Recomended Graphic Card For NX10

[Elanges07]

Guys, im getting new computer to install the NX10
im looking which graphic card is recomended, i know the best is Nvidia Quadro, but im looking other then that.

is the normal gaming graphic card will still work fine with NX10 ?
cards on my mind

ASUS STRIX-R7370-DC2OC-4GD5-GAMING 4GB GDDR5 256BIT
ASUS STRIX-R9380-DC2OC-4GD5-GAMING 4GB GDDR5 256BIT
MSI R7 370 GAMING 4G GDDR5 4096MB 256Bit

Any recomendation guys ?

 

[cowski]

A gaming card will probably work, however there are no guarantees. If you search this forum on the term "graphics driver" or "graphics card", I'm sure you will turn up lots of threads describing graphics glitches and what card/driver they were using. I doubt that you will find your exact card model turning up, but you may find that one brand or another have more difficulties running NX.

If you do go with a gamer card and have issues, try to get a hold of older drivers. Often an older version of the driver software will run NX better; sometimes the newer drivers are buggy.

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[CNSZU]

I'm curious how buggy a gaming card really is with NX. I know engineers who use gaming cards with CAD (not NX), and they seem to be happy. They would never dream of shelling out for a professional card. I wonder if Quadro is worth the huge extra cost. There should be an extensive and exhaustive test to see exactly how gaming cards and profession cards compare for normal CAD usage. It might save many people a LOT of money.

But that aside, I'm very happy with my Quadro as I can fine-tune the antialias setting to hit the perfect balance between line smoothness and rotating performance. The only time I wished I had more performance is when using Advanced Studio Display.

NX10.0 Win8.1 64bit i7-3770K 16GB QuadroK2200

 

[cowski]

I've not done exhaustive testing, so I'm not speaking from direct experience here, but I think the main difference between "workstation" and "gaming" cards these days are the drivers. If I remember correctly, NX uses OpenGL for its graphics. If the graphics card driver software follows the spec, then all is well. However, many gaming cards use drivers that contain non-standard optimizations that deviate from the OpenGL spec. In short, gaming card drivers favor speed over accuracy; some minor artifacts may be overlooked or never noticed in a game, but can make CAD unusable.

Gaming cards will probably work just fine; if possible, try before you buy. I know there have been a lot of questions from users using "integrated" graphics (the graphics chip built into the motherboard instead of a dedicated graphics card). It looks like the Intel P4600 and later is officially supported now; I'm not sure if that is an integrated graphics chip or a dedicated card.

 

[Elanges07]

thats guys, i will look into it then.

 

[BubbaK]

There is a spreadsheet listing supported devices and drivers at

http://www.plm.automation.siemens.c...e (Graphics Card) Certifications&docType=.xls

The cards are all "professional" ones, as opposed to gaming cards. Some people will tell you that the only difference between a pro card and a gaming card is the price tag -- it's the same hardware with a switch flipped. This may be true, but the real difference is drivers. Pro card drivers are pretty stable, they're tested, and they don't get updated very often. Gaming drivers get updated in a rather more chaotic fashion.

So, if you want to save some money, you can try using an unsupported gaming card, along with this week's driver. But if it doesn't work, you're on your own, and you might spend quite a bit of time finding/fixing your problems. So, you can save money, or (possibly) save time. Only you can judge whether your time is more important than your money.

 

[IvanNX]

I used almost equal number of gaming computers for NX as professional computers, so I can tell you that only difference I noticed is that 5 years pro card will work good, 5 years old gaming will not work prefect with updated NX, but if you have 5 years old version of NX it will work fine. For example i had NX9 installation on HP mobile workstation from 2008, and the only slow back was rendering, and few years ago i had NX6 on old custom made gaming computer and working on it for years and it never had any problems (and it was moderate price configuration, not more than 500 euros when i got it).
BubbaK said that gaming drivers are updated in chaotic meaner, but it is not the engine that is updated but settings for popular games, ASUS G751 that I use right now have graphic driver update every month or so, and in most cases it is like 15 seconds update that set new values for at that moment popular games.
If you have new gaming configuration, you will not notice difference in how NX works and feels, if you have old one, better have professional one.
BTW, based on my experience, never again I will buy professional laptop for work, gaming machines with same configuration (except graphics) are half in price and much more flexible with software and maintenance.

EDIT: my working configurations atm:
ASUS G751JT
Intel® Core™ i7-4710HQ processor
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 970M 3GB

and Lenovo W540
Intel® Core™ i7-4800MQ processor
NVIDIA® Quadro K1100M

 

[aluminum2]

I am happy running NX on my 7 year old 1gb ati radeon. I had more problems at work with newer approved Quattro cards that cost over 800$ each.