FireGL 8800 Question

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1

Hi,

I just got a FireGL
8800 and while it is a great card, the performance in Maya is really bad. I
already had some conversations with ATI-Support but they couldn

2

Hello Michael,

Summary: I think your test was a good test, and there was nothing wrong with your test.

I tested a Fire Gl 8700 and a nvstrapped GF2 on the same home system. Using 1600x1200 resoluton, at 85 Hz, and with the other settings as the testcenter specified, my results for the wireframe test of the test file were as follows:

Fire GL 8700

Wireframe: 10.6 fps

GF2 GTS ==> Quadro2 Pro

Wireframe 29.2 fps.

I was fairly disappointed in this card as it currently retails for $130 or so and the GF2 is much less. I suspect the 8800 (with 64 MB more memory and its RADEON 8800 core vs my RADEON 8800LE core) should fair at least slightly better.

I can't directly comment on the 8800, but the 8700 performed much much poorer than a nvstrapped GF2.

Perhaps the ATI propaganda IS true and these Fire Gl cards are less prone to display errors in 3D apps. Perhaps that alone is worth a little less speed.
Perhaps the statement, "A workstation graphics board is a board specially designed and optimized for professional 3D graphic applications" is true. I have no idea as I personally saw no display abnormalities. The only display abnormalities I noticed during this comparison was the abnormally slow frame rate slowly pooring like cold molasses from the 8700.

Hope this was useful.

Dave

3

Hi,

thanks for the info. I have made some more tests now and the results are really interessting:

Polygonscene with about 130000 Triangles:

Wireframe: 19fps, Shaded: 5.4 fps, Textured: 5 fps, Textured and Lit: 4 fps.

The scene using linear Nurbs Surfaces (resulting in exactly the same number of triangles!)
Wireframe: 63 fps, Shaded: 36 fps, Textured: 34 fps, Textured and Lit: 18.6 fps

On a Geforce 2 this huge difference between the scenes didn

4

I have had much better results and good performance with a fireGL 8800. I also have the gf2 and it is much slower. Check and see what drivers you are running. I am using the ATI 5.12.2195.3035 driver.

chris