CAD Programs

[dondo]

I am planning on buying a 9600 Pro 256 and I have a few questions. I use 3d CAD programs like Rhino 3d and 3d Studio Max and I was wondering if this card would aid in my final renderings so my CPU wouldnt have to do all the work and make it go faster. Is there much of a difference between the gamer cards and CAD workstation cards?

 

[cleeve]

Good professional 3d accelerators cannot accelerate actual render times. Whet they can do is accelerate the refresh rate (frames per second) of the model in the viewports.

The difference between gamer cards and professional cards is the drivers, which use the GPU in different ways. Drivers for FireGL cards are built to accelerate viewports in cad/3d programs, while their gaming counterparts accelerate games.

IN fact, there are driver hackers out there who have adapted professional drivers to work on their gaming counterparts, saving the user tons of cash...

THE ONLY EXCEPTION that I know of is the new quadro cards which have a special driver for Maya (if memory serves) that greatly accelerates viewport refreshes, even into the realtime realm and... I think (not sure).. rendering as well.

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Radeon 9500 (hardmodded to PRO, o/c to 322/322)
AMD AthlonXP 2400+ (o/c to 2600+ with 143 fsb)
3dMark03: 4055