ATI Radeons with OpenGL

crasong

Hey guys, been looking into upgrading my computer, or pretty much overhauling the whole rig, since it is dying, and fast.

The only reusable part at this point is my Nvidia 8800GT graphics card, which i still want to replace with a newer dx11 card.

So the dilemna is that Nvidia has no news on a release date on the 300 series, which I'm thinking so far is just a bunch renamed 200 series cards, with dx11 capability?

The Radeon 5970 is the dx11 card that is already out there, and i know for a fact that radeons are famous for not being able to handle OpenGL apps properly.

There is the option of softmodding a 5970 card into a FirePRO of FireGL card.

I'm just looking for some advice on whether i should just stick with the 8800GT until further notice, or whether the FireGL or FirePRO drivers are really stable.

Cause my current rig is starting to die!

Cheers.

P.S: the rig is meant to be used for both gaming, as well as running maya and photoshop, etc.

*edit* Doh! 5670s cant be softmodded yet as the firePRO or FireGL equivalents arent out yet. But I'd still like to know if theres anyone out there who uses radeons for 3d softwares, and what hiccups there are if any.

Thanks again!

Rurouni Strife

I'm a pretty big PC hardware guy so I might be able to help you out. Plus, I have a Radeon in my work/game pc!

For the DX11 cards, the Fermi/300 series GPU's from Nvidia will not be renamed cards. It's a almost completely new design. Based off of specs and rumors, they will be big, hot, power hungry, and powerful. Nvidia also has a good rep for being used in 3D apps. It's up to you if you want to wait till mid or late March to get a new card. Waiting will let you see who gives you best performance for the price you are willing to pay.

As for Radeons, they work fine in XSI and Zbrush. They also accelerate Photoshop CS4 properly. As for Maya, I'm not sure. I get odd texture issues in the viewport and I couldn't tell you if it's Maya or my card. If you're more into poly crunching, they can handle quite a bit so I wouldn't worry. I have heard of 3000 and 4000 series cards being modded to use the FireGL drivers, but I don't know how difficult it is. Plus, using those drivers KILLS gaming performance.

Personal suggestion: if you don't want to wait and want DX11, go no lower than a 5770. It's >= a 4870 and has DX11. And my 4870 is fantastic.

crasong

Hey! yeah, I've been scouring the internet for whatever info i could find on the 300 series, it seems i was way misinformed when i made my post. Too much Nvidia Vs ATI arguments to sift through for proper info.

I have to admit that Nvidia is definitely the more stable between the two when it comes to Maya's viewport. I also am a long time Nvidia user.

If the 300 series is slated for March then waiting is definitely no problem, I've been waiting 5 years already for this stuff to come out. Can't wait to get my USB3.0 and Sata3 ready rig

Thanks for the info buddy!

CrazyButcher

btw ATI has rewritten their drivers with vista introduction and the new generations (4xxx and 5xxx) have much better OpenGL drivers than in previous days. That said Nvidia is still a bit superior, but Ati does fairly well and even delivers dx features to ogl, something they havent done in the past. So there is definetely improvement on the ogl end from them. However I don't have such a card at hand to tell in detail.

crasong

Interesting. What card are you using?

And I got another question to put out there, whats most important in rendering speed for Maya in terms of hardware?

Heres the rig i have set in mind at the moment.

OS - Windows 7 Ultimate (yes, 64bit, finally!)
Processor - i7 860 (2.8GHz/8mb)
Motherboard - Gigabyte P55A UD4P
RAM - 8GB 1600 OCZ Intel XMP DDR3
750W PSU
GFX - Still waiting for Nvidia 300 series, but definitely a consumer card.

Would this be good enough? Till now i use my 2008 Macbook pro for all my work, and it starts lagging bad at about 100k polys

Rurouni Strife

That answer I can't quite give you. I can tell you that the jump from a 3850 to a 4870 really helped out my Viewport speed. However, that could be because i went from 256 vram to 1gb. You probably would have to Google that.

As for the rest of your rig, you can shave a few bucks off and go with Win7 Pro, unless you want the two extra features of Ultimate (I'm serious, there isn't much of a difference anymore). Make sure you buy a correct amount of ram for an i7 rig. It's triple channel on those, so you go up by 3's. You probably want either 6, 9, or 12.

malcolm

Surprisingly I have the ati radeon 5870 and it runs maya fine, even works in high quality rendering mode. It was a fucking hassle though finding a driver for this card I prefer nvidia but I did not have a choice this was the best card they offered at dell.ca. If you're using mental ray to render then the graphics card doesn't matter it's all cpu power and ram to keep it from crashing. You might want to upgrade your ram to 12 gig if you have the money as windows 7 64bit uses 2 full gigs to run the os.

crasong

Hey thanks for all the advice so far guys! I guess for now ive decided to buy everything except the graphics card. I gotta save up more for the card anyways.

malcolm: is installing the drivers risky? Not sure if i trust myself too much with softmodding a card. and is there any hassle after installing?

Cheers!