Workstation graphics cards for MAYA?

[california0071]

Can anyone recommend a quality workstation card for 3D Cg content creation in Maya by Alias WaveFront?

nVidia Quadro FX 1000, FX 2000 ?
nVidia Quadro4 900XGL?
ATI etc...

Thanks in advance all...
Max

[Spiritwalker]

check for vendor specific drivers for what you will be doing. I believe that ATM ATi has a Rendermonkey plugin for Maya which aids in pixel shaders. But overall the nVidia drivers are faster (at least in the benchmarks)

[Uttar]

Actually, for Maya, I'd suggest you to buy a Quadro FX.

SGI and nVidia got a strategic alliance, and Maya is really done by SGI, so they're incorporating all the Cg stuff in it ( among other things )

Now, whether you want a FX 500, 1000 or 2000 is a matter of budget, of course.


Uttar

[nVidi0t]

Even though I have not used a Quadro FX with Maya, I have heard good things about Maya with the Cg developers kit and the Quadro FX.

Which card are you using with Maya at the moment?

[nVidi0t]

Originally posted by Uttar
Actually, for Maya, I'd suggest you to buy a Quadro FX.

SGI and nVidia got a strategic alliance, and Maya is really done by SGI, so they're incorporating all the Cg stuff in it ( among other things )

Now, whether you want a FX 500, 1000 or 2000 is a matter of budget, of course.


Uttar

Is the Cg plugin included in the Maya 5 release?

They cant support nVidia too much, SGI have their own graphics boards to sell.

[Solomon]

Well if money is no object you might as well fork the cash for the Quadro FX.. Or if money is a concern, opt for the new budget Quadro FX 500 from PNY.

Regards,
D. Solomon Jr.
*********.com

[Nv40]

Originally posted by california0071
Can anyone recommend a quality workstation card for 3D Cg content creation in Maya by Alias WaveFront?

nVidia Quadro FX 1000, FX 2000 ?
nVidia Quadro4 900XGL?
ATI etc...

Thanks in advance all...
Max


ATI FIreGls ,doesnt support ANtialising point lines , this is a must have for accurate and very fast wireframes display ,and you need Solid
openGl drivers there . and a card with support for Hardware overlay planes ,Nvidia QUadros already have that. also maya5 support Nvidia Cg shaders ,and hardware rendering. Maya support other ninfty features that can be only used in Nvidia hardware. the same thing goes for Softimage XSI animation software .
.So ,if you will be using Maya for a living ,the best hardware for maya ,is quadroFXs is simply the best choice .the cons.. quadros are very expensive ,more than any other video card ,but you pay for what you get.

http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=IO_20030404_4242

if you dont have the money ,then a Geforce4 will be your best friend.

[bkswaney]

Originally posted by nVidi0t
Even though I have not used a Quadro FX with Maya, I have heard good things about Maya with the Cg developers kit and the Quadro FX.

Which card are you using with Maya at the moment?


Yep... :)
For Maya I would get a Q FX for sure. :)

[Behemoth]

nvidia professional cards are all good for maya, ati r300 based professional cards such as firegl x1 was still not qualified last time i checked aliaswavefront site in march/april, aliaswavefront was still waiting ati to resolve driver issues.

[nVidi0t]

ATI did do a *wonder driver* update for the FirGL series to keep up with the Quadro 4's which did give a good performance bump, but not near enough to put them on par with a Quadro 4/FX. And given the growing support for Cg and the FX cards in Maya, Quadro FX is the best option really.

Here's the Tom's article reviewing the new FirGL driver: http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030321/index.html

[Behemoth]

Originally posted by nVidi0t
ATI did do a *wonder driver* update for the FirGL series to keep up with the Quadro 4's which did give a good performance bump, but not near enough to put them on par with a Quadro 4/FX. And given the growing support for Cg and the FX cards in Maya, Quadro FX is the best option really.

Here's the Tom's article reviewing the new FirGL driver: http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030321/index.html
viewperf also made a *wonder revision* of version 7.1 that makes x1 and z1 performance dropped dramatically :D


The SPECopcSM project group made data changes to viewsets running under SPECviewperf 7.1 to discourage optimizations that benefit the benchmark, but might not improve real-world application performance. Since the SPECviewperf source and binaries have been upgraded to support some of these changes, no comparisons should be made between past results and current results for viewsets running under SPECviewperf 7.1.

[Behemoth]

this was what a support staff posted in the aliaswavefront forum on 03.12.03

Currently, the FireGL X1 is not qualified. We are waiting for ATI to resolve some of their video driver issues.


this was what a maya user posted in the same thread on 04.04.03
that sucks because I bought the oh so expensive Fire GL X1 because it was on the maya hardware supported list where it said there were no issues. It also has a problem displaying the brushes in the edit window. There outline get repeated all over the screen.

[Nv40]

Originally posted by nVidi0t
Is the Cg plugin included in the Maya 5 release?

They cant support nVidia too much, SGI have their own graphics boards to sell.


yes..
out of the Box ,Aliaswavefront Maya5 and other Highend aplications like
Softimage XSI 3 ,already support NVidia Cg.. NVidia worked with Both
companies in the design of new features for both programs.
the same thing goes for 3dmax animation software.
www.SGI.com have their own graphics board , but as far as i know ,they only work on SGI Computers. (no microsoft windows there) . that cost you and arm and Leg and a divorce . :)

[nVidi0t]

Originally posted by Nv40
yes..
out of the Box ,Aliaswavefront Maya5 and other Highend aplications like
Softimage XSI 3 ,already support NVidia Cg.. NVidia worked with Both
companies in the design of new features for both programs.
the same thing goes for 3dmax animation software.
www.SGI.com have their own graphics board , but as far as i know ,they only work on SGI Computers. (no microsoft windows there) . that cost you and arm and Leg and a divorce . :)

Thats great for Quadro users, I've got the Cg plugin, just cant toy around with it as I cant afford a Quadro ATM :(

Another cool thing is the new Maya release has pushed the prices of Maya 4.5/4.5 Unlimited down by over $2000 :D Must suck hard for the guys who paid $6999 for the full version!

Have you ever worked on an SGI machine? I wonder how much faster render times are on the SGI workstations (Fuel/Octane/Indigo) compared to a PC running a Quadro card. I would guess the SGI systems crush PC's for 3d stuff, since Maya was developed under IRIX and optimized for SGI systems.

I've seen some places selling second hand refurbished SGI systems for an arm and a leg. scratch the divorce.. maybe :)

BTW, SGI also have a range of Windows NT workstations shich use their graphics boards.. still costing a ton though.

[Nv40]

Originally posted by nVidi0t


Have you ever worked on an SGI machine? I wonder how much faster render times are on the SGI workstations (Fuel/Octane/Indigo) compared to a PC running a Quadro card. I would guess the SGI systems crush PC's for 3d stuff, since Maya was developed under IRIX and optimized for SGI systems.

I've seen some places selling second hand refurbished SGI systems for an arm and a leg. scratch the divorce.. maybe :)

BTW, SGI also have a range of Windows NT workstations shich use their graphics boards.. still costing a ton though.

about SGI performance , the company is using INTEL processors in some of their systems for price and performance reasons .
the main reason SGI machines can be faster is not because its IRIX 64bits Operating System ,but because their systems support multiple processors in a single case.

http://www.sgi.com/origin/3000/

but you dont need a QUadro board to learn graphics software and play with it , im currently using a geforce4 in MAYa . it works ok ,nothing
groundbreaking ,but does the Job . for Highend Profes$$ional Works its
a diferent story ,you can work there with so many Millions of Polygons
and with so many Textures ,that you need every single FPS possible from you video card ,wihout graphical errors,and with SOlid OpenGL drivers.
WHen Time is money ,then Professional boards is the way to go.

also you dont have to buy the software for learning.
All animation packages have a tryout FREE version ,with unlimited time
of use ,for students with tutorials...

here you can download the learning edition of Maya4.5 .
http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/products/maya/index.shtml

and here the learning edition of Softimage XSi 3.0
http://www.softimage.com/products/exp/v3/

both are great packages to learn...
Both packages are Good in everything ,the most complete in features
at the time.already games developers use those packages , idsoftware use Maya in Doom3 ,Valve use XSI in halflife2. so its a great oportunity to the
mod community to begin learning those packages ,because there are pluggins for each software to Export/import your models,levels and
textures in the game. :)

[nVidi0t]

I'm using my GF4 4600 with Maya ATM, and a fully lighted scene using Global Illumination with a 3000 face model (untextured) takes around a minute using Mental Ray at 1024 w/ production quality FSAA.

Man, I'd say it would take a GF4 a year or two to render a full 3d movie.

[nVidi0t]

Hey 3d guys, I found this cool little tweak while browsing the Futuremark forums, a GF4 to Quadro software upgrade.

It basically enables almost all of the Quadro 4 extenstions on your GF4 board, and will convert a Ti4600 into a Quadro 4 900 XGL.

Heres the link to the walkthrough and the files needed:

http://discuss.futuremark.com/forum/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=techdisplayadapters&Number=1447097&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=1

I haven't tried this upgrade yet as I am not at home but I'm going to do some comparison benchmarks using Maya and some games when I get to my machine.