!Restored: new graphics card or a new computer?

[Anonymous]

One my current system working on 3D shaded renders can be painfully slow. This system is has an AMD 2400+ processor, 1.5GB of ram, a Matrox G450 Max dual head graphics card and two 21" Nokia analog CRT monitors.
I am considering getting a new graphics card, maybe a Matrox Parhelia 128 or 256, in the hope that the new card will speed things up. Today, I was told that I should look at getting a faster/newer computer rather as rendering happens in the processor not the graphics card. This is confusing to me.
Can anybody tell me if I could expect faster rendering speeds if I were to put a Matrox Parhelia on my current machine?
Part of the reason that I want the Parhelia is because I own 3) 21" monitors (analog CRTs) and would like to hook all of them up at some point.
Thank you,
John

[Anonymous]

This depends on the kind of rendering you mean. AFAIK the graphics card only accelerates OpenGL, the ArchiCAD internal engine as well as most (or all?) other rendering programs will depend on the speed of the processor(s) involved.

[Anonymous]

I just finished ordering a Matrox Parhelia 256mg graphics card. The Person that I talked to at Matrox said that I would see faster rendering because the card has an onboard GPU (Graphics Processing Unit?). He said that I should see faster rendering because the oboard GPU does some or all of the 3D rendering. It is all stuff that I really don't understand but I can return the card to Matrox if I don't like it.
Thanks,
John

[Anonymous]

Tell us how it works out. Inquiring minds want to know.

[Anonymous]

I wouild have ditched the Matrox card. I've had bad luck with any Matrox card using CAD 3D apps. Matrox cards seem best equipped for those Wall Street dudes who use multi- monitors for watching stocks and other financial stuff.
Even a decent Nvidia or ATI gaming card is better in Archicad.
I'm using a Nivida Quadro FX1100 and it works flawless. Also the ATI FireGL X1 is pretty good too.

As far as your current rig.....you have plenty of memory which is good. Look At dual CPU rigs....Xeons, AMD.
You could easily build your own dual AMD rig using your current XP2400 cpu along with buying another same type cpu. I've done it 4 times already.
All of our main cad rigs are dual cpu and we'll never go single cpu again.
so much smooother working especially when you mulit task like we all do.

[Anonymous]

Matthew,
I installed the Matrox Parhelia 256 today. Before installing the card I clocked a couple of different shaded renders with the old card so that I'd have a benchmark for the new card.
Basically, the results were either no faster or a bit faster. We then tried a shaded render on another machine, a new Sony, with a 3.02 mhz P4 and about the same amount of ram. The Sony has the original stock ATI card that it came with and a single 21" monitor.
The Sony completed the shaded renders in just about half of the time as my machine with the Matrox Parhelia. I'm returning the Matrox card and starting to shop for a new computer. I've nursed and rebuilt this one long enough.

Antonin,
Thanks for the sugestion. I once had a dual AMD machine that smoked but I am considering buying a single or dual xeon machine from a supplier like Dell. We are pretty busy in the office and I'd like to minimize my time buying and/or building and/or servicing the computer that I'm working on. I'll keep you recommendation in mind.

ANY RECOMMENDATIONS:
We aren't rendering anything to terribly complex and need to really get more rendering speed as well as much more powerful machines for manipulating our 3D models. Currently, we have some site models that we cannot use because they bog down our machines.
We would like to know what sort of machine other office are using? Are you happy with them? Are they fast enough, powerful enough?

Thank you,
John

[Anonymous]

Has anyone done any benchmarks (or even casual comparisons) between late model Pentium, Athlon, and POWER (G5) machines? I would be curious to know how they compare for VERY large projects.

Perhaps Graphisoft could do some comparisons (assuming they have any G5s around) if it doesn't run afoul of some business relationships or NDAs.

[Djordje]

johncassel wrote:
We aren't rendering anything to terribly complex and need to really get more rendering speed as well as much more powerful machines for manipulating our 3D models. Currently, we have some site models that we cannot use because they bog down our machines.

You cannot use them for work, the renering of an image takes too long, or the OpenGL movement is impossibly slow?

Rendering to image/VR/movie is one thing, where your processor make/speed and RAM quantity are the biggest factors - the more the merrier.

Interactive work in 3D window in OpenGL is almost exclusively the field of the video card - again, the more the merrier, and today nVidia and ATI are leading the game. Dell favours nVidia, I have ATI in my hp at work and and home, both are without a glitch, with a smal exception of ATI that waits for the model rebuild before it reacts (feels like AC froze). After that, real time it is.

johncassel wrote:
We would like to know what sort of machine other office are using? Are you happy with them? Are they fast enough, powerful enough?

No such thing as fast and powerful enough 😉 At work, I am on hp xw4100, Pentium 4 3.02 HT, 1GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9800 128MB and it is pretty good.

[Anonymous]

Djordje wrote:
You cannot use them for work, the rendering of an image takes too long, or the OpenGL movement is impossibly slow?

Well, both are too slow. Most of the time working on a model in plan view is just fine.

That is until I tried modeling a site model for a subdivision. I was not able to finish modeling the site. After I had created the block mesh and began to add contour lines each new contour line would cause my computer to take longer and longer to respond. This was while working in plan view before I even had a chance to render to beast.

I will at some point try recreating the model with fewer points on each contour line and see if I can get it to work that way.

I'm also experiencing difficulty in rendering time. Currently, I am working on a house on a modeled site that we need to render showing cars and people in the model. Using the Internal Engine for rendering with sun shadows turned off the model takes 5 to ten minutes to render--that is too long. BTW I modeled this site with fairly few contours and fairly few points on each contour. I will eventually need to render this model with sun shading on as well as other renders at night with the house lights on.


You mentioned rendering using OpenGL. I have not used OpenGL much. The last time I tried was about six months ago and the colors were funky compared to what were used to when rendering with the internal engine. Can you tell me more about using OpenGL or point me toward more information about the pros and cons of OpenGL vs. the Internal Engine.

All this and I haven't even begun to use ArchiCAD’s PhotoRender. I am pretty new to ArchiCAD. Most of my experience is using formZ which has many similar issues when it comes to rendering and modeling.

My workmates and I are always hoping that there will be a magic bullet that allows for fast modeling and rendering. 3D Studio was supposedly coming out with a revolutionary new render engine that made rendering and lighting a breeze. I haven't used it yet, but I'll be curious to try it.


Thanks for your recommendation about the nVidia card. Based on Antonin and your recommendations I'm looking at maybe a Nivida Quadro FX1000 or FX1100 in my new machine.

Thank you,
John

PS As I wrote this an architect from the bay area wandered into our office. He uses ArchiCAD on a G5 and says he has the same issues of speed and power. He did mention some third party software for site modeling called Terra...something from Italy. Have you had any experience with this software?

[Anonymous]

Matthew wrote:
Has anyone done any benchmarks (or even casual comparisons) between late model Pentium, Athlon, and POWER (G5) machines? I would be curious to know how they compare for VERY large projects.

Perhaps Graphisoft could do some comparisons (assuming they have any G5s around) if it doesn't run afoul of some business relationships or NDAs.

Matthew,
Over on the formZ forum we started a benchmark test that gave us a really useful compairison of the different system's performances with one common file as the test subject. We turned of the machines and started the software with nothing else running and clocked the machine's time to open the file and then the time it took to do a render. We all set our machines for the same rendering settings.
We kept doing the tests for over a year and kept updating the results to the forum. It has been a really handy tool.

Lets start something like that here.
John