Maya & AutoCAD
- Thread starter Nefarious
- Start date
Soldato
- Joined
- 4 Mar 2010
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Well Fella I have started using Blender and have used the hammer editor before.
My spec is 2gig ram.
2.2ghz amd 64.
nvidia 8600gt.
It all seems to run fine except rendering can be abit choppy.
If in doubt read the system requirements.
My spec is 2gig ram.
2.2ghz amd 64.
nvidia 8600gt.
It all seems to run fine except rendering can be abit choppy.
If in doubt read the system requirements.
Associate
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I would always go with nvidia, having known problems with ati stability for these apps in the past. Autodesk recommend the Quadro range for both products (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/hc?siteID=123112&id=6711853&linkID=9240618 and http://download.autodesk.com/us/qualcharts/2010/maya2010_qualifiedgraphics_win.pdf)
I've been using the Quadro FX1700 for a while and it copes well, but since I upgraded to AutoCAD 2010 I've noticed it starting to stutter on complex models, so could be time to upgrade.
Regarding bottlenecks, your general modelling isn't too GFX intensive. Most bang for your buck will be in a 64 bit OS on an i7 as I believe that's where the work is done, especially if you're planning on stunning renders for presentation.
You could throw £15k at a system like this, but if you're just starting then you can do well for a little under £1k. The difference between a £400 and £1000 bit of kit is staggering, but as with everything, to achieve the same performance leap again you need to add another 0 on the end!
You can do some fun things in Maya with a basic system, but if you're planning on using it even to half it's potential (and you'll probably find that once you've started you can't stop) then you'll soon run out of power, so go long.
Remember the rule of buying hard drives, work out how much space you think you'll need, double it, add a zero, and buy 2.
I've been using the Quadro FX1700 for a while and it copes well, but since I upgraded to AutoCAD 2010 I've noticed it starting to stutter on complex models, so could be time to upgrade.
Regarding bottlenecks, your general modelling isn't too GFX intensive. Most bang for your buck will be in a 64 bit OS on an i7 as I believe that's where the work is done, especially if you're planning on stunning renders for presentation.
You could throw £15k at a system like this, but if you're just starting then you can do well for a little under £1k. The difference between a £400 and £1000 bit of kit is staggering, but as with everything, to achieve the same performance leap again you need to add another 0 on the end!
You can do some fun things in Maya with a basic system, but if you're planning on using it even to half it's potential (and you'll probably find that once you've started you can't stop) then you'll soon run out of power, so go long.
Remember the rule of buying hard drives, work out how much space you think you'll need, double it, add a zero, and buy 2.
Associate
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- 11 May 2010
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- Suffolk
Just fired it up as I couldn't remember exactly the issue I was having with acad 2010 and my fx 1700, referred to as "stutter" above, well it's pretty smooth but opening dialog boxes "messes up" the display more often than not - odd red, blue, green and yellow zig zag lines appear and text becomes illegible. For example if I'm working on a model and open a dialog box, then change a setting in the dialog box which updates the model, the dialog box becomes illegible. Then on closing the dialog box I am left with the zigzaggy lines where the dialog box once was. Googling traced this to the GFX card - I probably just need to update the drivers tbh... It doesn't do it often enough to impede my productivity, and I'm familiar enough with the dialog boxes that I don't particularly care if they're legible or not! 
Man of Honour
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My opinion of the quadro cards is they are over priced and not really that necessary for running AutoCAD or rendering, any descent video card with plenty of memory and a high bit interface will be fine. A quad core good amount of ram and a descent vid card will do you fine.
My CAD/rendering machine is a Q6600, 4gb memory and a Ati 5770 on 64bit OS works faultlessly.
My CAD/rendering machine is a Q6600, 4gb memory and a Ati 5770 on 64bit OS works faultlessly.
My personal thoughts, having run an MMC performance log whilst using ACAD and Maya is that a dual core would probably be more than sufficient given that for the same price you can have a higher clock speed and unless what I do at any one time is running more than two processes, the extra cores will make no difference.
AFAIK the only time the graphics card comes into play, is displaying what everything else has worked on and stops scrolling and rotating from looking jerky but performs no actual 'work' (at least as far as the client is concerned).
The reason I was asking about bottle necks, is that I always try to use the smallest amount of memory in a system as possible. Installing more memory in a computer than is necessary means that the memory addresses are longer than they need be which puts undue load on the processor. Does anyone know how to calculate the amount of memory needed for a drawing?
AFAIK the only time the graphics card comes into play, is displaying what everything else has worked on and stops scrolling and rotating from looking jerky but performs no actual 'work' (at least as far as the client is concerned).
The reason I was asking about bottle necks, is that I always try to use the smallest amount of memory in a system as possible. Installing more memory in a computer than is necessary means that the memory addresses are longer than they need be which puts undue load on the processor. Does anyone know how to calculate the amount of memory needed for a drawing?
Associate
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This is why I recommend using the 64 bit OS. I don't think you will notice any performance hit using the full 4 gig as opposed to 2 gig on a 32 bit system since the memory address will all be 32 bit, and logical memory operations will be 32 bit, and effectively atomic within the processor cycle. It's not as if the processor sees that the first few bits are all zeroes and ignores them, that would take as long as to process them normally.
If you want more than 4 gig ram, and you may depending on how complex your modelling is, then a 32 bit OS will need to bodge 64 bit memory addresses, which yes will obviously be slower.
If you're new to 3d modelling I would say 4 gig or maybe even 2 is plenty to get started. It's all you need for individual small models i.e. characters with modest texturing, or components/structures in autocad. If you are doing more complete scenes, with lighting and complex textures/materials there will be a lot of data to process and you'll saturate your 4 gig in no time at all, and be keeping your processor waiting when it should be processing!
It's a black art/trade off situation, but basically there is no single most or least important component in a system like this. You will find your bottleneck wherever you try to cut corners.
Glad to be practically no help whatsoever
Autocad 2010 is being a right pain in the arse for me at the mo. I'm not sure if it's my gpu (8800gt) which probably isn't on their list of supported cards, or if its something else. It's choppy and sometimes hangs for 20 secs or so. 2006 ran fine... Bah, quadros are expensive
Gord - i7 860, 4GB 1333 RAM, 8800GT, Samsung F3, W7 Home Premium 64.
I'm a student so not using Autocad in an office environment - It probably hasn't been set up properly. When I was working last year we were on 2009 which was fast enough on a dual core with prob 2gb ram.
The kind of problems I have aren't in any complex drawings. When I move the cursor around and it goes over a line (and highlights it) sometimes this pauses slightly and then the cursor jumps to catch up. This is worse on xlines for some reason. Similar thing with hatches sometimes, and copying objects/blocks. All very frustrating, whilst the pauses might be less than half a second (sometimes more) it really interrupts the flow..!
Then, maybe once a week or so it hangs doing one of the above tasks.
I'm a student so not using Autocad in an office environment - It probably hasn't been set up properly. When I was working last year we were on 2009 which was fast enough on a dual core with prob 2gb ram.
The kind of problems I have aren't in any complex drawings. When I move the cursor around and it goes over a line (and highlights it) sometimes this pauses slightly and then the cursor jumps to catch up. This is worse on xlines for some reason. Similar thing with hatches sometimes, and copying objects/blocks. All very frustrating, whilst the pauses might be less than half a second (sometimes more) it really interrupts the flow..!
Then, maybe once a week or so it hangs doing one of the above tasks.
On this system, yes. Previously had acad 2006 on an athlon X2, 2gb, 8800GT.
I'll look into driver issues, I have read that my card can be flashed to a quadro but I dont really want to do that as its my only card if it goes wrong and I imagine it wont be good for games anymore.
Cheers for help.
I'll look into driver issues, I have read that my card can be flashed to a quadro but I dont really want to do that as its my only card if it goes wrong and I imagine it wont be good for games anymore.
Cheers for help.
Associate
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- 11 May 2010
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Do you have loads of object snaps turned on? That could cause it to have to think too hard every time your mouse crosses something. I tend to have it set to only snap to endpoints most of the time, and use overrides when I need them as I found I was getting the half second delay you mention, although never 20! On the other hand I only started using CAD last year and haven't used anything older than 2009.