Video Card Recommendation?

[david.kingham]

I'm very tired of slow panning and crashing that is occuring with my current video card, looking to spend $150-200....any ideas?

[rodneyf]

Look into the Nvidia Quadro series. We have just upgraded our video cards to the PNY Nvidia Quadro FX700 which are around $500 but we were considering the PNY Quadro FX500 for around $200. Since installing these cards we have had not one crash or hiccup what so ever. Hope that helps.

[robert.1.hall72202]

I do not understand the price of video cards these days. If you do your homework, it is more cost effective to buy a brand new PC with the video card you want already installed.
I agree that the Nvidia Quadro series is great. Make sure the card you choose has decent memory.

[FK]

Yawn... the usual. Huge video RAM is for games, 64 megs is more than enough for Revit.

[david.kingham]

So if ram is not the answer than what is? What specs to look for?

[Scott Hopkins]

Yawn... the usual. Huge video RAM is for games, 64 megs is more than enough for Revit.
Does huge video RAM help with rendering speed in Accurender or Viz?

[aaronrumple]

Doesn't help with rendering speed, just the real time display of models on screen in Viz. Inventor needs a good video card and makes good use of it.

[FK]

So if ram is not the answer than what is? What specs to look for?
Pristine bugless OpenGL implementation. It's more like a reputation, rather than a spec. NVidia has been good in that respect.

[Paul Monsef]

I'm very tired of slow panning and crashing that is occuring with my current video card, looking to spend $150-200....any ideas?
I just purchased a "VisionTex Extasy 9200";it works great and it's under $80.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=81896&WT.mc_n=57&WT.mc_t=U

[Scott Hopkins]

I just purchased a "VisionTex Extasy 9200";it works great and it's under $80.
I (http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=81896&WT.mc_n=57&WT.mc_t=U) bought the same card about 6 months ago. It works great with Revit.

[david.kingham]

Are you guys using dual monitors with that card?

[Paul Monsef]

Are you guys using dual monitors with that card?
I am not... I have one VX910 attached!!

[Wes Macaulay]

Hey, c'mon guys - this thread is putting Fedor to sleep. Next question, please...

[Roger Evans]

What do you expect when he works from bed?

[FK]

Bedroom rocking armchair, actually.

[cadkiller]

Fedor;

If video ram is not an issue for Revit, than why does my system crash when I have too many windows open at once? Does that have more to do with my system's ram?

Also what is causing my display problems that I'm having that I mentioned before on this thread?

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=14739

[Paul Monsef]

Bedroom rocking chair... there's no hope.

He's out. ;)

[Wes Macaulay]

What do you expect when he works from bed?Ooh - Roger: <rim shot> :lol:

[Scott Hopkins]

Yawn... the usual. Huge video RAM is for games, 64 megs is more than enough for Revit.
Would it be advantages to have more than 64 megs of video RAM for displaying shadows and rotating around a model with shadows turned on?

[david.kingham]

BTW Thanks Paul and Scott, I got that card and it works great

[Wes Macaulay]

Would it be advantages to have more than 64 megs of video RAM for displaying shadows and rotating around a model with shadows turned on?I suspect not, since there's no bitmaps being applied to the model. If we could spin a fully rendered model, well that might be a recipe for more video RAM!

[Wes Macaulay]

I cheap card that works with Revit is an nVidia FX5200 - preferably not by MSI. Aopen makes good ones, and this model really is a cheap card. I believe the Sketchup people also like Asus nVidia cards.

[rookwood]

Fedor;

If video ram is not an issue for Revit, than why does my system crash when I have too many windows open at once? Does that have more to do with my system's ram?

Also what is causing my display problems that I'm having that I mentioned before on this thread?

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=14739

What do you mean by 'crashing'? Does your system freeze or does Revit shut down? Revit is not RAM intensive like some image programs such as Adobe Photoshop. It is, however, CPU intensive, and while rendering can and will create 100% CPU usage.

Frequently I will have Revit, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Outlook and Excel open simultaneously and will experience display problems and a severe slowdown in computer response time. My problem is that I have overloaded my systems resources. You can find out if this may be your problem by opening the Windows Task Manager. Go to the second tab, PROCESSES, and look at the number of processes you currently have running (locate number at the bottom left side of the window). Windows x32 can efficiently handle 10 - 30 processes. I have 68 -75 at any given time.

I am using a notebook computer since I travel a lot and consequently have a lot of programs running at startup. It would be simpler if I used a dedicated workstation computer. You can run msconfig from the RUN menu and change to SELECTIVE STARTUP if you think this may be the cause of your problems.

There are great changes just over the horizon in both hardware and software technology. In the next 18 months you will see Windows Longhorn, dual core processors, the transition to 2.5" 15,000 RPM hard drives and new ways of allocating RAM. These will alleviate, if not remove, many of the current issues we all experience while using RAM and CPU intensive software.

[FK]

Revit is not RAM intensive? That's a new one. It already incorporates cutting-edge RAM management, but if you've got a complex model, it's got to live somewhere...

The number of processes is not that important. I bet what happens is that you run out of Windows internal resources (GDI/USER). Every piece of UI takes up some, so with many programs running simultaneously you can use them all up.

[cadkiller]

When I say Revit crashes, I mean that the program shuts down. I'm not running any other programs when this happens. I open up too many views of the model within Revit at the same time. I get display problems after about 6 windows or more and have to refresh my screen for the display to be viewed correctly. Revit crashes if I have a dozen or more windows open. I also get frequent error messages that the window display of a view can not be opened for some strange reason. I try to keep how many windows I have open to a minimum.

I'm holding off with purchasing a new system until they come out with all this new technology. I hope that resolves many issues that I currently have. Revit support says they can't help me because they don't support dual monitor cards. I wish Revit would test video cards and provide a list of certified cards like they do for Autodesk Inventor. I also wish they would provide support for dual monitors.

If Revit is not Ram intensive then why does it require 1 GIG of Ram as a minimum?

[david.kingham]

You need a different video card cadkiller, revit seems to be very picky, I was crashing all the time from all kinds of random ****, I haven't crashed once since I got this new card that paul and scott recomended. It's not video ram thats the problem, It's opengl

[FK]

Tried tweaking Options -> Graphics switches?

[Lashers]

All that said, can anyone reccomend any of todays crop of cards? and/or Nvidia or ATI?

[muttlieb]

All that said, can anyone reccomend any of todays crop of cards? and/or Nvidia or ATI?


HERE (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=17157) is a good thread.

[rookwood]

Revit is not RAM intensive? That's a new one. It already incorporates cutting-edge RAM management, but if you've got a complex model, it's got to live somewhere...

The number of processes is not that important. I bet what happens is that you run out of Windows internal resources (GDI/USER). Every piece of UI takes up some, so with many programs running simultaneously you can use them all up.


FK;

I don't consider Revit RAM intensive when I compare it to image editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop. I don't seem to have any issues with Revit, except while rendering and my CPU usage is running at 100%. However, I can run out of RAM (1GB installed) and stall my system when working on large files in Photoshop. When I began using Revit, I obtained the book 'Introductory Courseware for Autodesk Revit 6.1' by Cyril Verley, who I understand was affiliated with Revit. In his Introduction listing hardware requirements, he states that although 2-4 GB DDR RAM is preferred, 256 MB is the minimum for single user projects. Obviously more is better and rendering would require more, but I would think any program that can operate at 256 MB would not be considered RAM intensive. Is it due to the RAM management you speak of? I've had this discussion on one of the notebook forums while trying to put together a new laptop and getting information on graphic cards. It was surprising to me how many users are operating Revit and 3ds Max with as little as 512 MB RAM, which by todays standards is indeed minimum.

The information I passed on regarding the video/screen issue was given to me by Dell Technical Support in response to video/screen problems I was experiencing. Whether Dell was correct in their assessment of the effects due to excessive processes, I do not know. Their recommendation did, however, resolve my problems.

[rgecy]

I think what they are saying on the Memory side, is that Revit is not Video RAM intensive. It certainly demands a fair amount of system RAM. But I don't think a high end graphics card is the answer. A good example, I was running a 64MB NVidia Geforce 4 MX 440 and got a Bench Mark of 109. I went out today and bought a 256MB NVidia Geforce FX 5200 and got a bench mark of score (several tries) of 113, 109, and 108! Ultimately no improvement! I went back out and bought an ATI 128MB Radeon and got my highest benchmark of 114.94. Still, not that much improvement for the money! But the 128MB Radeon outperformed the 256MB NVidia!

Also I opened the Task Manager while running the Bench Test. My CPU was pegged at 100% the whole time, while system memory only used about 356MB of my 1GIG.

System Specs: Sony Vaio P4 2.66ghz, 1GIG Ram, 200GB UATA133 HD, Win XP Home, and 128MB ATI Radeon 9200.

So, Rendering definately puts more strain on the Main CPU than it does on the Video Card or System Memory. Obviously the Dual Processor workstaions with the Xeon Processors absolutely kick but in this aspect. Certainly an AGP 4x or better graphics card with 128MB or better is recommended! (Especially for large projects!)

I guess what I am trying to say is, any decent graphics card will do. But you don't need some $400 Video Card to render in Revit. What you need is a Dual Processor machine that can chew on a bunch of data all at once and spit it out begging for more!

As far as which card, ATI Radeon, ATI FireGL, NVidia (name brand) GeForce or any PNY with NVidia GeForce chipset. Stay away from the BFG's!

Just my 2 cent! Hope this helped!

RGecy

[Lashers]

HERE (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=17157) is a good thread.
Muttlieb, thanks - that got me to where I needed to be! Its building weekend here! All my new stuff arrives tommorrow!!!

[Kevin Janik]

Is the 128MB ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M w/Hypermemory a card that can be used with Revit for a laptop?

Kevin

[Wes Macaulay]

We haven't seen any reports on it. But be aware: this is an IGP (integrated graphics processor) which means that it shares memory with your RAM, which is slower than cards that have their own memory on the card.

It may work, but there is no guarantee. Ask what your options are if the card doesn't work with OpenGL and Revit.

[iru69]

Is the 128MB ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M w/Hypermemory a card that can be used with Revit for a laptop?
The x200m uses Hypermemory (similar to nVidia's Turbocache) which is a marketing term for... being cheap. 128MB Hypermemory is really 32MB video ram and 96MB shared system ram. Since a technology like Hypermemory actually works pretty well, and having a ton of video ram (apparently) isn't very important when using Revit, that wouldn't be my main concern.

ATI seems pretty quiet on the "benchmarks" of the x200m - however, I understand it to be a derivative of the x300 and similar in performance. The x300 is at the bottom of ATI's current Radeon lineup.

While I don't have any personal experience with those ATI cards, benchmarks would indicate that you can't go much lower with a modern chip. When that's all you have, it will probably suffice. However, if you're putting a considerable investment into a new laptop that needs to last you a few years, I'd suggest aiming a little higher. And unlike a desktop, it's not just a matter of switching out the card. As an IGC, upgrading later is probably not an option. But check with the manufacturer and as Wes suggested, also find out what their exchange policy is.

[ita]

Lashers, I installed a GIGABYTE RADEON X700 PRO after some trials with a number of cards (about 6 or 7 in fact) over 3-4 months, and initially it looked good. Now I have the feeling it is a shaggy dog and now I am not sure how you find out what works best with the hardware in the box after having our hardware supplier go along with some real time trials.

The issues? With a P4 3600 on a D915GEV M/board - which Intel says is the best fit - - - it just takes leave . . .of everything. The entire system seems to freeze, yet the task manager is running (usually one processor @ 70% capacity and the other @ 20%) and RAM (2Gb) is only using between 10% and 25% of capacity.

Usually have 2 or 3 apps open and the Revit views open are 10 to 20 - rarely 3D views except for the {3D} window.

After much questioning and observation, I can only put it down to the video card. :-( Any suggestions welcome at this stage.:-)

[Wes Macaulay]

I have that precise motherboard in my workstation. But I'm using the ATI FireGL V3100. We're also hearing that the PNY Quadro 540 is a good card too.

I sent my Gigabyte card back after it refused to work with Revit...

[ita]

Wes, thanks for that recommendation. I took your advice and have replaced the X700 Pro with the ATI FireGL V3100 and the response is markedly improved.

[iru69]

Wes, thanks for that recommendation. I took your advice and have replaced the X700 Pro with the ATI FireGL V3100 and the response is markedly improved.
Maybe you'd care to add that card to the Revit Wiki? I'm trying to establish a list of video cards that work with Revit (that's a little more organized than what's currently on the forum). There's officially no ATI cards entered yet (though there may be by the time you read this ;))...

http://wiki.tripleddesign.com/index.php/RB_Hardware_ATI