Hello,
I am buying a new video card and i want to make sure blender will work with it. Can anybody recommend me a video card. I mostly write music, blend and do photoshop. Play the odd game but i want a powerfull card fo blending.
I was thinking the RADEON 9000 PRO.
Thanks
Kai
DON’T GET AN ATI, THEY HAVE NO SUPPORT FOR OPENGL.
you want an nvidia.
from the looks of it, you are going to spend some money on a new video card.
all newer nvidia cards work great with blender and opengl.
so here’s the one you want:
Xtasy
GeForce4 Ti 4200™
• 256-bit Graphics Accelerator
• VGA, DVI, TV-Out
• 113 million Vertices/sec. Fill Rate
• Dual 350MHz RAMDAC processor
• Lifetime Warranty
VisionTek™ Xtasy™ GeForce4™ Ti 4200 features the only performance GPU capable of driving complex geometries and custom animations. With its advanced nfiniteFX II engine, superior Accuview antialiasing techniques, and flexible nView display technology, the GeForce4 Ti GPU allows end users to experience radically immersive graphical environments complete with unique visual effects, and the most realistic, life-like images ever experienced on a desktop PC.
Lightspeed Memory Architecture™ II
In case you are one to miss the obvious, this is level II LMA technology. That means even faster and smoother frame rates than level I. We are talkin’ memory bandwidth boosted by up to 300%, Cha, that’s fast. How? Z occlusion culling, fast Z clear and auto precharge (keep nodding your head like you know what that means.)
Accuview™ Antialiasing Engine
Here you have it. Mindmelding hyper-insane image performance and quality without worries of bogus jaggies and drains on the main (translated…the most eye-popping clear images available without slowing your computer down. Up to five times faster than the GeForce2 MX series.)
Specifications
• Controller: NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200
• Bus Type AGP
• Memory 64MB DDR
• Core Clock 250MHz
• Memory Clock 500MHz memory
• Dual 350MHz RAMDACs
• API Support Direct-X®, Open GL ICD®
for Windows
• Connectors VGA, DVI, TV-Out
• 4.0 Billion texel fill rate
• 113 Million vertices/sec setup
• 8.0GB/second memory bandwidth
Features at a Glance
• 3D Textures
• Shadow Buffers
• 4 dual-rendering pipelines
• 8 texels per clock cycle
• Dual cube environment mapping
• 128MB high-speed DDR RAM memory
• High-Definition Video Processor (HDVP)
• AGP 4X with Fast Writes
• AGP 4X/2X and AGP Texturing Support
• 32-bit color with 32-bit Z/stencil buffer
• Z-correct true, reflective bump mapping
• High-performance 2D rendering engine
• Hardware accelerated real-time shadows
• True-color hardware cursor
• Integrated hardware transform engine
• Integrated hardware lighting engine
• High-quality HDTV/DVD playback
• DVI output for flat panels
• TV-Out function
• Multibuffering (double, triple, quad) for smooth animation and video playback
• Microsoft DirectX® and S3TC®
texture compression
• NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
• Full OpenGL support in Linux
• Microsoft DirectX 8.1 and lower optimizations and support
• Complete OpenGL® 1.3 and
lower support
System Requirements
• 250W power supply or greater
• IBM PC or 100% Compatible
• 266 MHz or higher CPU (AMD K6-2
or Intel Pentium II or higher)
• AGP 2.0 Compliant Socket
• CD ROM drive
• Windows 95 OSR2, 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, XP
• 64MB of RAM
retails for about $160-180.
wow dittohead, you really did your homework.
hehe, I was just thinking about that lifetime warranty. What if you had your computer for like another 75 years? and then something happened?
8)
Save up and buy a SGI OCtane2 or Fuel box.
if your gonna get a card atleast get a g4 ti 4600 and get the bang for your buck. also scrap that Xtasy that company has lost a little steam. if you want true flexability get the Gainward GeForce 4 Ti 4600 comes ready to use either 2 regular monitors or 2 flatpanel displays or the combination there of if you want multi-monitor- support. Also comes with 3d goggles and some other goodies.
Please do consider the 2D quality of the graphics cards!
My Geforce 2MX 400 goes rather soft at high resolutions in windows, fonts are slightly less sharp than at lower resolutions.
Apparantly, Matrox have the best 2D quality, followed by ATI, then Nvidia…
–
Brian
Nvidia MX cards do not have very good performance thought. I dunno if it’s responsible for the quality but anyway…
Wow dittohead you really did some research on this. Good thing you warned me about the ATI cards. Thanks for the advice ill let you all know how it goes.
Kai
"if your gonna get a card atleast get a g4 ti 4600 and get the bang for your buck. "
You will pay almost twice as much for a ti 4600, whereas the ti 4200 will give you about 85-90 percent of the power for far less money. The real bang for the buck is the ti 4200. Don’t see how anyone could claim the 4600 is even remotely a good “bang for the buck” option. Only buy the Ti 4600 if you could care less about cost. If you work, get the 4200.
When buying a video card what do you look for?
Geometry engines, raster enginges? Polygon count, Texture engine and RAM?
Ultimatly the life of your machine will come down to your video card.
How do Geforce 4 stack up to FireGL cards for 3D design.
What main points will put a card on top?
nah i just copied the text of the website. 
8) 8) :-?
Xtasy is the best nvidia card producer today.
I just put bought a bunch of pieces from newegg.com and put together my own machine. I did about 3-4 months of research first.
For my video card I got the Leadtek Ti 4400 VIVO. It’s really great because it’s got a MASSIVE heatsink on the front AND BACK with dual fans (suprisingly quiet IMO), which makes it a prime candidate for over clocking with NVtweak or whatever you want to use!! Mine’s running a little faster than a default Ti 4600.
Since it’s Vivo you can do 720x486 video capture at 30fps and encode it to many different codecs realtime (if you have the processor and storage power). It also does video out. I love it- Now I don’t have to buy a TV because I have my VCR going directly into my computer! I can also use it to export animations onto VHS. It’s really an amazing thing.
Anyway, the rest of my computer specs:
Gigabyte 7VRXP (built in LAN and RAID)
Athlon XP 2000+
2 sticks of OCZ 512MB PC2700 @ CAS 2.0
2 80 Gig Western Digital HDDs W/ 8 MB cache in RAID 0 (44MB/S I think)
Leadteck Winfast 250 Ti 4400 (OC’d to 320/650)
Herculese Game Theater 6.1 soundcard w/ breakout box
oops… I don’t want to be late for my first college class, so I gotta run! Take care!
I say it all depends on what OS you’re running. If you run Windows, then get an NVidia card. Although, I’d opt for a geForce 2 or 3 instead of a 4, because the fill rates on the 4 in real tests are actually lower than the 3. Plus, you don’t want to be shelling out a tonne of money for a card. I use the geForce 2 under linux and windows with blender (Creative Labs geForce2 GTS w/32 m ram), and it runs like a dream. Really, it’s all you need.
If you’re running linux, and you don’t consider yourself a linux guru, I recommend a matrox card. Most distros have support for those out of the box. I think they’re more pricey, tho. Nvidia cards do run under linux – like I said above, that’s what I use – but it’s harder to get running and unless you really know what you’re doing, you could screw your X server severely.
BTW, ATI cards have GL drivers, and their GL support (at least under windows) is solid, and has been for years. They’re another vendor to look at for a cheap card if you go the windows route (dunno if they have linux support yet?).
I’m not quite sure where dittohead gets the idea that ATI would not support OpenGL. They do. It would be stupid of them not to. If your going to go for an ATI I would go with the RADEON 9700 PRO overall it’s a more robust card than the 9000. If your going with an Nvidia get a Geforce 4 Ti series based card. Stay away from cards that are based on the Geforce 4 MX series. If price really is not an option then get a Quadro 4 900XGL. It is probly one of the best cards for 3d aplications right now. If you dont mind waiting then I would hold out for Nvidia’s next card that will surly top the 9700 pro which is probly the fastest card right now.
Well thats enough talking from me for now.
Jason
I think the lack of OpenGL support goes way back to to the Mach 64 cards. Even the Rage and Fury cards had it (but I hear it had a few holes).
The Radeons have it (i found several hits on the 7000’s I doubt they removed it for the 9000’s). And they are supported through Linux’s DRI interface, though I think the performace through DRI is slightly less than Nvidia’s proprietary drivers.
ATI has a seat on the OpenGL archatecture review board…
My ATI 7500 works like a dream: great fill rate, support for openGL, and awesome Blendering power. I think the only thing you need to stay away from is integrated graphics!!!