I m about to buy a new graphics card for my pc.My two choices are the ati 6870 and 6950.What i wanted to ask is if those cards are compatible with poser .Well i know that possibly yes but just cause you never know i would like to read your opinion.Thanks

ps (i use vue,3d studio max and corel painter also)

I've had better luck with N'videa cards myself.  I have a 500 series card and it works well with Poser except when loading lights with Ambient Occlusion--then I had to switch to Screed to see the scene properly.  You might want to search SM's FAQs for suggestions about what cards are best with Poser.  My other 3D programs don't have any issues with my card.

Actually, SM would be the better place to ask about this. I had a really obscure hardware conflict in Poser 8, and they were able to pinpoint it for me very quickly. I know they do keep up with the new hardware coming out to evaluate compatability.

Ati cards generally work well with Poser , be sure to check for driver updates... that being said, a better choice would be to get the Nvidia Cuda series card, if you can manage it... a little more money but worth it IMHO...

Poser likes a lot of cards but uses them only for the preview.
All my personal systems (6) have ATI cards.
All "preview" Poser very well.

All actual rendering is done by the CPU,
(The little black dark plastic box on the motherboard.) :-)

Open GL seems to be problematic for a lot of people with Poser, but I don't know that ATI does Open GL better than N'Videa.  All I can say is that I hate SreeD previews.  I did update my video card driver recently and it seems to handle scenes with AO on better now.

Quote - a better choice would be to get the Nvidia Cuda series card, if you can manage it... a little more money but worth it IMHO...

all Nvidia's from the 8600 series onwards are CUDA cards, it's Nvidia's GPU Processing equivalent of OpenGL.. which they support as well.

My 500 series card support CUDA also.

Quote - My 500 series card support CUDA also.

*thats a higher card than the 8600... they went to the new numbering after the 9XXX series ;) see here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce#Generations

I used to have a 9800, but it died on me unfortunately.  The 9800 was a good card, I never had any issues with it other than it only lasting a few years.  That was the first time I'd ever had a video card crap out on me,  I usually upgrade them long  before they'd reach that point.

Two comps and both have Nvidia..I also gamer so swear by them.

In theory, nVidia is better on OpenGL (3D previews) while ATI is better on DirectX (games). In practice...

I experienced an obscure driver error running nVidia on windows 64-bit, but that one was solved in a recent driver upgrade. No further issues. Cuda's don't work on Poser.

I have had both ATI and NVidia over the past decade(s). Both have problems and each major release they switch in being the best/fastes/most reliable - and usually not at the same time.

New drivers are released by both companies each month for their recent cards and in each lots of bugs are solved. Both are reasonably good since they did a major overhaul in quality control a few years back.

Both series of cards have bugs in combination with Poser - most are obscure and most people will never run into them. So it really does not matter which of the recent cards you have. I currently use on one system an NVidia GeForce GTX 580 and an ATI Radeon 4850 on the other system. Both perform without issues.

I've had both over the years and I do feel n'videa is better when it comes to 3D applications, video editing, and movies--but that's only my opinion, other people may like their Radeons better.

Quote - Cuda's don't work on Poser.

yes... they do.... my 9500GT is a CUDA card and it works just fine. CUDA is Nvidia's take on OpenCL. it's been built into all cards since the Ge8600 series onwards. now, if you mean, Poser does not use Cuda, thats correct.. the way you put it, you made it sound like you can't use a Cuda card with Poser, like Poser will refuse to run..

I meant that Poser does not use any GPU based features while rendering, like LuxRender can, or as Max etc can for test-rendering in the viewport. Not the nVidia Cuda's, not the ATI alternative.

Modern cards don't come without those features, so not being able to run Poser on a modern card wouldn't be handy, I guess.

Quote - all Nvidia's from the 8600 series onwards are CUDA cards, it's Nvidia's GPU Processing equivalent of OpenGL.. which they support as well.

No offence, but CUDA has nothing to do with OpenGL. CUDA is for programmable parallel processing on a GPU. It allows you to send c, c++, or fortran code directly to the GPU for parallel processing on far more cores than a motherboard can support CPU cores.

Get an NVIDIA with OpenGL.

No need to overshop for a card either.  For general 3D Graphic programs you don't need the biggest and most expensive card.  Pick a mid-range priced card and then look for a model that is a year or 2 old.  You'll get a good card for way less money than you would the current model of the same card.

If you are big into animation or those MMORPG games, then you will likely want a more expensive high end card.  But for Poser and modeling programs, you don't need to spend that much money.

im no expert on either card , but with the Ati card if i clicked play with skip frames disabled in poser , the animation ran at about half speed , with the Nvidea card the same file runs pretty close to realtime, thats the basis of my recomendation, i have seen no noticable change in rendering and did not expect to...i do notice a very slight delay in starting and think this may be frame buffering, im not sure... for me it was worth the change because i dont have to render previews as i can see whats happening in realtime now, a major advantage in my book... reguardless im a happy camper...

:O)

Go for the 6870, it will save you some money and is fine for Poser. .The 6950 is a little faster, but  not that you would really notice that with Poser. Choosing a nVidia or ATI doesn't really matter when it comes to OpenGL. I've used several nVidia's and ATI's and I still couldn't say for sure one is better then the other when it comes to OpenGL.

I know nVidia is more picky with the drivers. Forget to install the latest driver for your ATI? No problem, most stuff will still run fine. My l good old aptop is running the same drivers for over 2 years now and everything I throw at it still runs fine, including Poser 9. That's not the case with nVidia, it demands often the newest drivers if you get new software or an update.

Is Poser your main concern, or will it be used for all kinds of power hungry and gfx intensive applications? If it's only Poser stick with one of your choices, they're already offering more then Poser will ever need. You don't need the latest card and features for running Poser.

The advice to pay more for an nVida with CUDA in regards to Poser is a waste of money. Why pay for features Poser doesn't even use? Now if you got other apps that need it, go for it, if not, spent the money on something else.

If you're also into games, I would go for the 6950. When choosing a new gfx card keep in mind that DirectX is the rapid changing thing, not OpenGL, especially not when it comes to Poser. If you have a lot of apps or games that use DirectX, got for the best you can get, if not go for the one you can easily afford, but still isn't too old. But whatever you buy..... it will be outdated tomorrow anyway. Just don't spent your money on more expensive cards with tons of features that you will never use, waste of money.

I don't know what you have right now, but don't be too surprised if you don't notice any difference at all in Poser when you buy a new gfx card. If you go from HD 2xxxx to 6xxx yes, perhaps, but if you go from 5xxx to 6xxx, no, not really. DirextX stuff will be a different matter though......