Non certified graphics cards 2

[woolly]

Does anyone have any thoughts on using a non-certified Nvidea 512Mb graphics card rather than a SW certified card? We mainly struggle with CPU usuage rather than graphics so we were considering testing a non-certified card.

Our hardware supplier is currently testing the latest hardware for us in an attempt to find the most suitable (fastest) system to suit our needs. It seems the CPU is were we are struggling everything else is not running to it's limit.

Thanks

Woolly

SW2007 SP5.0
Dual core 2.67 Ghz
4Gb Ram
256Mb Nvidea Quadro FX3500

 

[woolly]

Sorry meant to say SW2007 x64 SP5.0, with Windows XP x64.

 

[dgowans]

My thought is:

Don't do it. A mid-range certified graphics card costs $500-600 (the card in your signature probably costs more). If nothing else, the peace of mind in knowing that any issues you're having aren't a result of your graphics card is worth that much, especially in your case where you're trying to optimize hardware. Factor in any reduced performance because of a non-supported card and there's your cost justification without breaking a sweat.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

By all means test a non-certified card. You may get lucky and never have a problem. BTW, I have some land you might be interested in ... comes with a bridge too.

On some systems, even the simplest things get screwed up by uncertified card & driver combinations. The chances are that sooner or later you will experience some level of problem caused by a non certified card and driver. Only time will tell whether it will be a show-stopper.

 

[EEnd]

One of the biggest drawbacks of using a gaming card for SolidWorks is that when you have problems with almost anything related to SolidWorks, one of the first questions will be: “What video card and driver version are you using?”

If you do not respond with a certified combination, the blame will fall on the video card / driver and it will be difficult to get support beyond that point. This is true with SolidWorks and their VARs, as well as forums such as this one.

Save yourself time, money and grief and get a certified card that matches your needs and budget.

Eric

 

[MadMango]

If your CPU is the culprit, I don't understand how hobbling your graphics with a non-certified card is going to help that. I would ensure you have the latest drivers installed, enable the proper settings, and look at what other processes are running on your system. You may have to disable or remove the troubling software.

It may also be you are hitting a wall, depending on the types of components you are modeling, how big your assembly files are (in part count), modeling practices, and network usage.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[woolly]

We have a lot of network traffic, but we've tested the same files local and the time difference isn't that much better.

We do have very large assemblies 50K+ parts. We've changed direction slightly and are saving our full models as part files (multi body) and using them in full layouts this way, it means the part count is drastically reduced but there is still a large body count.

Woolly

 

[MadMango]

50k parts... probably hard to see all those parts in the top level assembly. Have you tried to create "shallow" subassembly configurations to suppress parts that you will never see? Or you can suppress features in your parts that are not required, like radius and fillet features.

Sometimes when you save a large assembly as a multi-body parts it can actually take longer to rebuilt and load, since any component patterns have been lost, with each instance now becoming a another solid body. They can actually drag your computer performance down, at least that is what I have seen. You are better off saving assemblies as parts with the exterior faces or exterior components option instead of all components.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[mjcole]

There is no reason why any system should require a 512MB DDR Card to display decent graphics or CAD graphics. MS Vista allows for 128G of memory because it requires a lot to run it properly. MS seems to be addicted to Active X and has ignored Open-GL which has long been a CAD standard. It all comes down to companies like Microsoft and Nvidia wanting to make more money by selling more cards. Also Many N-Vidia cards which should be over qualified for Solid Works arn't even tested by Solid Works.

N-Vidia at least has SW certified cards that work a lot better than ATI but there is no reason for 1Gig Video Cards and using so much memory. I've seen the Certified cards list but it is huge and if you use a certified card that isn't listed as being certified on your workstation you're pretty much screwed. I've seen lower power cards that are certified while higher quality cards get ignored.

When solid works says n-vidia 560 do they mean 5600 series or what? Real view graphics is nice but CAD design is not about beauty it's about power. Simplified Assemblies can solve many performance problems.

Michael

 

[meintsi]

Also Many N-Vidia cards which should be over qualified for Solid Works arn't even tested by Solid Works.

It's not the cards that are over qualified, many chipsets nowadays are the same for both types of graphics cards. It's the difference in how the drivers are written.

OpenGL and Direct3D drivers both expose the traditional graphics rendering pipelines and have been enhanced over the years as the hardware has become more capable.

A graphics primitive is described to the graphics card as an ordered set of vertices, essentially a bundle of data consisting of coordinates in space defining the vertex's location. How these vertices are combined into various other primitives -- points, lines and triangles -- is defined by the particular driver's API.

OpenGL includes many specilized API calls for parametric curve and parametric surface primatives. DixectX does not.

Yet DirectX includes specialized programmable pixel shading and texture blending calls which are not availible within OpenGL API.

Many of the "inexpensive" video cards can be hacked into their "more expensive" counterparts with simple resistor modifications and a the installation of a new driver.

Remember...
[navy]"If you don't use your head,[/navy]
[navy]your going to have to use your feet."[/navy]

 

[RawheadRex]

Just a bit more of the same here but I do SW tech support for a living. If someone calls me up and tells me that they are running an untested/unsupported graphics card we are pretty well handcuffed from that point on. This is due to the fact that it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to rule that factor in or out as a potential cause or contributing factor to an issue. We try our best to troubleshoot around these items when we run into them but the reality is oftentimes I have to tell folks that I can't do much more to assist due to this factor. We can't even kick it to SolidWorks because graphics is invariably one of the first 2-3 questions that I get hit with when I roll down that road.

The moral of the story is to use a good MCAD quality graphics card and keep the drivers up to date as per SolidWorks. There is absolutely no good reason to buy or switch to anything other than this.

Best regards,


Chris Gervais
Application Engineer
CSWP, CSWST