what is cheapest video card to run SW 2001/2003 well? 1

[DanT]

We have Diamond/S3 Savage cards that flunked the SW test. We've been running the macro to disable get around it.
Diamond/SW/Blue-something seems to have abandoned the video market.

We have several machines to upgrade so we need a low-priced solution.

Thanks,

Dan

 

[SBaugh]

IMHO

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

Find one that passes, then look it up on the web for a price. Find the one you like or can afford, and then ask who uses it and if they like it.

Best Regards, Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.3dmca.com

faq731-376
When in doubt, always check the help

 

[BillRND]

Hi Dant,

I would recommend you look into the Nvidia Quadro series. They are available for around $250 and run great.

 

[eholmes]

My Elsa Gloria II card recently failed (in a 3 yr old DELL Precision 420/ Win2K) I replaced it with an ATI Radeon 9000 for about $89.00 from Buy.com. So far so good. SW doesn't list it as approved or tested but they have other ATI cards that are appoved Eholmes

 

[Mindnumb]

Buy any geforce2,3 or 4 series card, an softmod it to quadro.
these gaming cards use the same core as their equivalent pro versions. The differense lies on the driver side.

to get the drivers to recognize your card as a quadro version, read instructions and download tools here:

http://www.guru3d.com/

If you dont get it, post again , an I can send you some instructions.

This can also be done with the ATI cards, I have not tried this my self but it is supposed to work all right.

My experience is with Geforce2mx , geForce2GTS and Geforce4 4600 cards. I guess for now the best bang for the buck is the mx cards.

Good luck, Mindnumb, Norway.

 

[djw2k3]

Hi Mindnumb & DanT,

Agree that soft quadro is fantastic, My softmodded Geforce 2 MX (32MB), runs solidworks better than a Geforce 4200 (128MB) I tried. Fully recomend to anyone to have a look at guru3D.com.

The thing is I haven't seen a soft quadro system for anything greater than a Geforce 2, if they are out there can u post a link.

 

[berlitz]

You should check RivaTuner2 at

http://www.nvworld.ru/docs/rt_e.html

Good explanation, busy updates, newest detonator support, not only SoftQuadro for nVidia cards but also capable to tweak SoftR9x00 (ATI chip based cards) and SoftFireGL.

Bye,
Stefan --
unofficial german SolidWorks helppage

http://solidworks.cad.de

Shareware, freeware, tools and macros

http://swtools.cad.de

 

[Mindnumb]

djw2k3:

The softmod for GeForce 4 exixts. You have to use the later versions of rivatuner to get it working. see what driver versions they are recommending, but I think the 30.80 have a good reputation.

And DanT, if you are to use the computer for gaming as well, i would look seriously in to the Ati 9500/9700 series. they are all fully directx9 compatible, and should give you a system with a long lifespan. These cards are also moddableto fireGL series, but I have no experience with them my self. Heres a link to a tread with a lot of satisfied people.
Pay close attention to what kind of card you are bying, as this type of card can be modded in all kinds of ways, and some might give artifacts, or not be able to be modded to x1 level, only Z1 (this conserns the 9500 128mb cards )

 

[Mindnumb]

OOPs, the thread:

http://www.guru3d.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44920&perpage=10&pagenumber=9

And a little sidenote: the perfomance of my sw2003 installation is so much worse than the 2001+ version !
I have tried reinstalling and changin of drivers, but the pure graphics perfomans just is not there. it is very strange because the 2001+ performance is so hi.

Anyone experienced the same ?

system: Win 2000

athlon 1200
GeForce Gts w/softquadro
768 mb ram
Raid 0 (2x30Gb)

 

[eholmes]

I've been running a ATI Radeon 9000 card for the last year with no problems at all on a Win 2000 system. I think I payed close to $80 and it's been very reliable. I have used it for SW 2001+, 2003 and just started using 2004.

Eholmes

 

[Tmoose]

Thanks E holmes - we happened to put one a 128 mb version on one machine several months ago and it seems OK. The only driver we could find for NT was an unsupported version.