Graphics Cards and Sketchup
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I have tried several times to glean some useful information from the Hardware Recommendations post concerning which graphics cards people have had good or bad luck with, and I just come away more confused and frustrated than ever. A post might or might not mention a specific graphics card, but almost none provide enough information to base a decision on. A survey gets mentioned but I can't find the results of the survey, unless the entire 24 page post is the "survey". I'm still trying to figure out which graphics card would work best with SU and my new computer, and I don't know any more now than when I started. Graphics cards are so central to using SU, and SU has been around for so long, it seems like by now there would be someplace where one can go to get some useful information.
I would very much appreciate any suggestions on the subject. Thanks in advance. -
Get a voodoo extreme card
Seriously, get the newest Nvidia card for PC gaming without SLI and check for opengl 4
support to cover future upgrades. Dont waste your money on a workstation graphic card
unless you use additional tools like 3dsmax/blender.In addition, the rumour mill states that SU may soon take advantage of newer hardware...When
I say newer, I refer to 2008 tech and not the current tech which runs rather well on Pentium 2 , 2gb of ram and Geforce 1
And if you are using Vray, get as many cpu cores as you can. Or just build your own
home render farm by purchasing second parts -
Hi Hellnbak -
I have a new Win7 box and it has a Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 in it. SketchUp absolutely flies on it.
Tyler Miller
Eng Manager - Google SketchUp -
@tyler miller said:
Hi Hellnbak -
I have a new Win7 box and it has a Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 in it. SketchUp absolutely flies on it.
Tyler Miller
Eng Manager - Google SketchUpHi Tyler
I appreciate the info. There seems to be about 3 dozen different models of the GeForce GTX 460. Can you be a bit more specific? Thanks. -
@hellnbak said:
There seems to be about 3 dozen different models of the GeForce GTX 460. Can you be a bit more specific? Thanks.
Nvidia (just like ATI, too)licenses it's products for different manufacturers - apart from the brand name there should be no difference whatsoever between the ones with the same chipset (VRAM amount, perhaps).
Anssi
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@anssi said:
Nvidia (just like ATI, too)licenses it's products for different manufacturers - apart from the brand name there should be no difference whatsoever between the ones with the same chipset (VRAM amount, perhaps).Anssi
Yes, I know that many manufacturers use the same Nvidia chipset. When I asked for more specifics, I was asking which particular model he was referring to, and the reason I asked that is, for example, on TigerDirect, where I get most of my hardware, there are about 50 different Geoforce GTX 460 graphics cards, varying in price from about 150 to 300 dollars. Underneath the meaningless "gee whiz" physical appearance they are not just carbon copies of one model, each maker uses tweaks and tricks to try to make their model stand out from the crowd, and while these differences are all built around the same Nvidia chipset, they could have an impact on how well it plays with SU. That was the reason for my original post, I wanted to know which particular cards SU users have had good luck with, or have had problems with.
While I have been building my own computers for a long time, I know that you don't have to be a computer genius to build one, and I don't want to come across like I know all the internal workings of each component. I'm far from that
. I'm just trying to maximize my chances of choosing a card that I can live with. If you say that I can choose from any of these cards and get the same results, I guess I'll just roll the dice and hope for the best.
I really appreciate your help and advice. -
@hellnbak said:
@anssi said:
Nvidia (just like ATI, too)licenses it's products for different manufacturers - apart from the brand name there should be no difference whatsoever between the ones with the same chipset (VRAM amount, perhaps).Anssi
Yes, I know that many manufacturers use the same Nvidia chipset. When I asked for more specifics, I was asking which particular model he was referring to, and the reason I asked that is, for example, on TigerDirect, where I get most of my hardware, there are about 50 different Geoforce GTX 460 graphics cards, varying in price from about 150 to 300 dollars. Underneath the meaningless "gee whiz" physical appearance they are not just carbon copies of one model, each maker uses tweaks and tricks to try to make their model stand out from the crowd, and while these differences are all built around the same Nvidia chipset, they could have an impact on how well it plays with SU. That was the reason for my original post, I wanted to know which particular cards SU users have had good luck with, or have had problems with.
While I have been building my own computers for a long time, I know that you don't have to be a computer genius to build one, and I don't want to come across like I know all the internal workings of each component. I'm far from that . I'm just trying to maximize my chances of choosing a card that I can live with. If you say that I can choose from any of these cards and get the same results, I guess I'll just roll the dice and hope for the best.
I really appreciate your help and advice.Some succinct points. Someone high up from the google team needs to email Tom's Hardware to get them to make a special SU only benchmark with a very wide test-range of cards.
Edit : Some of their benchmarks do include Blender, so why not SU?
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You're over analysing it. You want to choose a card that has lots of cores, and high fillrate within your budget.
As part of LightUp I see a lot of data points from users with different cards. Based on that, I'd always go for Nvidia over AMD/ATI as they consistently have less problems with their drivers wrt OpenGL. I know a few people who work at AMD who swear blind the ATI/AMD & OpenGL support with patchy drivers is a thing of the past etc, but I consistently see problems with AMD/ATI cards relating to hit'n'miss OpenGL support.
Certainly these monster GTX cards are not going to give you a performance bottleneck with SketchUp - ie any performance ceiling isn't going to be the GPU.
And I know I keep going on about it, but looking carefully at your workflow is more likely to accelerate your work rate than new hardware. But you know that already.
Adam
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the main differences are:
• clock rate / overclocking capability
• amount of vram
• speed of vram
• access to vramyou can, more or less, ignore all of them, go for an Asus or Gigabyte or PNY with the faster 256bit memory interface.
and keep in mind that these cards do require roughly 150-160W in peak, therefore your power supply unit should be capable in delivering this, i.e. at least ~300W in total.
hth,
Norbert -
@sketch3d.de said:
and keep in mind that these cards do require roughly 150-160W in peak, therefore your power supply unit should be capable in delivering this, i.e. at least ~300W in total.
Now that is a really good point.
Do check your power supply can handle these very hot running graphics cards. Many domestic PCs skimp on the power supply unit (PSU) to reduce costs. -
And investigate how much noise they generate. Some have sub-standard fans which cause annoying noise when you push it.
I've had to buy third party GPU fans to reduce noise in my systems. -
I have Win 7 64 Ultimate and (2) GTS 250 1 Gigabyte Video Cards running SLi
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I always advise Nvidia cards, but I do happen to have an ATI that came fitted to my current computer thats works very well with SU.
ATI Radeon HD 5750
1GB -
Dylan, I just noticed that you joined SketchUcation 11 minutes before I did...
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@unknownuser said:
...thats works very well with SU.
seems that OpenGL maturity of the ATI Catalyst driver iss getting better since several revisions now...
...and hardware delivers more GPU power as well as less power consumption than a GeForce in the same price range.
Norbert
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@krisidious said:
Dylan, I just noticed that you joined SketchUcation 11 minutes before I did...
I guess we must have been looking at the old @Last forum at the same time when Coen announced he was opening this place up
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Don't forget guys that this is the second SCF board already.
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Just ordered my new card - I went with the EVGA 01G-P3-1373-AR GeForce GTX 460 SuperClocked Video Card - 1024MB GDDR5, PCI-Express 2.0, Dual DVI, Mini HDMI, SLI, DirectX 11, Fermi. Here's hoping.
Thanks for all your help and advice. -
using a Geforce 9500GT with 1gb memory with 2 17" LCD's at 1280x1024 here with Su 7 and it's smooth and easy to use... and the 95' only cost me $45
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@gaieus said:
Re: Graphics Cards and Sketchup
by Gaieus on Mon Jan 17, 2011 12:45 pmDon't forget guys that this is the second SCF board already.
that's right... I lost a bunch of posts from the first forum... I was at like 2200
when was that like 2004? 2005?
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