Question re: graphics card

About Truespace Archives

These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.

They are retained here for archive purposes only.

Question re: graphics card // Hardware

1  |  

Post by leggetga // Jul 6, 2006, 10:14pm

leggetga
Total Posts: 7
Hi, I'm returning to 3D modelling/animation after a break and need to update my graphics card. I've narrowed it down to an ATI X800 GTO 256 mb and an X1600 Pro 512 mb, both AGP. Does anyone have an idea which card is best suited for Truespace?


Regards


Graham

Post by splinters // Jul 6, 2006, 10:33pm

splinters
Total Posts: 4148
pic
Nvidia drivers have been a bit hit and miss with TS7...ATI stuff is good and I am getting excellent results in TS7 with a Radeon 9800 PRO, so anything better than that will fine.

Post by leggetga // Jul 6, 2006, 10:44pm

leggetga
Total Posts: 7
Thanks for the information. I was originally looking for a 9800, but they've disappeared from the shops (even ebay) so I've had to look for an alternative. To be honest, I find the number of nvidia cards available just too confusing, which is why I looked to ATI. The information about the drivers is very useful, thanks.


Regards


Graham

Post by Tiles // Jul 6, 2006, 11:07pm

Tiles
Total Posts: 1037
pic
Be careful with the X1600 series. The Sapphire X1600 with 512 MB ram was also my dream card. But I currently have my bad experience with it. My dealer is a bit angry about me at the moment. Two X1600 cards tested, and both failed at my PC. One of them even died. Now he currently has my PC to find a card that works with my system ^^


Searching a bit around showed me that there are problems with this X1600 series in general, not with my hardware. It´s a hardware incompatibility problem in DOS mode. The solution would be a BIOS upgrade of the graphics card. Which I as the user would have to perform. No way. I would loose my guarantee. And in the worst case i would flash the card to death.


My advice would be to ask your dealer about this. Better invest a few bucks to let him test if the card works at your system. Or buy the X800 one.

Post by leggetga // Jul 6, 2006, 11:37pm

leggetga
Total Posts: 7
Tiles, thanks for the warning. I have read a few things about the card that have worried me and it's good to hear from someone with personal experience with the card. I have had a search for an X800 GTO only to find that everyone is out of stock! I will have to carry on with my old 32 mb card until they appear again.


Regards


Graham

Post by daybe // Jul 7, 2006, 1:46am

daybe
Total Posts: 562
pic
X800 looked good to me, I was looking around as well and finalling decided on the X700 pro agp card mainly because of price and it''s pretty good, has 256mb, almost as good as the x800 and so far no problems running games or truespace with it only problem I have is the fan is a bit load other than that no problems.


Cheers,

Post by leggetga // Jul 7, 2006, 2:56am

leggetga
Total Posts: 7
Thanks for the advice. Having shopped around, I haven't been able to find much in the way of AGP cards so I've decided to save some money and go for a slightly older ATI card, a 9600XT 256mb. It is less than half the price of an X800 and someone has one in stock! It should be an improvement over the 32mb geforce card I'm running with at the moment.


Thanks again


Graham

Post by daybe // Jul 7, 2006, 2:59am

daybe
Total Posts: 562
pic
That's a fine choice and for half the money even better, haven't used that card but it's quite popular as it was all the rage when it first came out.


Cheers,

Post by leggetga // Jul 7, 2006, 3:08am

leggetga
Total Posts: 7
Phew, I was expecting a "Truespace doesn't like 9600XT" message any minute. I've been using Truespace since version 4 but this is my first time on the forum. I'd better get my board installed and get cracking so I can get some work in progress up on the forum page.


Graham

Post by splinters // Jul 7, 2006, 6:10am

splinters
Total Posts: 4148
pic
As I implied already, TS7 loves ATi. I won my card as a loyal user so Caligari must have had some dealings with Ati on that one. I feel for those who had problems with Nvidia cards (drivers).

The 9600XT is a great card and if your machine is reasonably well specced, you will be amazed at how fluid it all moves in the player side...:D

Post by Tiles // Jul 7, 2006, 7:24am

Tiles
Total Posts: 1037
pic
I am/was using a Radeon 9600 XT for over two years now. No big problems here. Just some minor flaws. Finally the Catalyst driver 5.1 fixed this flaws. After one year. I was really surprised. I started to love them, LOL.


And so at least it did a good job here. It´s just that this model is really a bit outdated. I more and more hit the limits of it. I hate picture by picture in Solid mode. Or even crashes at loading when i had two small solid view windows left open from another session and try to load one of my huge scenes. The reason why i am in need for a new card at the moment ^^


I would suggest to have a look at ebay for an x800. Three generations between them. Which makes a big difference. Depends of your system though. What are your specs at the moment?

Post by hemulin // Jul 7, 2006, 9:35am

hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
pic
The 9600XT is a great card and if your machine is reasonably well specced, you will be amazed at how fluid it all moves in the player side...:D
I can second that. I run tS7 with a 9600xt (only 128mb) but it runs player fine:)

Post by leggetga // Jul 7, 2006, 9:24pm

leggetga
Total Posts: 7
I'm currently running a reasonably old system running on a Gigabyte GA-7DX motherboard, AMD Athlon 2.4 GHz processor with 1 Gb of PC2100 RAM. I flashed the board BIOS to accept the AMD chip and I think I've upgraded about as much as I can apart from switching to two 1 Gb RAM modules rather than the 512 mb modules I currently use (too expensive). Graphics is the only thing left to upgrade. By the sound of it the 9600XT should lead to some serious improvement over my current card and I can pick up an X800 or similar at a later date if I can find one at the right price. I'll let you know how things go with the 9600XT once I've had a chance to take a look. I think the most important thing, apart from improved performance, is stability and from what I've read here the ATI drivers look solid so I think I'll be happy.


Thanks, Graham

Post by xmanflash // Jul 8, 2006, 5:10am

xmanflash
Total Posts: 335
I recently bought a 9800GS card and that works wonderfully with the latest Nvidia drivers... Its a very good value card IMHO..

Post by TomG // Jul 10, 2006, 5:00am

TomG
Total Posts: 3397
Have to admit that on my system, using a 6600 card, the latest NVIDIA drivers (91.31 and 91.33 beta) cause serious problems in the real-time display in tS6.6 (and so also in the modeler in tS7, though not the Player).


I have had to roll back to 84.21.


The problems I am seeing occur when the camera is enclosed within 4 "walls", then objects start to flicker in and out of existence. Only begins in solid view, but once it starts, it affects accelerated wireframe too. Disabling and re-enabling DX puts the accelerated wireframe back to working.


In the beta team, others have not seen this problem as severely as in my tests, though they have seen related problems of flickering objects. If anyone experiences odd real-time displays in tS6.6, this might be worth investigating as a possible cause.


HTH,

Tom

Post by Alien // Jul 10, 2006, 6:54pm

Alien
Total Posts: 1231
pic
I'm currently running a reasonably old system running on a Gigabyte GA-7DX motherboard, AMD Athlon 2.4 GHz processor with 1 Gb of PC2100 RAM.

AMD didn't make a 2.4Ghz socket A Athlon, I'm guessing you mean the Athlon XP2400+ [2.0Ghz]?


PC2100?! yikes, that's gotta put a dent in your performance, then again, IIRC the 2400 only has a 333Mhz FSB anyway. IIRC the [s]lowest socket A chip with a 400Mhz FSB was the 2600, though it initially came out in a 333Mhz flavour I think.


I flashed the board BIOS to accept the AMD chip and I think I've upgraded about as much as I can apart from switching to two 1 Gb RAM modules rather than the 512 mb modules I currently use (too expensive).

You could always get 1 at a time, which is what I did. Ok, so you won't have the benefit of dual-channel [assuming your mobo has that anyway, I didn't look up its specs] whilst you only have 1 stick, but if you get PC3200 that'll compensate a bit in terms of performance, even if you can only run it at 333Mhz [2x166Mhz (the 2x thing is cos it's DDR)] instead of 400 [2x200Mhz], as opposed to 2x133, which is what you're on now with the PC2100 [unless you're overclocking it].


Graphics is the only thing left to upgrade. By the sound of it the 9600XT should lead to some serious improvement over my current card and I can pick up an X800 or similar at a later date if I can find one at the right price. I'll let you know how things go with the 9600XT once I've had a chance to take a look. I think the most important thing, apart from improved performance, is stability and from what I've read here the ATI drivers look solid so I think I'll be happy.

Well, a couple of people have said that the 9600XT is ok, but I have a 9600Pro in at the mo [not put my X800 GTO 256MB in yet], & TBH it kinda sucks for tS, both for the Player, & for D3D mode in Model [does alright with OGL in Model though]. I know you're thinking of a 9600XT, & not a Pro, but the XT is basically just a slightly higher clocked Pro, with not much higher performance [2000 MTexels/s fill rate, instead of 1600 - Whoopee! :rolleyes:]. Whereas the X800 GTO 256MB has a fill rate of 4800 MTexels/s (http://www.rojakpot.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=88&pgno=0). Not sure what country you live in, but if you're in the UK, Overclockers UK have still got some (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/ATI_AGP_Graphics_Cards.html) [last 1 on the page, right at the bottom]. BTW, it's on offer until Wednesday [their "This Week Only" offers start on a Thursday].


A couple of other points:

Not sure how much difference it makes in appearance in the Player [again, not put it in yet], but the X800 has Pixel Shader version 2.0b, whereas the 9xxx range only has version 2.0.


If you get that particular X800, you won't get that HSF [Heat Sink & Fan] shown in the picture. The cooler in the picture is, from a couple of reviews I read, quite nice, as well as fairly quiet. I'll let you know what this 1 is like when I've tried it.


Oh, 1 other thing - if you do decide to get an X800 GTO, don't get the 128MB version thinking that you don't need the extra memory - it's not the only difference. I can't remember what article I read it in, as it was a few weeks ago now, but apparently the 128MB version uses not only DDR1 instead of DDR3, but the memory is also clocked slower. Hmmm - now that I think of it... maybe that was the GT & not the GTO... :confused: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alien42/smilies/dunno.gif

Post by Alien // Jul 11, 2006, 11:29am

Alien
Total Posts: 1231
pic
Well, I've got my X800 GTO in now, & there's good news & bad news.

Bad news:

I made a mistake with the fill rate for the X800 GTO in my previous post - it's 4800 MTexels/s, not 8000, but it's still a significant improvement over a 9600XT [the extra memory bandwidth of the X800 doesn't hurt either ;)]


Good news:

much smoother movement in both the Player & Model D3D.

Also, it appears that this is 1 of the X800 GTOs that can have it's extra 4 pipelines unlocked [GTO only has 12, the XL & XT have 16] by flashing the BIOS, though I haven't decided whether I'm going to do it or not, as it'll void the warranty & could potentially kill the card if it goes wrong.

Post by leggetga // Jul 12, 2006, 10:59pm

leggetga
Total Posts: 7
As I said, my system is getting on a bit now so I'm just trying to squeeze out the last bit of performance before taking the plunge with a new PC. Thanks Alien for the X800 info and the supplier. I have my 9600XT on order now so I'll five that a go for a while before hopefully picking up an X800 or similar in a few months. To be honest, I don't use the realtime 3D to any major degree in my work and I'm happy setting most things up in wireframe. I guess previewing lights and shadow could be useful though. I've looked into RAM but I think my old GA-7DX motherboard can only take PC2100 boards. I think getting one 1GB board at a time might be a good idea. I've tackled some quite large projects in the past (I did the Breakfast Impossible animation for the contest a while back) with my current system so any improvements should make things a bit easier.


I like this forum by the way, a nice friendly, helpful bunch.


Regards


Graham

Post by splinters // Jul 12, 2006, 11:59pm

splinters
Total Posts: 4148
pic
I said the same thing about the realtime player throughout testing but, just lately, I have really come areound to the idea-it is excellent in use and I think you will be very suprised once you see it running on a good card.

Post by Tiles // Jul 13, 2006, 2:43am

Tiles
Total Posts: 1037
pic
Quick note about the X1600 with 512 MB Ram hassle i had. My dealer has put the weaker 256 MB pedant of it into my PC now. This one with less RAM works fine, except some minor flickering at bootup (ways less than the one with 512 MB Ram, and no black n white stripes in the dos bootpart). And this card is amazingly quiet. Let´s have a look how it works. I keep my fingers crossed :)
Awportals.com is a privately held community resource website dedicated to Active Worlds.
Copyright (c) Mark Randall 2006 - 2024. All Rights Reserved.
Awportals.com   ·   ProLibraries Live   ·   Twitter   ·   LinkedIn