Graphics Card recomendations

[Shredder565]

I have a feeling that the whirring noise I am hearing apon start up, and the fact that in the last day, SoftImage refuses to render files properly (it either stops at the begining, or gets to the end and freezes. two days ago, was working fine on both files attempted)... I feel like my graphics card may be ready to die.


any good recomendations that will give it as speedy a render as possible?

[Bullit]

If you don't have a render that uses GPU then i am afraid the issues might be motherboard (check temperature) or HDD.

A graphic card doesn't anything if you are rendering with typical mentalray mode.


The only other option is the software side. If your instalation or file got corrupted.


It is time to make a general backup.


As for GPU recomendations if you think of using GPU render the most common around need to be CUDA compatible so a Nvidia. Read the Redshift forums or others for performance/price.

[Shredder565]

well, i'm getting all kinds of graphical errors...softimage just shut down due to an open GL error...so that still leads me to a graphics card...

what are you folks using in the nvidia range these days?

[Bullit]

You don't give much to help you. Not even your current card we know.

[Daniel Brassard]

The choice of graphic cards is so personnal and broad. It realy depend of what you will do, your current system and configuration, price point, operating system, your budget, pro vs consumer cards, etc.

You can start with this

http://www.nvidia.com/content/quadro/gp ... e-Card.pdf

Don't dismiss AMD/ATI thought. There is some good cards lately from AMD 7000 series.

Myself, I'm still running a 600 serie NVidia card and waiting for the GTX 780 Ti to drop in price. A Titan Black or Titan Z would be great but at the cost they are selling these cards, you could afford a Quadro K2000, K2200, K4000 or K4200. A Quadro K5200 retail less than a Titan Z right now.

Drivers for NVidia and AMD have been issues in the past. Especially for M&E software. Do you research, don't fall to impulse buing and Good luck.

P.S. Whirring sound and file refusing to load look to me your Hard Drive is starting to fail. I would suggest a full backup before its too late.

Cheers!

[Shredder565]

You don't give much to help you. Not even your current card we know.

whoops!
Current card is a NVidia GeForce GTX 550
24576 MB DDR3 Ram
Intel Core i7 2600K @ 3400MHZ
Main Board Asus P8H77-V LE
Windows 7 64 bit

;o)

[Shredder565]

The choice of graphic cards is so personnal and broad. It realy depend of what you will do, your current system and configuration, price point, operating system, your budget, pro vs consumer cards, etc.

You can start with this

http://www.nvidia.com/content/quadro/gp ... e-Card.pdf

Don't dismiss AMD/ATI thought. There is some good cards lately from AMD 7000 series.

Myself, I'm still running a 600 serie NVidia card and waiting for the GTX 780 Ti to drop in price. A Titan Black or Titan Z would be great but at the cost they are selling these cards, you could afford a Quadro K2000, K2200, K4000 or K4200. A Quadro K5200 retail less than a Titan Z right now.

Drivers for NVidia and AMD have been issues in the past. Especially for M&E software. Do you research, don't fall to impulse buing and Good luck.

P.S. Whirring sound and file refusing to load look to me your Hard Drive is starting to fail. I would suggest a full backup before its too late.

Cheers!

Someone else suggested a hard drive upgrade to speed up renders as as well. Can't remember how long it's been since I upgraded my main drive.. would also take recomendations for that to speed up renders...

General Information :
Disk Type : Hard Disk
Peripheral Type : ATA
Model : WDC WD1001FALS-0
Free Space : 76%
File Management : NTFS

[myara]

Like I said in another thread, GeForce drivers can sometimes be awful for 3D applications. Sometimes, Softimage just can't start up. Try some Autodesk recommended GeForce drivers before giving up.

https://www.si-community.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5479

If you still give up, and if you won't be doing GPU rendering, you could consider old used Quadros on your local online auction site. I'm doing that and buying a cheap Quadro 600 1GB.

If you are doing GPU rendering, you may consider 4GB GeForces.

With many applications supporting only CUDA I would stick with Nvidia for a while.

Someone else suggested a hard drive upgrade to speed up renders as as well. Can't remember how long it's been since I upgraded my main drive.. would also take recomendations for that to speed up renders...

Nope.

If you are rendering with CPU, and assuming your software is already optimized (like you're not using 32bit applications, rendering with all cores if your application has this option, not using antialiasing amounts that you don't really need, etc), and you have enough RAM, then you can only speed up renders with CPU power.

[Bullit]

The only thing that speeds up render is CPU there is nothing else except if the Render user OpenCL or CUDA then it also gets help from GPU.

Your 550 card is good enough for Softimage if works well .

Before making an expense i would start with a complete cleaning and reinstall of drivers. OpenGL mistakes is probably software related.

[mirkoj]

I also must jump in and say that horror stories about gtx cards being bad with SI to the point that Si wont start are crazy talk really.
Using gaming cards for the past 17 years now first in maya later with SI, had an quadro fx4000 as well and then again back to gaming card.
There wasn't a single problem like from those horror stories that are mostly marketing make up for Quadro selling cards.
Single issue I ever had was with one series of ATI don;t remember exactly which one now that had huge selection lag when selecting a lot of vertices, some of guys probably remember that. Other then that gtx all the way.
Would even stay on ATI if it wasn't for CUDA rendering (now primarily rendering on GPUs with Redshift so that kinda keeps selection down to nvidia but anyway.
You can easily ignore horror stories how gtx is bad for work and save your self money or for same amount get much faster card.

[myara]

But bad drivers that sucks and can make SI won't start do exist. It's a fact. It has happened to me (coworkers) in my previous job with 2 PCs that I could fix by installing a different driver. I hope that was just a buggy driver and not a nvidia sabotage

Old quadros may be cheaper than new game cards and if you won't be doing GPU rendering, a quadro may be better if you have huge scenes. So don't discard them by thinking they are incredibly expensive. If you're GPU rendering go for a gaming card with tons of memory.

A fast hard disk (SSD) will make Softimage and windows start up faster and your scenes load faster, which is great, but that's it.