4GB is probably excessive - programs are limited to 2GB anyway, there's the /3gb switch to get that up to 3gb, but you'll probably never need to use it.

I would buy an additional 2x1GB and get up to 2.5 GB. spend the ~$260 you'll save on more fast hard drives to divide up the workload (OS on one, programs installed on another, files on another, scratch discs/pagefile on another...)

you can probably get a quadro 3400 for under $500 on ebay. a 1400 might be better price/performance though.

Having all those different hard drives would probably be overkill in my case, but what I'll most likely do is have the internal C: drive for the OS and program files, and then an external hard drive for all the data files. I'll be getting a laptop at some point within the next year, so having the external HD would make it easier to transfer files to/from the main PC and perform backups. Each drive would be around 160 GB or so, so there shouldn't be any shortage of space. (On my current setup, my OS, programs, and data files combined take up less than 40 GB.)

Thanks for the info about the RAM and graphics cards...

I would not upgrade the RAM to 4GB. Many higher performance machines run fine with 512MB, while the consumer machines seem to advertise larger RAM to get at your wallet. If your processor can't handle it, what would a large RAM actually do for you? Start with the 1GB and see how it works with the 800FSB and then go from there. 800 is pretty fast but probably does not warrant 4GB. Maybe 2GB would help, but 1GB could be all you need.

That Quadro 1400 ain't great. I've got one in my newer workstation.

I'd look at the Geforces or a really good Quadro (but max sucks so bad with OpenGL that it's hardly worth it), if you want to spend a ton.

I am with mana - 2gigs or so should do. I run close to using 2gigs all the time, but have never exceeded it.

Go for faster drives. I'd have at least one internal that is at least a regular 7200. The external ones are great for backups, but won't be as fast as the internal.

Gotcha... Thanks

More RAM, and adding another SATA drive is so easy, I did mine internal. My P4 3.2 chokes often on the 1 gig that I have now .I usually run photoshop, illustrator, dreamweaver, pano-stitching software, sketchup, not all at once, tho ;). But I am often rendering something in the background while I do other things, and 1 gig is NOT enough.

adding a 10,000 rpm drive as your system drive will also help your system run faster...Western Digital makes the Raptor which I have in two machines and they run wonderfully.

Question about dual-monitor setups:

For the first monitor, I plan to get a 20" flat panel LCD, with 1600x1200 resolution (IIRC). This will set me back roughly $500.

For monitor #2, I'm thinking of getting a smaller monitor that's roughly 15" or 17", for around $250-300.

The way I see myself working is having the primary monitor as my main drawing window, while the secondary monitor would be used for toolbars, paletts, DesignCenter, etc. Thus, the secondary monitor wouldn't need to be as big or costly as the primary monitor.

However, I've also seen workstations set up with two monitors of equal size, which I would presume is useful for having, say, AutoCAD open on one desktop and 3D Studio open on the other.

Is this realistic, and is it really worth the extra expense? What's your preference?

I have said this is way too many threads, but I'll say it again. Avoid GeForce at all costs. 3d Models will disappear from your screen. Doesn't matter which GeForce you have. Doesn't matter how much you pay. All GeForce are not recommended for 3d modeling.

garpike, enough.

geforce cards are fine for 3d. not the best, but fine.

Your disappearing model problem is either:

a) you got a bunk card (which happens with all electronics)
b) something was screwy with YOUR drivers or settings (graphics drivers are very fickle and are easily messed-up)

LIG:
I have a similar setup, but with CRTs (22" 2048x1536 and a 17" 1280x1024 secondary)

I generally don't like putting toolbars on my secondary monitor...sometimes it feels like a long way for the mouse to travel just to click a button - I find it faster to set/learn keyboard shorcuts

I like it for things like material editors in 3d programs (where if my mouse travels over there it'll stay for a while) and picture viewers/firefox (so I can reference scans, photos, and webstuff as I work)

the benefit I can see to having two monitors of equal size is that it's more "balanced" - it would be easier to work in multiple programs at once without resizing the window when dragging from one monitor to the other. It'd be nice, but certainly not necessary. If you're buying both monitors and not simply relegating an old one to secondary duties, it's probably worth it if you see yourself working that way often.

manamana,

GeForce is not fine for 3d. And no there are no problems with my card. In fact it is over 3 years old and in tip top shape. The plain truth is:

"There are many cards based on GeForce256, GeForce2, GeForce3 and GeForce4 chipsets. Nvidia and Alias do not recommend these cards for use with Maya as you may experience various refresh, display and stability problems and inadequate performance.

"We suggest you choose from Nvidia's workstation cards instead, such as the Quadro families which are much better suited to high-end 3D packages such as Maya."

... and I believe every word of it.

Taken from Alias

Maya works fine for me on my geforce 6800

excuse me, it's a 6600 GT...and it is working fine with Maya...version 6 that is.

I guess the claim is, Alias and pals don't support anything but Quadro and FireGL. So, if you have an issue and call tech support they can't/won't help. I guess it's sort of like using a third party battery in your cell phone. So if the battery shorts your phone, the manufacturer won't fix it. So if you have problems related to GPU performance, Alias don't care none.

Mine worked fine for about a year, and then, conveniently before a deadline the model disappeared from my screen. I researched the driver and found I was using the best version (not always the latest). That didn't help. It still works for Maya, but occasionally the model disappears from the screen. I have used Maya 5, 5.5, and 6 all with the same effect.

My laptop has a cheap ATI Radeon and as never given me problems. It is going on 3 years.

Hasselhoff, I am impressed that you have purchased a copy of Maya.

Interesting.

So I take it the thousands of people using geforce cards with a variety of 3d apps (including maya) are having problems and they just don't know it?

Somehow I doubt that.

Here's the scoop:

Alias recomends quadro cards because nvida pays them to certify the cards and drivers. It's part of the reason quadro cards are more expensive than geforces (but mostly it's just because they can) - the hardware itself is 99.9% identical - it literally is a couple drops of solder that separate the two)

the quadros are simply "allowed" to use a greater spectrum of openGL commands through their drivers - things which improve performance or provide certain features, like hardware accelerated line antialiasing. not having these features isn't the end of the world, despite what nvidia wants you to believe. quadro features are perks and not in any way critical to the functioning of a particular program - the worst case scenario is lower performace. if it was critical, that would be an absurdly poor business decision on the part of alias - they would have a much smaller market...

I love their warning...nice and scary, yet not usefully specific in any way, shape, or form...

the truth is, it's quite easy to experience any of the things they list on ANY graphics card. Graphics drivers are very, very complicated.

quadros are certainly better, but a geforce will do fine on a budget.

Repeat after me: "just because I had a problem does not mean there is a universal flaw"

This is rapidly becoming manamana's 1st law of computing.

And to further the paranoia, Nvidea makes some of the GeForce cards fail in a way described on Alias' website.

I am not saying I don't use the GeForce I am stuck with. I am simply warning others of what can happen. Again, I fully trust Alias' warning now. I see no foul play whatsoever.

"the worst case scenario is lower performace"

I would say worst case scenario is model disappearing from your screen.

Or to be technical, a refresh problem.

School site license. I don't use Maya though.

Oh. I was going to say! But I guess it is possible.

if it worked fine for a year, it has nothing to do with it being a geforce card or not having access to professional openGL features.

somehow your drivers/registry/maya install got messed up. windows update, old drivers didn't uninstall cleanly, new software modified the registry...the list of potential causes is nearly endless.

The official, codefied manamana's 1st law:

A problem ye had doth not a universal flaw make.

as i mentioned somewhere before, we just got a dell xps for the office with a nvidia geforce 6800GT 256 MB, and it runs maya without a flaw, my workstation has a quadro FX, and i dont see any problems with the geforce. Ive opened large maya models that id made using the new comp and everything runs just fine. I used to think that the geforces are inferior to the quadros, but thats just bullshit propogated by Alias etc.

garpike, did you try buying a new geforce card and putting it in, then trying? the geforces are not very expensive these days, and you can always buy one, try it out and return it if it dont work!

It might also be a problem with your shading vertices??

I don't think I'll be putting any time or money into that computer. My laptop works great for Maya. I maintained the driver listed on many Maya user sites that typically "helped" the problems. What is weird is wireframe models disappear too. The viewport and grid remain intact, just no object.

Either way, once bitten... I am done with GeForce.

could you have inadvertently changed a setting? max has a toggle (I think it's 'o') that changes the models to boxes when you rotate. Took me forever to track down what I did by mistake.

My next question:

Is there a quick and easy way to transfer 20 GB of data from the old computer to the new computer? I was planning on burning everything to DVD-R (which would have the added benefit of giving me a long-overdue backup copy), but for some reason my DVD+RW drive isn't recognizing any DVD-R disc I put into it.

Right now my options look like:

1) Buy an external DVD+RW drive and use that to burn the discs.

2) Pulling the old hard drive out and setting it up as a slave in the new computer, copying the files, and then putting it back into the old computer afterwards.

Option 1 would require me to spend yet more money, and Option 2 seems like a major hassle.

Is there some easy way I can run a LAN or USB cable between the two machines and transfer the data that way? I've never set up a network before.

trace, it is definitely an issue with the card. When you rotate the model it flickers.

Living in Gin, Dell offers cheap software that allows for the transfer through USB or other ports.

And XP has the transfer built right in, I've done this on 3 computers now and it works like a charm. Only thing, If you use firefox you might have to export your bookmarks to a file in order to re-import them.

It works though a LAN port without having to set up an actual network so you should be fine.

Go to start menu -> all programs -> accessories -> system tools -> file and settings transfer wizard

Should be fairly self explanatory from there.

anyone have any opinions on the usefulness of dual cores using max8+photoshop etc? i have a 939 mb for my athlon 64 3800 and the price of amd x2's has come down enough to consider an upgrade. does mx8 support dual core or will it just mean that i can do something else while waiting for my renders?

Is there any setting I should activate for MAX 7 to utilize my dual core processor? Or is it automatically detecting it and taking advantage of it? I know in MAYA dual core processors are utilized by checking "batch render." What's the case with MAX?

Thanks FOG... I just found that info while researching something else. That might be the way to go.

I also found out there's a difference between DVD-R discs and DVD+R discs, and that my current hardware can't write to the former. Arrrgh...

Can't help you on the processor or video card selection, but can offer my experiences on my setup.

I run an HP Pavilion zt3000 laptop that has a 15.4 widescreen display. Out of the VGA plug on the back of the laptop, I am connected to a Dell 2405W 24" flatpanel. The internal video card is Mobillity Radeon 9200. Windows XP has built in support for dual monitors. On the display tab, you select a check box to extend the desktop onto the 2nd monitor.

I do contract furniture drawings and specs. I set my drawing onto the flat panel and my spec window on the laptop panel. While it isn't 3D modelling, the drawing files with attributed drawing blocks get very large. I also do alot of Photoshop, Illustrator and Macromedia web development.

Here's the crazy part - the laptop processor is only a Centrino 2.0 Ghz and I'm running 1 Gb of RAM. Only the most complex (huge) Pshop images slow the machine down a little. I think another gig of RAM would solve all the problems. More than that is probably overkill.

Dell machines are solid - I have two desktops that have been very reliable.

i am thinking of upgrading to dell 9150 too, because we have a dell card because of that everything we have (computer wise) is dell. what a trick we gulped..

OK, so now I have a question some questions. I'm ordering myself a real workstation (at last!) and I was planning on having a Quadro 1400 in it. So what's the beef trace? Too slow, not enough memory? Is it worth spending $300-$400 to step up to the next level of quadro?

On dual monitors-
I used to have them at my old office, and I had a 20" next to a 17." It wasn't too shabby but having them matched would have been nice, you end up with weird little corners where the mouse has to jump to the next screen. And the constant re-sizing of windows is a bit of a pain. So if you have the cash, go ahead and get a matched set or maybe get 2x19" rather than a 20." Actually people couldn't tell the difference between their 19" and my 20.1" when they sat down at my computer. But if you are using AutoCAD with the design center palates open, the second monitor it totally worth it. Another thing I just found out, in some programs, Rhino specifically, it maters how you have the monitors arranged! Should always be 1->2 from left to right. Who new?

on dual core useage:

rendering will most certainly speed up - rendering is an easy task to distribute amongst multiple processors.

most rendering programs have a "Threads" setting (not batch render). This should be set to at least the number of cores you have. if you have hyperthreading enabled, set it to at least 2x the number of cores you have.

some rendering engines also see a speedup from setting it to more than that.

modeling generally won't see a speedup from dual cores, but in general the computer will be more responsive when doing multiple things at once.

photoshop is complicated. some functions are very multithreaded, others slightly, and others not at all.

you can overclock it
to squeeze out
every ounce
of performance

but you should add
fans


to keep everything cool

or it might end up like this

for rendering, all GI engines I know will use dual processors without making any changes. Modeling won't matter. You can also hit CTRL+SHFT+ESC to see what the processors and ram are doing.


No large beef with the Quadro 1400, it works well, but it's not incredible. If you are getting a business machine (Dell's business side - so superior to the home, but you pay more), bargain with them. I got them to reduce the price, through in an extra 250 gig drive and the Quadro (I did spend $5k+, though).

If I did TONS of modeling, I'd think about getting a better Quadro, but I don't. It's all arch viz, which you aren't going to notice a huge difference between cards (files tend to be either reasonably small interiors, or outrageously large exteriors, in which case I'd need a super card that I'd never pay for - could buy another machine for that price!).

Try to search out the 3D World review. They gave the Geforce better marks for 3D work than the Quadro 1400. I just got it because it was that or a 64mb ATI bargain card, no option for a Geforce.

I have a Dell E510 for my online computer and it's great so far. Their tech support is amazing for business machines and I highly recommend getting it if you can (no waiting on the phone is nice, not to mention the 24 support).

As for monitors, I've got a 20" and 24" LCD. Get the 24" and skip the duals, imho. One large monitor is so much easier to work with and the contrast/quality is superb. You can get one for $800 if you keep an eye on discounts (I paid the full $1200 when it first came out and still think it was a great deal).

x2 on the 24". Watch eBay for NIB (New In Box) models. I think my Dell 24" was around $850 shipped.

After doing some homework, I'll probbaly go with the asemmetrical 20" / 17" monitor setup, as it seems to be the best value for my money.

According to Dell's website:

20" monitor: 1600x1200 resulution, $509
19" monitor: 1280X1024 resolution, $313
17" monitor: 1280x1024 resolution, $260

Therefore, a 20" monitor and 17" monitor would give me 3,230,000 total pixels and cost $769, while two 19" monitors would give me 2,621,440 total pixels for $616. More pixels for the buck in the first case.

Besides that, my current monitor at home is set to 1600x1200 resolution, and I wouldn't be willing to go down to less than that for my primary display.

*asymmetrical, that should be

Okay, another question...

I picked up the new puter yesterday and got it all set up. So far so good, except for one issue:

When I tried to upgrade the operating from XP Home to XP Professional, I got the following error message:

Setup cannot continue because the version of Windows on your computer is newer than the version on the CD.

Warning: If you decide to delete the newer version of Windows that is currently installed on your computer, the files and settings cannot be recovered.

My XP Pro upgrade CD is Version 2002 with Service Pack 1, and was purchased in April of 2004. Once the install is complete, it would do its Live Update thing and get SP2, current patches, etc.

So I tried to boot directly from the XP Pro CD-ROM, but ran into problems there because (I assume) the keyboard and mouse inputs are via the USB ports on this machine (no serial or PS/2 ports at all), and it wouldn't recognize any keystrokes during the setup process. So I rebooted and went back into XP Home.

My questions:

1) Is there some way around this impasse? Must I go out and spend $150 on yet another XP Pro upgrade disc (even though I already own a perfectly legit copy)?

2) On a system running AutoCAD 2006 and 3D Studio MAX, how crucial is it to be running XP Pro compared to XP Home? This is just a single computer on a home network, not a business application.

Thanks...

you should be able to enable usb keyboard functionality in the bios.

go into the bios, find the option for usb keyboard, enable it. while you're there, make sure the cd drive is higher than the hard drive in the boot order.

then, while booting, you should have the "press any key to boot from cd..." option to start the windows install.

there are other options too, but that should work unless dell did something reall dumb.

Another question for Trace-
You alluded to this and I've heard several other arch viz people make reference to it, having a dedicated "online computer." Is there some specific reason why the machine you are using for rendering and modeling wouldn't have internet access? Or is it that you spend to much time on Archinect and not enough time working?

Well, I went out and bought a new XP Pro package and upgraded with no problems. Bill Gates is now $200 richer.

doh!

There are lots of ways you could have gotten the early copy to work...

and you're a student, no? a student paying more than $20 for a copy of xp just doesn't happen.

Well, I'm working on starting at DePaul this spring to finish my BA degree, but I'm not officially enrolled yet, though.

Two words: Devil Dogs

I assume you mean Demon Dogs at the Lincoln Park campus... They no longer exist because the 'L' station above them is about to be rebuilt. (I'll be attending the Loop campus anyway.)