I'm going to replace my PC in a few months, and I'm making a "wish list" of specs. My question is... how much do graphics accellerator cards contribute to rendering speed? For example, would I get more speed from a 1.8Ghz system with a 32Mb graphics accellerator, or a 1.5Ghz system with a 128Mb graphics accellerator? In your opinion, which GA cards are good and why? Thanks, Jim Z. a.k.a. Julian Boolean

Jim, The graphics accelerator won't impact render speed at all so if that is your priority go for the 1.8Ghz. For video cards I would recommend buying whichever is the best Nvidia card you can afford with your budget. You can pick up a Geforce2 based one for less than a $100. If you go for the MX ones you are down in the $60 range. These days there are really only two choices in video cards Nvidia and ATI. ATI has some intriging products, but has been plagued by bad drivers and tends to abandon driver support for older products as soon as they introduce a new generation of cards. On the other hand Nvidia is pretty good about driver updates and their latest driver update still works with any card TNT or better. Good Luck, Eric Winemiller Digital Carvers Guild Freeware and commercial 3D extensions http://digitalcarversguild.com

Thanks, Eric. That's exactly the information I was looking for. Jim Z. a.k.a. Julian Boolean

I recently acquired a GeForce2 Pro with 64Megs RAM and i'm very happy with it . The most interresting thing in Carrara is that when you work in wireframe mode, you can have hardware anti-aliasing, and it doesn't slow down the machine a bit :) If i remember correctly, Eovia has adviced GeForce-based cards for Carrara .

Can I get a GeForce for a Mac? I just upgraded the processor and I was thinking of getting a better video card. I know that the new G-4 ship with this card and that you can even get a GeForce3 as an update but I don't know if you can get any of them for PCI Macs.

I have a machine with a voodoo3 and another machine with a Geforce3. The Geforce 3 machine appears to be much less apt to have a failed rendering while working than the Voodoo3 machine. My new machine is a 1.4 Athlon which I upgraded from a 400 K6. There is so much difference in the two machines I have no way to tell how much the video card impacts the performance. I would agree very much with Eric W's suggestions and analysis of the situation and I would take it to heart. Regardless of my card, my new machine is supremely wonderful over my old one. EVERYTHING in Carrara is a whole lot faster and better. -Kix