott.baugh/

*When in doubt always check the help*

 

[jdsmi]

SBaugh - I assume "GF2" is referring to GeForce2. I've been wondering myself how the GeForce would work with SolidWorks. The answer I always get is "GeForce is for games, go with the Quadro's".

 

[SBaugh]

I use the GF2 without a problem. Now the Quadro is for CAD, but no point in buying that if the GF2 works fine for me, besides I still like to play games to. I did have some problems because of the driver I was using, but I went back to a previous version that helped out tremendously. The Version I use is 28.32. You can always check here for passing drivers:

http://www.solidworks.com/swdocs/support/html/videoissues/videotest.cfm

They don't seem to show the driver I use in there..at least as far as I can tell??

Using this card is only my opinion.

Best Regards, Scott Baugh, CSWP
credence69@REMOVEhotmail.com

http://www.3dmca.com

http://home.insightbb.com/~scott.baugh/

*When in doubt always check the help*

 

[jdsmi]

Thanks!

 

[rocksolid2]

Will the Quadro run games as well as CAd or is it CAD specific? We all want to have a bit of fun now and then.

 

[SBaugh]

The Quadro is essentially a GF card hacked. Which in turn if you have a GF card, you can turn it into a Quadro if your daring enough to try.

See here

http://www.geocities.com/tnaw_xtennis/

As for the Quadro playing games I have no idea. My GF2 rocks when playing Quake 3 Arena or Diablo2. I wouldn't trade it in on a Quadro to run SW anytime soon. Well I may trade it in for a GF3 or 4. LOL .... But like I stated above the GF2 works real good with the version of drivers I specfied above. The lastest version of Drivers maybe alright with SW, but my games were lacking in textures and brightness. Once I changed to back to 28.32, all is well.

So for all of you SW guros...like myself, and all you Gamers....also like myself. Good luck and have fun in both worlds.

Best Regards, Scott Baugh, CSWP
credence69@REMOVEhotmail.com

http://www.3dmca.com

http://home.insightbb.com/~scott.baugh/

*When in doubt always check the help*

 

[linqur]

Hi
What is your oppinion:
32MB Matrox G550 (marked green on SolidWorks web)
or
Geforce4 PRO MX460 64 MB (which is told to have
limitations on SW web)?
Whereas GF4 costs only $15 more?

BR,

Linqur

 

[JTomasso]

We are having problems with PCs that use GeForce 400 cards, when we click on Solid Edge v12, nothing happens. Can someone offer some advice as we urgently need to fix this problem. Thanks

 

[MadMango]

If you are using SolidWorks software, and are trying to use SolidEdge preset optimizations on your graphics card, you will have problems. If you card does doesn't have settings for SolidWorks, don't use a substitute. "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[Mandrake22]

I recently ran across a low cost PC manufacturer that offered an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro video card. I have a 1yr old Nvidia based card at home and a higher end CAD card at work so I haven't been studying the subject lately. I looked into this ATI card and it appears to exceed the fastest Nvidia based card by a fairly significant margin using the normal game based benchmarks.
Does anyone have actual experience with this card in a CAD environment?

 

[gwirtel]

I have been using the 3dlabs Wildcat VP560 with Solidworks and it works great. It works at least as good for gaming as my Geforce card did, and has none of the problems with Solidworks that the Nvidia cards do.It has 64mb ram. Go to

http://www.3dlabs.com

to read the specs on it. It was $191.00 at

http://www.pcpitstop.com

and I got it in 1 day.
Sorry about sounding like an advertisement, but it works like a charm for Solidworks, games, and DVD playback.

 

[Mindnumb]

Hi ! This will help you.

I have tried and tested it on geforce 4600 and Geforce2 GTS

the Geforce an Quadro cards have the same core! Quadro mx have the same as GeForce mx , and quadro2 have the same as GeForce2 . Geforce 4 and the new professional cards from Nvidia have slightly different core, but not much.

The difference is on the driver side.

As it stands now, it is possible to get quadro performance from the geforce cards.

To learn more about this, look at this link, or search for "soft quadro hack" on the net.

http://nvworld.ru/docs/sq4e.html

http://www.guru3d.com/files/softquadro/

Best of luck !