I'm using an ATI 2600 "pro" Pci-e on a quadcore system.
This card is absolutely unusable due to a very poor open Gl implementation
Vue is crashing almost immediately, even Poser7 is unstable with Ogl on
I'm looking for a Geforce preferably fanless 512 Go and priced around 100 150 euros.
No games played at all ...

Any advice ?

Thanks
Yves

I use an Nvidia 8000 series card, I would recommend either the 8600 or 8800, they come with up to 512 Meg on card RAM, I believe there is one with 1 Gig RAM on card too!!

Mine is an 8600GT, I have 8 Gig system RAM, quad core processor, Asus P5K-E mobo.

Quote - I use an Nvidia 8000 series card, I would recommend either the 8600 or 8800, they come with up to 512 Meg on card RAM, I believe there is one with 1 Gig RAM on card too!!

Mine is an 8600GT, I have 8 Gig system RAM, quad core processor, Asus P5K-E mobo.

Thanks !
What's the difference between GS, GTS, GTX, WXYZ and so on, is the frequency of the GPU really that important for non players ?
Yves

*What's the difference between GS, GTS, GTX, WXYZ

• Coudn't tell you off hand, but Nvidia has a comparison chart on it's web site, certainly as far as Vue is concerned the 512 RAM on card would be more than sufficient, I currently use the 256 version of the 8600!!
  I am thinking of upgrading the graphics card though!!

Quote - *What's the difference between GS, GTS, GTX, WXYZ

• Coudn't tell you off hand, but Nvidia has a comparison chart on it's web site, certainly as far as Vue is concerned the 512 RAM on card would be more than sufficient, I currently use the 256 version of the 8600!!
  I am thinking of upgrading the graphics card though!!

I found it : http://www.nvidia.com/object/graphics_cards_buy_now.html

this a little clearer with this
Thank you so much
Yves

You don't need to worry about the letters, "GT" is the basic, more than enough for 3D art :) Unless of course you wish to spend more.

512+ RAM helps a lot, means you can display tons of polygons and textures, increase your maximum opengl polygons in Options DIsplay settings when you install it to lie e10 million or so ;)

Even though I use a ATI HD4670 I would recommend an Nvidia card, any Nvidia card, I have had no end of problems with ATI with Vue.

Jon

I use a 8800 GTS with 512 Mb of RAM and once found that I had loaded too many textures for the card. I had imported a building from DM and Vue started to get slow as hell.

After this, I started to search which graphic cards had more memory than 512 Mb and found a few models on the Nvidia side:

• the Geforce 260 GTX has 896 Mb
• the more expensive 280 GTX has 1 Gb

On the ATI side, there are more models above 512 Mb of memory. PowerColor proposes two models of Radeon HD 4850 with either 1 Gb or 2 Gb of DDR3 and one model of Radeon HD 4870 with 1 Gb of DDR5. The main problem is finding these as the 2 Gb model seems to be rare (at least in France)
 

Quote - Even though I use a ATI HD4670 I would recommend an Nvidia card, any Nvidia card, I have had no end of problems with ATI with Vue.

I agree 100%. In the past I've used two ATi cards both of which were problematic with Vue.

I'm currently using the nVidia 512MB 9600GT in a quad core box. If UK prices are similar to European prices, cost = about 165 euros. I know this is over budget but I've yet to see a bad review of this card. UK magazine PCPro have had it on their recommended A List for months.

It's quiet too.

I've had an Nvidia 8800GTX 768MB for a long time now. It works well for me too. It's also fast enough for games that I haven't felt the urge to upgrade to the newer 9xxx or even newer 2xx series!

I agree re the 8800 GTX, it's an excellent card and rated higher than most of the 9 series.  According to Nvidia:  http://www.nvidia.com/object/graphics_cards_buy_now.html, here's the "rankings" in order:

1.  GeForce GTX 280
2.  GeForce 9800 GX2
3.  GeForce GTX 260
4.  GeForce 8800 GTX
5.  GeForce 8800 GTS (320/640 Mb)
6.  GeForce 8800 GTS (512 Mb)
7.  GeForce 9800 GTX+ (just an overclocked version of  9800 GTX)
8.  GeForce 9800 GTX
9.  GeForce 9800 GT

1. GeForce 8800 GT

Prices have dropped considerably recently, you can get a 8800 Ultra from Tiger Direct for $199, or the 1Gb 9800 GX2 from Newegg for $269, GTX 280 is around $379, & the GTX 260 is $239.  

Yet care must be taken in regards to memory on the graphics card.
Some of the cards have 2 GPUs on them, and the memory they have is split between the 2.

Take the NVidia GeForce 9800 GX2 for example.

It is offered with 1 GB of memory. Yet, since it has 2 GPUs, the memory is split evenly between the 2 GPUs, resulting in what is basically a SLI-configuration of two 512MB cards.
And I don't know if Vue supports SLI... ^_^"

So, to sum it up, don't just look at the amount of memory, also make sure it is actually a single-GPU card.

Excellent point Spirt Wolf.  Except for the 9800 GX2, which, as you say has 2 GPUs, the 9800 series all have 512 Mb, while the 8800 GTX & Ultra both have 768 Mb.  The 8800 GTX outperforms the 9800GTX. 

8800 GTX has worked great for me. I've been using it since they were first released. In fact on my next upgrade I'm keeping it and ignoring the newer cards. The price is down to I see to about $170 US.

If you use Photoshop you should also consider that the soon to be released CS4 has been designed to work with the newer NVidia cards. I don't know what that means for other cards?

A fast graphics card with 512 MB storage, like 8800 GTS 512MB (G92 Chip) or 9800 GTX 512 MB (watch out - a long card to fit in your PC - 26.7 cm length ) or GTX 260 / 280 any RAM amount - they all are good or good enough for Vue - since the normal 3D-view windows should be using OpenGL and not DirectX ... and the influence of graphics speed of the newer generation of cards isn't that important for the OpenGL calculations - they don't use the shaders as speed-ups, just raw GPU calculation, because it's a system, that suppose to work on a lot of platforms and graphic card solutions - so - no special stuff is used, meaning the difference won't be too different between newer/older or slower/faster cards ... 

For Vue it's more important to have more then enough normal RAM on the mainboard - which is limitied by a 32bit Operating System with Windows to about 2,5 GB per program.

A 64bit OS can use a lot more RAM per application ... here is an advantage in the use of Vue, not really by having 512MB or 1024MB Ram on the graphics card.

And looking for a quite cooling solution without a fan - well there should be mostly only the smaller version of the graphics cards like the 8500/8600 or 9500/9600 versions as an option, because cards like 8800/9800/260/280 are running on a lot higher frequency and using much more shaders than the smaller cards, so they would get to hot, if not using a fan for cooling.

The GT / GTS / GTX and so on extensions are mainly pointing towards the use of higher GPU frequencies and the use of more shader units inside the GraphicsProcessorUnit or different generations of the same GPU - which means more heat will be produced under full load.
But that only happens, if it's used for the display of fullscreen animated 3D-stuff in realtime, like detailed 3D games ...

Nice to see, that the newest Photoshop version CS4 will be using, for some new functions, as a first time the graphics card GPU instead the CPU !
In Photoshop CS4 it will be interesting, to have more graphics card Ram, since it really get's used there ...

So if not playing games and wanting fanless cards - i guess then a 9500/9600 version would be fine with 512 MB. Pretty cheap, too - should be around 100 $  or less.

But there are still nice ATI cards around like the 3850 / 3870 or newer 4850/4870 ... fast and good, too.

Right now I have an old Geforce 6600 PCI Express x16 with 256MB.  I am thinking of getting a Geforce 8600GT.  The price at Newegg is $49 after a $30 rebate. 

My questions is what is the difference between PCI Express and PCI Express 2?  Can my older computer use this? 

Hi Peggy,

No, an older motherboard probably cannot use the PCI E2.

For others following this thread, please be advised that the amount of RAM a video card uses has a high priority on Windows memory usage. In non-geek-terms, if you purchase a video card with 1 GB of RAM on it, that is going to consume 1GB of the 2 to possibly 3 GB ram your windows is capable of allocating for all your current windows processes, and everything else will be forced into your hard disk swap space.  

Basically, for Windows XP users, a video card with 512 MB of video ram on it hits the "sweet spot" in terms of maximum computer efficiency. More video ram than 512 MB  forces windows to start making hard disk swaps, causes more motherboard throughput processing and begins to degrade overall processing speed.

For Vista users, it all becomes more problematic - that is, depends upon the particulars of your hardware, but more video ram will not impede much.