Installation & update
About program installation and update, hardware, operating systems, setup, etc.

Quadro or FireGL? And which model?

ICEdevil
Newcomer
sooooo....Quadro or FireGL?

And which model would you reccomend for a PC that uses mainly ArchiCAD with openGL in 3D and some rendering done either with lightworks in archicad or artlantis (not that often) ?

Price range 3-400EUR max...
ArchiCAD 11 build 1210
ArchiCAD 12 Hotfix 3
AMD Athlon 64X2 3800+, 2 GB DDR, Nvidia geforce 6600GT, Win XP SP2
10 REPLIES 10
Laszlo Nagy
Community Admin
Community Admin
I would suggest that you go to a hardware review site and check out the reviews of these cards.
Get the one with the best OpenGL performance in your price range. I would not personally buy today a card with less than 512 MB of RAM.
Loving Archicad since 1995 - Find Archicad Tips at x.com/laszlonagy
AMD Ryzen9 5900X CPU, 64 GB RAM 3600 MHz, Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, 500 GB NVMe SSD
2x28" (2560x1440), Windows 10 PRO ENG, Ac20-Ac27
ICEdevil
Newcomer
laszlonagy wrote:
I would suggest that you go to a hardware review site and check out the reviews of these cards.
Get the one with the best OpenGL performance in your price range. I would not personally buy today a card with less than 512 MB of RAM.
been there...done that...

i was hoping for some user feedback specifically for the archicad environment...
ArchiCAD 11 build 1210
ArchiCAD 12 Hotfix 3
AMD Athlon 64X2 3800+, 2 GB DDR, Nvidia geforce 6600GT, Win XP SP2
Laszlo Nagy
Community Admin
Community Admin
ArchiCAD has no specific features that would make one or another graphics card more suitable for it. If the card has good enough OpenGL performance and enough memory, then it is good for AC.
Loving Archicad since 1995 - Find Archicad Tips at x.com/laszlonagy
AMD Ryzen9 5900X CPU, 64 GB RAM 3600 MHz, Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, 500 GB NVMe SSD
2x28" (2560x1440), Windows 10 PRO ENG, Ac20-Ac27
Anonymous
Not applicable
I've tried about 18 cards in the last year... anything that has 512mb ddr2 will probably do well, GPU core considered.

If you do a lot of large models, with glass and Utilities (sinks, toilets, rounded GSM objects) and tree models (we're talking a lot of polygons) then the FASTER the card, the better.

I've found that the consumer cards (I.E. cheaper) work great. AC does NOT need much to run at all... my 8400 GS in my portable laptop (1240x800) runs fine, but stutters on big models. The 8600 GT can handle anything so far. My 7900 GT/GS and GTX's can handle everything. The fire x1700 and up can do anything, as well as anything in the professional realm (but you don't need a pro card for AC!!!!).

If you can find a decent Geforce 8800 GT, you'll be very happy. Also the ATI 3850's are very cheap and run great too- but not quite as fast in 3d as the 8800's.

AC will run on my old ATI 8500 Radeon Pro's, and my 9700's no problem- and that's with 128mb !!! 10 story commercial buildings begin to move slow when orbiting though, so I turn off transparancy (make the windows opaque in your video settings for slower cards, and make the sky one color, not a BMP or image).

Again:
AC will run on consumer cards without problems- get the middle range or better (check tomshardware or something similar to see what that is). Unless you're working in Dubai, you won't notice or see the money spent on a pro card, in my experience. It's better to get two in SLI or CrossFire than 1 super expensive card, for sure.

Hope that helps.
vistasp
Advisor
JP-Design wrote:
I've tried about 18 cards in the last year...
Whoa! You own a computer store or something? 😉
= v i s t a s p =
bT Square Peg
https://archicadstuff.blogspot.com
https://www.btsquarepeg.com
| AC 9-27 INT | Win11 | Ryzen 5700 | 32 GB | RTX 3050 |
Anonymous
Not applicable
LOL!
No I just used to have a LOT of parts from various PC's I was working on fora side project I've been doing with OC'ing gear and custom silent liquid cooling system I designed for a science project some time ago. So I've tried all the hot cards and checked out modded bios' and ini files and really explored the limits of gear- and as a result, when working, I fired up each one at various points to check it in my usual apps (I used to make maps for games and render and needed the fastest gear money could buy to keep up).

I am a bit of a nerd. But are not most architects anyway?


...I mean we fiddle with pencils, paper and draw a lot, and sketch and doodle, and now
we use computers a lot
and sit around

=nerd.
LOL!
Laszlo Nagy
Community Admin
Community Admin
In Hungary, many architects like to think of themselves as artists, not technical persons.
Which is of course, totally understandable cause there is a lot of art and creation in architecture.
Loving Archicad since 1995 - Find Archicad Tips at x.com/laszlonagy
AMD Ryzen9 5900X CPU, 64 GB RAM 3600 MHz, Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, 500 GB NVMe SSD
2x28" (2560x1440), Windows 10 PRO ENG, Ac20-Ac27
Anonymous
Not applicable
I like this term "artists" more.
Yes.
Makes me miss the days before computers a bit, when one had to know how to draw well. Ahhhh... (yes I am older than I look in my pic- lol!). How I miss the grey stains on my hands from the paper and the quiet days spent drafting in a nicely lit office.

Now all a modern architect needs is a laptop and a pair of headphones and a laser to measure a site. The art is inside, yes?

henrypootel
Graphisoft Partner
Graphisoft Partner
Go for a Quadro 570 or 1700, and make sure you use the certified driver.
Josh Osborne - Central Innovation

HP Zbook Studio G4 - Windows 10 Pro, Intel i7 7820HQ, 32Gb RAM, Quadro M1200