Video GPU usage for LDT and Civil 3D

[seanmc]

Hi, my question has to do with performance of our video cards. I am looking for a way to justify the need and cost of higher performance video cards in our workstations. We are a civil engineering firm that has about 20 workstations, currently running LDD.. and getting ready to migrate to civil3d.
What I am hoping to find, is a tool that can show the amount of video resources being used in real time, both GPU and memory. Similar to the CPU and system memory displays that are readily available.

Benchmarks are great, but they are theoretical, and not the same as real world numbers. It would be nice to show management that when the systems choke, they are using 60% of CPU resources, and 100% of GPU resources... making it obvious that the GPU is the bottleneck.

Is there anything available to accomplish this?
Thanks!
~Sean

[Mike.Perry]

Hi

Take a look at Autodesk's "Certified Hardware" recommendations for AutoCAD 2007, that should give you a good idea of what you should be striving for...

AutoCAD "Certified Hardware" (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=7107053&linkID=2475161)

Have a good one, Mike

[Jordan Truesdell]

Be carful when you read the recommendations. I suggest that you not be drinking hot coffee at the time, as it really burns when it comes spurting out your nose ;-)

Sorry, but otherwise I don't know of a GPU realtime program, and I suspect if it existed it would be manufacturer - and probably card - specific. The only way around it is to try and "back" into the bottleneck by reviewing your CPU, network (if you run over the network) and disc usage (sorry, I'm drawing a blank on that one, too), and show that none of those is causing the slowdown.

[seanmc]

Thank you for the input... I am going with a mid-line autodesk recommendation (nvidia quadro FX1400 @ $500). I spose from there, I will do some of my own real world benchmarking to see if the benifits are really worth the extra money. Being an old school gamer, it's hard to look at the numbers when I can get a gaming card with twice the resources for half the money.... but I guess time will tell.

Thanks again!
~Sean

[awarren]

I have a 1400 to go card not real happy with it. But I talked to some people in the know that said it was a bad card for Nvidia and the newer version was premo...


I would just tell them look, you want me to produce this large topo map that is using 3D lines in it. I have to have something to be able to handle this. I was able to get card manufactures to send me a card for a demo for a week or two free of charge. Then you can do some hardware bench marks of your own. Grab the biggest subdivision you can find with the most drastic elevation changes. Then have about 5 more open in the back ground and try to do some drastic changes to the drawing.

At my last job I had just gotten the newest Nvidia card that cost around $1,400 with duel monitors, 512 ram nice big GPU. They took for ever to order everything and I ended up leaving about 2 days after we got civil 3D, so I never got to test it.

[thomas.stright]

Thank you for the input... I am going with a mid-line autodesk recommendation (nvidia quadro FX1400 @ $500). We have that card in 4 new HP's we got. 3.8Ghz HT, 2gigRam, 80gig HD. Each box was 1800 New.

Can't be more happier with them, Running Twin 21's at 2560x1024 at the moment.

[jpfsiglo]

I'm working with an old Quadro 3000 in P4 2.8HT and i'm happy with it.

If you can wait... wait for the quadro 1500 , it is faster than 1400 and only a little more expensive. Normaly nVidia new mid level is faster than old high end and the 1500 is faster than the 3400 and have more memory than 1400 (256 versus 128).

In europe it sells for only 30€ more than 1400 but you have to wait to mid May to get it.