does anyone know if a 3d accelerator will improve poser4 (or any other 3d app) at all? and if so which one is the best? I heard Voodoo 5 is good. Or are they just for games? I am running a p3 550, 128 ram from Dell. thanks

Voodoo is an excellent 3d card one of the best, Diamon, ATI, are all good cards at the amature/semi profesional level. I would recomentd Voodoo, and yes some 3D accelerators will help improve your 3D animation though most are aimed at gaming. How do you find your system handles the ram. I currently have 64megs but am thinking upgrading between 128-384, but of course I also need a new hard drive and more software so, I am wondering if I should go with lower or higher. do you find 128 is enough.

No don't get a Voodoo for doing 3D art they suck! Most if not all 3D software manufacturers say Voodoo's are not good for 3D art at all. Get something that has great 2D/3D acceleration like a GeForce or a Diamond card with at least 32megs of ram. Your best bet if you don't play games is a Dynamic Pictures Oxygen video card or an Elsa video card. Oxygens don't require NT to run and are an industry standard for 2D/3D acceleration. And get all the ram you can get , I have 256MB PC100 and it's not nearly enough! Believe me when I say that.

Oh and the reason I say don't get a Voodoo for 3D art like the manufacturers say is because games use very low poly meshes with decent textures on them to run as fast as they do. Just look at a game character's hand in real time and they're just blocks. If you use a Voodoo for 3D art the high poly counts of almost all meshes will grind the card to a halt in no time.

I hate to disagree with Quikp51, but this isn't really true. I have a voodoo 3, and it works very well with Lightwave, Max, and I've even seen Maya running on it. For a $100 card, it performs very well. The Voodoo 5 has more ram, better texture resolution, 32Bit 3D color, and is a damn nice card. The GeForce DDR and GeForce2 are also nice cards. The important thing with 3D apps is OpenGL support, and the current Voodoo drivers have added full OpenGL support. 128 MBs is adequate, but more is better. With 3D, more is always better! :) As far as Poser goes, I don't think any 3D card will help all that much, as Poser doesn't use OpenGL. I don't know if it uses DirectX either, but from personal experience, I haven't seen any interface performance improvement with a 3D card. BTW, no consumer level 3D card will accelerate your software's rendering, they just make the 3D preview faster and look better.

Well, if Poser actually used ANY form of 3D Accelleration I would highly recommend that you stay away from the VooDoo series. The Voodoo cards are optimized for 16-bit color. That is a palleted color depth, meaning that you would see banding in any 3D application. What you need is a 32-bit color optimized card such as the Riva TNT2 Ultra, Geoforce 256 DDR, ATI Rage128 (incl. -pro and -Maxx) or any other card based on a true 128bit or 256bit architecture. You also need 32 MB of video ram minimum. The more the better because the card will be able to hold larger textures in memory. You need 32 bit color in any graphics app to give you a TRUE picture of what you are creating. 16-bit doesn't cut it. Poser is a special case in 3D however because it does not use ANY form of 3D accel. The program only uses your systems standard GDI (graphical interface acceleration). Fortunately all of the above cards with the EXCEPTION of the voodoo series includes that ability. The later series of voodoo cards (i.e. 3) does include GUI acceleration wich WILL assist in the overall speed of the system and help with poser in general. However the Voodoo cards run very very HOT. This increases the overall workload on the system due to excess heat. As a result they tend to be a poor choice in chassis that do not have proper ventilation. In general graphics applications will benefit from a fast video card. Some more than others. Color depth, maximum screen resolutions, overal speed and amount of memory are all factors to consider in a new video card. My personal pick: ATI Rage FURY. Reason: Large texture memory (32MB), 128-bit processor technology, 32-bit color optimized. (And it plays my games great too...) Hope that helps. Kyrin

Lemurtek < The reason I stated what I did on the Voodoo is my buddy has a Voodoo 5500 (64 megs onboard) and all his apps suck running under Voodoo's Glide. My TNT770 Ultra at 32 megs onboard cranks over his card with 3D apps. There's nothing wrong with his card or computer either because with games he beats me by miles (300fps w/Quake2 ,150 w/Quake3). He is also super certified computer man too so I know he know s what he's doing. If you feel your Voodoo is recommendable for 3D so be it , I persoanlly will never agree with that. 8oP Cheers!

Quikp51: I'm not too sure about this, but isn't Voodoos Glide-drivers only for use with games? Has he tried to use the OpenGl-drivers when running apps? As I said, I'm not too sure, I havn't used a Voodoo-card in years, and I don't plan to do so either. I'm very satisfied with my Matrox G400 MAX, especially when it comes to using 3D-apps and CAD. I guess I'll switch to a G800 when they are realeased, or some kind of GeForce-card.

Voodoo boards are all lot of hype that's all. If oyu try any other board like the Riva TNT2 Ultra or S3 you will a huge improvement -Colt

Voodoo boards WERE the best for gaming before the GeForce came out. But the only cards that will effect still renders at all (aside from the ones with a lot of on-board memory, and even that won't help much) are the VERY expensive high-end professional video cards. I'd suggest going for a TNT2 (I have an ATI128 but it only has 8 MB - not enough for most recent games!) if you're budget conscious (I've seen them for $78-180, depending on memory, brand, etc.). If you want a good card for gaming as well, and can afford it, shell out the $199-$450 for a Voodoo 5 or GeForce with 32 MB RAM (unless you have the optimized mother board and drivers that Dell is using, anything over 32 MB on a video card is a waste of money at present). If money is no object, go look at SGI, Intergraph, and the high-end Guillemot/Elsa cards (ERazor, Oxygen). I THINK most of them are now finally BELOW $1000...

If you arent willing to pay out a few thousand for your graphics card, then the difference between one video card costing a few hundred and the next is pretty much minimal. The reason you wont get people agreeing on performance on lower end cards either is because we all have different setups with a mixed array of software, eg gamesoffice apps3d apps etc. all of which will affect performance results. The best thing, see what you can afford and purchase the card that meets your requirements. If you have a few thousand to spare and are producing Movie quality output then go for a pro board. If you intend using Unreal et al alongside Max then go for a High end gaming card supporting OpenGL. VID -

One last note, if at all possible, buy from a place that will let you return it. That way you can test the card to make sure it meets your needs, which is really all that matters.