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ATI Video Cards
2

ATI Video Cards

ATI Video Cards

(OP)
Hi everyone...

I really have to change my GF4 :( That problem with SW is terrible... I'm thinking in one ATI video Card, that I think is the $$best$$ choice except GF, am I right? I'm planning to buy a ATI RADEON 9600 128Mb, but there isn't any test with this video card in the SW Support Page, does anyone knows if is there any problem with this one and SW? Does anyone here use this card with SW? Please, any comment will be appreciated :)

Thanks a lot...
Rodrigo Basniak

RE: ATI Video Cards

Hi Rodrigo,

I haven't had any experience with ATI cards but if you are going to spend cash on a card for solidworks then my only comment would be spend it on a Nvidia Quadro.

You may be able to "soft quadro" your GF4, or get hold of a soldering iron and swap a couple of resisters on it and voila - a quadro card.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but the radeon 9xxx series is aimed primarily at gaming?

djw

RE: ATI Video Cards

The Radeon series are gaming cards.

Graphics cards are designed/optimized for 2 standards, OpenGL and DirectX. OpenGL cards tend to be higher priced. CAD software is written for OpenGL graphics. Games are written for DirectX. Businesses tend to buy CAD. Individuals tend to buy games.

"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli
CAD/CAM System Analyst
Ingersoll-Rand

RE: ATI Video Cards

ATI is a big gamble when it comes to SW i would spend the $250+ on a good Nvidia Quadro Card if money is an issue then pick up a Nvidia GeForce Series card.

RE: ATI Video Cards

An ATI Radeon series card will give you the same problems you experience with a GeForce series card and probably even more problems.

If you are really serious about getting a good compatible card for SWX, any nVidia Quadro or ATI FireGL will do fine.  (But stay away fron Quadro NVS... they are not suited to CAD apps)

Personally, I believe the QuadroFX 500 is the best bang/buck right now.

Quadro4 750 XGL ~$300
Quadro4 980 XGL ~$520
QuadroFX 500    ~$300
QuadroFX 1000   ~$800
QuadroFX 2000   ~$1300
QuadroFX 3000   ~$1800

FireGL T2       ~$350
FireGL Z1       ~$380
FireGL X1       ~$500
FireGL X2       ~$800
*prices quickly summarized from www.pricewatch.com

RE: ATI Video Cards

For your information, here is some benckmarks test on SW2003

http://www.3dchips.net/content/review.ph...

Personaly I like ATI product and I think for the money, the ATI FireGL T2 is a good product.

http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphic/20...

Lately, ATI is getting an edge over nvidia.
I use SW2001+, I had a nvidia Quadro2 MRX and performance was poor, I upgraded with a 3DLabs Wilcat VP550, now things are better but I wonder if I used a ATI FireGL if things will be even better.

Sorry Arlin, but I think the ATI FireGL T2 is the best bang/buck.

Olivier

RE: ATI Video Cards

> Sorry Arlin, but I think the ATI FireGL T2 is the best bang/buck.

Yes I saw that review as well and the T2 is a very good performer, beating the FX 500 according to the numbers.

IMO, the FX 500 has a little extra value with its RealView support.  Plus, I am a little partial to nVidia.

RE: ATI Video Cards

There was a discussion on ATI card already.

This may be good for your reference.
Thread559-65444


There is a report on SolidWorks support page including "Real View" support information.
http://www.solidworks.com/pages/services...

Unfortunately, 9500 to 9800 are rated as "RED" and "Notes" says "When mouse over features annotations disappear." I have 9700 Pro and I confirmed this at home, but nothing else I have noticed. It just works fine with SW2003. A main usage of the PC is for gaming, so I don't care about a minor glitch on SW.

If your main usage is for SW, I would recommend something else from "GREEN".

If it's for game, my only recommendation is 9800XT or 9600XT!!!

RE: ATI Video Cards

According to the Tomshardware tests, the FX 500 ekes out a slight advantage in bang/buck in the Solidworks composite test. This is primarily due to its lower cost. The ATI T2 has an 11% performance advantage.
I have an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro at home and it seems to work fine. At work I am using a "long in the tooth" Elsa Gloria card (early Quadro) with no particular complaints. I recently tested the new Solidworks section view on the same model at home and at work. At home, with ATI, the dynamic sectioning is smooooth with no perceptible refreshing. At work, it is so slow and jerky as to be unusable. My home PC is an Athlon 2200 and I have a P4 2.0 at work.
We are hoping for PC upgrades the first of next year and I will be looking long and hard at ATI. The Realview graphics don't have much interest to us for what we do.

RE: ATI Video Cards

Beware that SW is using Nvidia chipsets as the optimum for the software so who knows what that means down the road if you choose an ATI card.

RE: ATI Video Cards

Hi Rodrigo,
I have that very same card (ATI Radeon 9600 Pro) in my system and it works fine apart from that noted in previous thread. In a sketch, your measurements can disapear! They come back with mouse over but it can get a bit frustrating if you've got a detailed sketch!!
But hey, whats life without gaming!!??
My thought was this, what's the possibility of adding a second vid card on pci, say an older cheapo Quadro for work?
Anyone know whether this would work?
I guess you'd have to reinstall vid drivers before and after each SW session.
regards to all
MT

RE: ATI Video Cards

We have used the Radeon 9600 pro and found that for our users that like to use the "HLR Edges" shown have encountered unhandled errors. In all cases the only way to stabilize this card is to run it with "use software open GL" selected. This WILL affect the speed and performance of Solid Works.

My suggestion: Spend a couple of hundred now and save yourself the headache.

RE: ATI Video Cards

Ati Gaming card for Solidworks? Highly recommended !

I am currently using a Radeon 9500 NP card, with Firegl drivers. Performance is VERY Good. I am using This card on my home machine (athlon xp @2200 mhz 512 DDR ram WinXP), and it bests my work machine. ( P4 3200 2G DDR Ram and FX1000 Graphic.) Realview does not work Properly, though.

(lets hope someone make a wrapper for the Nvida specific shaders so they can be run on ATI cards as well)

Download Rivatuner and learn how to modify FireGl drivers to recognize your radeon series card as the FireGl equivalent.

http://download.guru3d.com/rivatuner/

You can by any Radeon 9500 series and above and get superb performance at a fraction of the price.

I DO have one problem....  Antialiasing. Looks so good its unbelivable. The problem is, only the first dokument opened "get"it , and if more dokuments are opened, performance drops to below software levels...
 
Is any of you Nvidia guys running with Antialiasing, I have not made it work on my work machine at all.


RE: ATI Video Cards

Mindnumb,

I have 9700 Pro at home. I downloaded Rivatuner and installed yesterday, but can you instruct me a bit more how to load FireGL drivers? I don't think I can install FireGL drivers onto my 9700 Pro.

RE: ATI Video Cards

I am also using am ATI 9500 Pro, upgraded bios to 9700 Pro and overclocking it.  I also used the Soft-Fire GL drivers and it works great for all of my 3D cad stuff (SW2003, Mechanical Desktop, & Inventor).

LoveAeris,
Instructions are here:
http://www.nvworld.ru/docs/sfgl_e.html

RE: ATI Video Cards

1sheetmetalman,

Thanks for the URL, but I can't install the driver. I appreciate if you can help me.

I downloaded FireGL drive from ATI web site.
http://www.ati.com/support/products/workstation/fireglx...

I unpacked the file and launched SoftFireGL script from "Unified" folder since the driver is unified one. I switched a file type in a dialigbox, from "ati2mtag.sys" to "ati2mtag.sy_" after clicking "Continue" and the file was
built sucessfully and the file became "ati2mtag.sys".

I editied "CX_10409.inf" and added following lines since I have 9700Pro.
"ATI Soft Fire GL X1 SECONDARY" =FGLRY,PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4E64
"ATI Soft Fire GL X1" =FGLRY,PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4E44

Then, I tried to install the FireGL from device manager selecing "CX_10409.inf", but W2K gives an error saying the drive is not supported by W2K. I am stacking here.



By the way, I assume I am able to switch between 9700Pro and FileGL by RivaTuner. Am I right?

RE: ATI Video Cards

LoveAeris,

I'm used Rivatuner just to create a set of patched softgl drivers (then I deleted rivatuner). I'm not sure if the solfgl script (in rivatuner) supports the latest ati drivers.  I'm using an older driver than the one you pointed to (ver 7.88.4.1).
Driver Version 6.13.10.1034 filename is glx1_w2k_xp.zip (~17.5 mb).
I'm using device manager from that point on (device manager is using atiixpgl.inf from the patched driver set).  
I can switch between my 9700 Pro and SoftFire GL X1 thru the device manager.
Hope this helps.

RE: ATI Video Cards

I have succesfully used the unified firegldrivers.

I used the unified patch script to patch the unpacked drivers, and the control panel. I noticed that some of the patch scrips did not find any file to patch, but that did not cause any problems. Th script does not automatically recognize different file extention names (like  file.dll might be file.dl_  ) so you shuld check for both file extention types.


After patching I right click on my desktop, choose properties/settings/advanced/adapter/properties/driver/update  Choose location, have disk. Browse to pathed drivers.

This is for WinXp, so it might be slightly different for Win2000, but I dont think it should cause any trouble.

If you have no luck with th unified drivers, try the 1036 drivers from dell.  If you cant  find them, put an email adress here, and I´ll try and send you some.

Rivatuner does not let you switch on and of the firegl features instantly, you have to install the 9700 drivers again to "get rid of it", but as far as I have seen, most games run as good or even better, at least with the unified drivers. I experienced problems with the hulk and the 1036 drivers, but i have not tried the unified ones on that game just yet.


Best of luck !

Best of luck !
 

RE: ATI Video Cards

Thanks, 1sheetmetalman and Mindnumb.

1028 driver works and I made sure the one issue officially posted as a known problem with 9700Pro was gone with FireGL driver. I run "FINAL FANTASY XI for Windows - Official Benchmark Program 2" with FireGL driver and the result was about same. Ragnarokonline works with FireGL as well, so I decide to keep FireGL instead of switching drivers.

I am very very happy with FireGL on Radeon, but I am not sure how reliable the combination is. Also, you have to know what you are doing and how to recover if something happens to do this. I am writing what I did as much detail as I could, but try it at your risk.  


1. Download RiverTuner and install.
http://download.guru3d.com/rivatuner/

2. Download FireGL 1028, which is certified driver for SolidWorks SP3.
http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/firegl/win2k/cert/wi...

3. Execute the downloaed file, "fireglx1z1-win2kxp-1028.exe". You should get an error after unpacking and go ahead and cancel. Just remember where you unpacked.

4. Run RiverTuner and click "Power user" tab. There are bunch of icons on the bottom. Click the 3rd icon from left to"open patch script" Go to PatchScript>ATI>SoftFireGL>1024+ and select "SoftFireGL w2k.rts"

5. Select "force FireGL X1 capabilities" from the bottom and hit "Continue"

6. Go to where you unpacked the driver and go to 1028>drivers and select "ati2mtgl.sys". Make sure the process has been successfully done. Exit RiverTuner.

7. There is "atiixpgl.inf" in the same folder. Open to edit and add following lines under "[ATI.Mfg]" section.

ATI Soft Fire GL X1 SECONDARY=FGLRY,PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4E64
ATI Soft Fire GL X1=FGLRY,PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4E44

8. Right click on "My computer" and select "Manage". Go to Device manager and expand "Display Adaptor". Right Click on "Radeon 9700 Pro" and select "Driver" tab to update driver. Select "atiixpgl.inf"and you should see "ATI
Soft Fire GL X1" that you previously added and follow your screen to finish.

RE: ATI Video Cards

Just a question for those that are jumping thru hoops to make non-compatible/semi-compatible cards for SW.

How much time do you suppose that you have spent working around the semi-compliant video card? Is your time of that little value?

Just wondering if the financial value of 100-200$ is really worth it. I found Quadro4 750 xgl cards for as low as 320$ and not more than 375$. High-end gaming cards cost 150-300$ anyway and at that savings the $ dont beat the time.

nick

RE: ATI Video Cards

Good point Nick!

For the time and money you will spend like Nick points out above you could spend that money on a card that has been approved by SW.

I have the Quadro 500 XGL and it works great for me.

http://store.yahoo.com/digitally-unique/vcqfx500blk.htm... plus it's under $300.

Rocko pointed out a good point early in this thread:
Beware that SW is using Nvidia chipsets as the optimum for the software so who knows what that means down the road if you choose an ATI card.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies
http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
When in doubt, always check the help

RE: ATI Video Cards

Scott- I've been trying to get the same point across to the people who have had input on purchasing SW2004 and Cosmos w/ lotso the add ons (non-linear, flow etc...) Orignally they had spec'ed a minimum requirement PC (800mhz Celeron, 256M ram etc...) After much consternation I was able to convince them that to do Modeling (and complex FEA) A MUCH faster system was required, P4 3.0ghz 1gig, I'm only month out of solidworks essentials, no formal FEA training only some mat-lab kinetics FDM coding, and extensive experience w/ POVRay & Moray... I can easily hit the limitations of our system. SW is so dang powerfull it makes other modeling packages I've used seem like a T-Square and set of triagle and opaline pad... To take any reall value out o fthe power of the software (IMHO) a big machine is necessary so as to not always wait fo rit to catch up to you.

We currently have a gaming video card but I think today that I convinced the buyers to drop the 400$ on a 750.. (I know a 500 would work but $100 is a silly savings).  One thing thou (actually thats the next thread)..... Fine meshes take time....


Nick
I love materials science!

RE: ATI Video Cards

Somebody is missing a point!!!

I am NOT spending time for FireGL on Radeon at work. I have no interest to PC at work because IT controls fully. The time I spent was for home PC and it's my hobby. Therefore, saving time over money is out of focus. Anyway, the time I spent was about a few hours and some forks helped me here. I love Radeon as a gaming card and again, main purpose of the home PC is for game, not for work.

Radeon 9700 Pro is failed (Red) with SW certification because of disappearance of annotations on Sketch, which is completely acceptable for Home PC to me. I was happy with the failure, but now I understood FireGL driver can be loaded onto Radeon. I spent a few hours, but I wrote the procedure step by step for friends here who may want to do same thing, so it will take only 10 minutes. I picked up every single components for my home PC and the video card (Radeon 9700 Pro) was the best gaming card. Now the gaming card can do a lot more than the price and works as FireGL. Isn't it great?

I believe there are many forks here using PC mainly not for working and I do care about $ over time at home. (even a few dollars. If it's $100, I would drive a long distance.)

I don't care about the comment about the optimization with Nvidia chip set and Rearview because the situation won't stay forever. That is a true statement only for now. I didn't recommend Radeon for SW before, but if you already have Radeon and you don't mind to spend 10 minutes to load FireGL deriver, it's highly recommended.

If you are going to buy a new PC or Video card, define the usage wherether for work (SW) or game. If it's for work, the safest selection is Nvidia. If it's for gaming, Radeon with or without FireGL driver depends on the compatibility with games

RE: ATI Video Cards

I agree with you Aeris...

I also use the FireGl at home. I have spent some time on it, but mostly on the antialiasing issue. (only works corectly on first document opened).

Well, on the quadro FX 1000 card I have at work, it does not work at all.
   
Ok, to the point...  Know what you are paying for.

When you pay the extra cash, you do not buy extra performance or stability. You buy future developement of proffecional cards/chips, and drivers for professional applications. Maby also support to a certain extent. The reason that both gaming and proffesional features exists on the same chip is because it´s the most rational way for the chip developers to do it that way.

Not all have unlimited budgets when it comes to hardware. It is a wonderful chance to get great performance at low cost. You get the performance, but you dont get the support.  When it comes to support, my experiences are not good. In cases where I have been entitled to support, My problems have NEVER been solved.  Not once. Maby I´m a difficult customer, or just plain stupid, but the effort put into support by any company in the hardware business seems minimal nowadays.

I don´t blame ATi or Nvidia for doing it the way they are, the professional card business is wery lucrative, but it would be better if the professional cards were forced out of the market.

It would force the application makers to adept to the gaming standards and would push forward the standardisation of 3d applications and games. One unified standard would be best for all parts. It would make it easier to make both applications, games and hardware. Less application specific "fixes" would be needed in the drivers, and less hardware specific workarounds would be needed on the application side. It also would make it more difficult to pull the kind of trick solidworks/nvidia have done with the Realview feature.

This is all bad. It destroys the competition, essentially giving nvidia a monopoly situation on the solidworks application. Ati could probably very easy make similar shaders, or a "wrapper" allowing the nvidia shaders to run on ATI cards. (this have been done with most of the Nvidia tech demoes by ATI and vice versa) The cost or deals between solidworks and nvidia is probably preventing them from doing it.

So, help the community by using the softQuadro and SoftFireGl drivers ! And give a warm thoght to Unwinder (rivatuner maker) as you spin those 5000+ part assemblys !

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