I'm learning Maya in school. I ask my teachers (who are also freelancers), as to which card do they use, and they all say GeForce. They say the extra money dosent' commensurate with the performance gain.
Is that true ?
I was considering a Quadro fx 2000 or Quadro fx 3000.
I do small freelance jobs now.
I visited the link posted on another thread on this channel:
It said the Quadro Fx cards are the best for Maya 5.0 but its not for 4.5 (I think its the hardware rendering).
So what exactly is the high price for ? Is it that the rendering is done faster ? Isn't the rendering Processor dependant ? If so how would a graphics card help ? and if its hardware render, isn't software render the eventual final render ?
The extra money buys you stability, and some performance when chunkin on the higher end of the polycount scale. Your teachers are a bit wrong... (ok the statement is understandable they wouldnt be using quaddro on each machine in their workshop so they wouldnt tell you its bad...)
Also it buys you service... etc.
The extra amount of money you pay for must however come form someone else than you, the client! Also its tax deductable and all sorts of stuff here so why bother risking it, you just cant affor a crash no matter what.
also the new hw renderer wich is usefull when you have tight deadlines. Is not available on geforces.
The document in question pretty much sums it up. Especialy the conclusion to quote
"CAD users first ask for stability and then for stability
For what it's worth, I'm just a hobbyist as far as 3d is concerned, but I spend a LOT of time working in Maya and my GeForce Ti4200 has never crapped out on me. Also note that the fx 500 performed reasonably well in those benchmarks and the Quadro XGL cards were even better. Hell, for the difference in price, you could get a great card, fry it and buy a new one for less dough than an FX 2000. If I were you, I'd save a thousand bucks or so and spend it on some DV editing software or something.
yeh given that your a student and starting to make your way; get some more RAM for your box and then save the rest for a rainy day or get aforementioned DV software.
I think there was a real need for benchmarks like on 3dchips. They clearly show (for the first time, since specAPC for Maya was only recently released) that there's a very insignificant difference between pro and gaming cards in Maya. Ti4200 would be right up there with the rest of nvidia cards. The situation is very different in other applications however, and you should take it into account.
Before specAPC there were NO BENCHMARKS whatsoever that could give anyone any ideas on how graphic cards performed in maya viewport (except for that discontinued testcenter project). Noone would be able to get any reliable information from anywhere simply because there was none.
[edit] Oh, that thing got you confused cause it's in badly translated German. Never mind 4 or 5. Look at the benchmarks themselves - that page you linked to is kind of an overview.
I think that your teacher say that for the prices of these highend cards the difference with a geforce is not so important considering the huge gap between the prices.
A geforce will do the job well but keep in mind that the new hardware renderer requires stuffs only featured by highend cards.
ah well, I think after reading all this I'll settle for the Nvidia Quadro fx 500. I guess it supports the hardware rendering of Maya 5.0 and hopefully will b faster & more stable than the geforce.
Any one have had this ? and used it ? any feed backs ?
Also I can't seem to find anywhere the exact bells & whistles that the new hardware render in Maya 5.0 adds.
What is the new hardware renderer in Maya 5.0 all about ?
Where can I read about this ?
Please let me know if fx 500 is ok, i'll go order it.
the FX 500 seems to run about the same power as a Geforce, but with the added features that make it an FX. Wich is manily drivers. Its a great pro card for the cash. Its not listed on the maya charts becouse it came out after they were created and there hasn;t been an update in a few months. From what I have heard its fine. Thought I have also heard the FX 1000 smokes it
