My primary use for POVray is to render an architectural (Chief Architect) CAD



After trolling through the list I find no consensus, and supposedly
knowledgeable retailers are just as bad if not worse.



and 128bit available now, but what is the best bet? Is it worth it?

My computer is a Quad core on XP Pro 4Gb RAM 620Gb HD, Decent Gigabyte MB, and
needs a reasonable video card.

It seems there are two main types of card in the moderate range of say US$300.
Comments have gone before on this list about the video cards not really doing
much for the rendering time well now is the time to come out of the closet and
see the Duo and Quad 128bit cards that are available. Is this still true?

For example:

Thre is this kind with 512Mb of RAM for games for example:
GIGABYTE NX96T512H GeForce 9600GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E 2.0 x16 dual DVI-I / D-sub
HDCP 65nm w/ZALMAN FAN
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/VGA/Products_Overview.aspx?ClassValue=VGA&ProductID=2774&Product

And the CAD based cards:
LEADTEK QUADRO FX 330 64M DDR PCI-E
http://www.leadtek.com.tw/eng/workstation_graphics/overview.asp?lineid=2&pronameid=134
Described as: 12Bit SubPixel, 128Bit PGPipeline


Or another slightly out of the price bracket but just up from the 64Mb above at
128Mb : is the same thing more or less with more RAM.
"Leadtek" Quadro FX 560 128MB DDR3 PCI-E VGA Card
http://www.leadtek.com.tw/eng/workstation_graphics/overview.asp?lineid=2&pronameid=268
More info about this card below:
The price jump to 256Mb of RAM is double! It is Close to $750:

Now will someone please tell me the real needs, compatibility, and the
compromises and the best bang for the buck?

Many thanx,

Captron

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On Mon,  9 Jun 2008 04:05:44 EDT, "Captron" <439087*@gmail.com (Remove
*)> wrote:

>Comments have gone before on this list about the video cards not really doing
>much for the rendering time well now is the time to come out of the closet and
>see the Duo and Quad 128bit cards that are available. Is this still true?

The way I understand it is, PovRay does not use the graphics card for
rendering. It is all done with the CPU(s). So buy your graphics card
for your other apps. If you use a modeller then you will get some
benefit for your display.
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Captron <439087*@gmail.com (remove *)> wrote:
> I don?t want to spend big dollars on a video card but do want to optimize my
> ?bang for the buck?. Graphics card features have zoomed of late, with Quadro
> and 128bit available now, but what is the best bet? Is it worth it?

  Graphics cards are used for games. They are mostly useless for rendering
and CAD design. (Even if the CAD program does use hardware acceleration,
most CAD programs still keep the visuals so simple that even older cards
will suffice.)

  You might get *some* speed benefit in the smoothness of CAD previews, but
I doubt it's really worth all that money.

  Now, if you also play games, that's a different story completely.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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> After trolling through the list I find no consensus, and supposedly
> knowledgeable retailers are just as bad if not worse.
>


> and 128bit available now, but what is the best bet? Is it worth it?
>
> My computer is a Quad core on XP Pro 4Gb RAM 620Gb HD, Decent Gigabyte MB, and
> needs a reasonable video card.
>
> It seems there are two main types of card in the moderate range of say US$300.
> Comments have gone before on this list about the video cards not really doing
> much for the rendering time well now is the time to come out of the closet and
> see the Duo and Quad 128bit cards that are available. Is this still true?


It sounds likle you both agree that rendering keeps the CPU(S) busy but doesn't
really offload anything to the GPUs.

Then why do they sell the math intensive cards (Expensive: see above) ?

Cheers
Ron in KiwiCountry

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Captron nous illumina en ce 2008-06-10 20:46 -->
>> After trolling through the list I find no consensus, and supposedly
>> knowledgeable retailers are just as bad if not worse.
>>
>> I don’t want to spend big dollars on a video card but do want to optimize my
>> “bang for the buck”. Graphics card features have zoomed of late, with Quadro
>> and 128bit available now, but what is the best bet? Is it worth it?
>>
>> My computer is a Quad core on XP Pro 4Gb RAM 620Gb HD, Decent Gigabyte MB, and
>> needs a reasonable video card.
>>
>> It seems there are two main types of card in the moderate range of say US$300.
>> Comments have gone before on this list about the video cards not really doing
>> much for the rendering time well now is the time to come out of the closet and
>> see the Duo and Quad 128bit cards that are available. Is this still true?
> 
> 
> It sounds likle you both agree that rendering keeps the CPU(S) busy but doesn't
> really offload anything to the GPUs.
> 
> Then why do they sell the math intensive cards (Expensive: see above) ?
> 
> Cheers
> Ron in KiwiCountry
> 
> 
To put out an extra FPS or two from the more recent games. Just 1 or 2 more FPS 
are BIG $$$ sale arguments when targeting hard-core gamers.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
Rastafarianism: Let's smoke this shit!

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Captron <439087*@gmail.com (remove *)> wrote:
> Then why do they sell the math intensive cards (Expensive: see above) ?

  Newer graphics cards are faster and have more features (such as more
advanced shaders). These can be used by games to make them look prettier
(compare, for example, Crysis to Quake).

  Quite curiously, these features are seldom very useful for rendering
programs. That's because all these features are very limited and confined
to the limitations of the graphics card. There's just so much you can do
with a hardware shader, for example, and it's quite difficult to be able
to use them in any way in a freeform software renderer (in other words,
it's difficult to use what you can from hardware shaders *and* mix the
results with the extra features a software renderer has to offer).

  The only thing graphics cards are good for in a software renderer is
showing a preview of the scene, which is much simpler than the final
rendered image.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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