william
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Jul 25, 2008, 2:10 PM
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Re: [Mark Coniglio] Video Cards: The Definitive Answer
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Hey Mark (and forum) -
The video card question is really a moving target. But at the rate Apple keeps updating these machines you really cannot go wrong. And so long as ATI and nVidia continue to duke it out, the end users are really winning in all ways.
All of my recent configurations utilize the standard ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory and two dual-link DVI ports cards that are coming standard on all of the MacPro 8-cores. The machines generally have 3 video cards (because the machines only have three 16x accelerated slots) but if need be, I will add a 4th card if necessary. I generally opt for a pci audio card or a fast video input card, instead, though.
Up the RAM to 4gb or 8gb (mirrored pairs) and opt for the fastest processor (but get the RAM from OWC or Tekserve, not from Apple, so long as they continue to rake their pro-user base over the coals for RAM upgrades).
Go with an array of 3 ATI 2600 cards largely because the ATI card is the entry level card, and most users aspiring to setup a rig will probably be scraping together just enough cash to get the entry-level machine. As I said, luckily for all of us, the entry-level machine is pretty powerful.
nVidia keeps putting out these miracle cards that can do everything except cook you breakfast, and every review I read of them in the trade magazines chalks them up to not much more than hype for the average end user. Even folks pushing hardcore 3D through a Mac (wherever you are) don't really need that gnarly of a Quatro video card - it's more about the processor power when it comes to rendering.
The quandary here is that you are working toward optimizing Isadora to playback realtime 3D effects rendering straight off the video-card utilizing open-GL technology, correct? As a designer, I focus largely on prepared content that does straight playback and I tend to limit myself to 2 QT videos in 1280, 4 QT videos in 1024, or 6 QT videos in 800. Real-time flexibility is important to me in the design stage to establish a form to the design, but ultimately I push as much through AE as possible, save for the cueing aspects. So I am at one end of the rather large Isadora spectrum...
Ultimately, I think you should work within the limitations of your general user-base to establish optimizations that will have real-world functionality almost immediately to the folks out there with similar setups. And to me, that means using the entry-level cards.
Other high-end users here on the forum may have other suggestions and experience to back it up, so definitely wait to hear from folks out there who are using the 512mb and 1gb video cards to generate 3D particles systems natively in Isadora.
However, keep your eyes on http://buyersguide.macrumors.com for the next update of the macpro, which is coming up soon. If you can wait for it, you should.
Cheers,
William
(This post was edited by william on Jul 25, 2008, 2:13 PM)
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