Hardware Guide for X3

[Ray C]

Hi folks



I managed to install NView on a Win7 64 bit machine with the GeForce GTX 295 card. The nview control buttons appear on most of the MS menu bars but not on Chief. I had hoped that NVidia would come up with a driver that would include NView for Win7 and Geforce card but from what I read they have no intensions to. What they do offer is,,,,, spend more money for Quatro! Quatro cards support NView on Win7 machines. UNBELEIVABLE!

That leads me to this question,,,, is anyone out there using or changed to a Quatro card to get back NView and noticed any performance change (better or worse?). should I remortgage my house or go with and entry level card.

I just can’t seem to function on a single monitor. The plan review process with clients on a dual set up is hard to beat.

If this is a duplicate post on this subject here by me I apologize,,, senior moment?

Perplexed, Ray

[Ben Palmer]

Ray,

Not exactly sure what your intentions are with NView, but I missed it as well, and I did a search a while back, and found this handy free software that took care of some features I wanted: http://www.displayfusion.com/

This may not be what your after at all, but thought I would throw it out there.

[RAYG]

Now that X3 is looming large on the horizon, I thought it would be good to post some guidelines for hardware for X3 so that you can make an informed decision if you plan on buying new hardware.

For the most part our system requirements will remain the same as for X2 with the caveat that X3 is designed for multi-core systems.

This means that for a few operations you may see a slight slowdown on single core and single core hyperthreaded hardware. While we will work to keep performance on these systems as fast as possible, our focus now and for the foreseeable future will be on multi-core machines.

To that end the following are my recommendations for X3.

1) More cores is better.

We have some performance optimizations coming in X3 that will utilize as many cores as you can get for some operations. Much of our development work has been done using i7s and other Quad Core hardware. We are pretty sure that some of the new 6 core machines will be an even better choice, but haven't done benchmarking on them yet.

We started focusing on the i7 hardware about a year ago because we figured that by the time X3 shipped it would slip off the bleeding edge and be more affordable. i7 hardware has now moved into the main stream price range. We are even seeing i7 laptops available.

This should make the older Core 2 Duos drop in price quite a bit. For someone that is looking for really cheap hardware that X3 will do good on a Core 2 Duo would be my recommended cheap machine. However, look around older quad cores are available in desktops in the $500 price range.

2) Memory.

X3 will be easier on memory for 3D operations than X2. In some cases this is very significant. Still, if you are getting new hardware more memory is better.

For a new machine I wouldn't get anything with less than 4 GB.

While memory speed still is important, the speed of memory in the multi-core machines is generally improving over time so it is becoming less of factor when looking at hardware.

3) A 64 bit OS is a must have.

Windows 7 64-bit is the best OS to run X3 on. X3 will ship as a 32 bit application.

The main reason to go 64 bit is that your extra memory will be used by the OS and other applications making your system faster when dealing with large models in Chief.

I am using X3 13.2.0.49 now. I have a Radeon X1650 video card that has worked adequately thru X2!
NOW It is slow on orthographic full, PLUS there is a small square of the previous image overlayed abit to the right of center an about 40% up from the bottom.

[Doug Park]

Sound's like a video driver problem. We are taking advantage of OpenGL 2.0 features now which for the most part is faster and provides better results on newer cards.

We have found that even though some of the older ATI cards claim 2.0 support some of them have serious bugs in their drivers.

Try turning off "Use Enhanced Lighting" option in your render preferences and see if that helps.

[Abyssal Designs]

Hector,
Hello Folks,
I'm planning to get a new mac book pro i7, 8GB, 2.66 mhz, 7200 rpm does anybody know how chief is going to work on partition boot camp on that machine?. also if I use the accutrans to render it in KT I'll be able to use KT mac version?.
Thanks

[BuildingDesign]

Hi folks

I managed to install NView on a Win7 64 bit machine with the GeForce GTX 295 card. The nview control buttons appear on most of the MS menu bars but not on Chief. I had hoped that NVidia would come up with a driver that would include NView for Win7 and Geforce card but from what I read they have no intentions to. What they do offer is,,,,, spend more money for Quatro! Quatro cards support NView on Win7 machines. UNBELEIVABLE!

That leads me to this question,,,, is anyone out there using or changed to a Quatro card to get back NView and noticed any performance change (better or worse?). should I remortgage my house or go with and entry level card.

I just can’t seem to function on a single monitor. The plan review process with clients on a dual set up is hard to beat.

If this is a duplicate post on this subject here by me I apologize,,, senior moment?

Perplexed, Ray

N/Vidia do not supply Nview for their Gtx range, only The Quatro! So multi monitor management is greatly disabled. I would not buy Nvidia again for this reason alone as ATI has its Hydravision control module add on the the catalysts drivers driver are very good and work with all their cards.
We went into this issue in some detail in this thread.
http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread.php?t=41153&page=21

I would not go Nvidia again (and I bought 2 x Gtx 275's). Only letting their quatro cards work with Nview is a rip off and I don't know why ART are recommending Nvidia over ATI. The loss in time alone because of this issues out-ways any gain in speed the GTX might have over the ATI cards.
I had a X800 Ati running two monitors overclocked and it was rock solid for 4 hard working years.

As I have said previously if you have multi monitors (as a lot of us have) buy ATI.
I so wish I had of known about this issue before I decided on the twin GTX 275's.
Which reminds me I was going to swap them out for ATI before I reformatted for win7 and the X3 upgrade.
I've gone to X3 but still to do the win7 & reformat. Now I must call my computer guy??
Its the full day I loose when doing this that's the problem LOL!!

[arcadian]

So Rick,
When do you plan doing the hardware upgrade?
I'm very intersted in your outcome as I'm about to go through a similar process. I'm running 2 monitors on a GTX 285 card, and wanted to run another monitor or two, and was about to order another 285 card to run this.
Now I'm new to this multi monitor thing, and thought I had reasonable control of the two monitors. What additional options would the ATI cards give?

Andy Smith
Arcadian Design Ltd
Tauranga, New Zealand

[BuildingDesign]

Andy I have triple monitors there are pics of my set up somewhere on here.
I don't think I'd go four to much head movement, but 3 seem to work well I spread chief over two with the plan on the larger 22" centre, 3d or layout on the right and Libraries, outlook, bracing calc program on the left. The resolutions seem to combine well and the renders or raytraces on the side 19" seem to fit very well with an A3 landscape layout page. Sometimes I'll spread chief over all 3 but the task buttons get quite far away, with the present set up every tool you need is pretty much bunched around the floor plan your working on. I've always wanted to upgrade to a 27" centre but I'm scared to upset my efficiency bigger may not be better. Anyway that's just what works for me, each to their own.
Btw I am left handed so you might set up opposite to me??

OK to your question!
The main monitor control I miss is the child window snapping. And I really really miss it! Something so simple as throw the child window anywhere onto the other monitor then simply double click the task bar and have it instantly maximise only onto that monitor as opposed to dragging it over then finding an edge or corner and dragging that to fit every time you generate any type of window be it 3d, cross section, layout is a complete waste of time and a complete pain. One of those things you don't appreciate till its gone.

No need to wait for me to do the upgrade Marty on here (and from NZ) commented on the thread link I posted he had quatro then went ATI with his new computer and loaded hydravision and all went well for him.

If you don't go Quatro and who can?? An FX1400 is $900-00 and a Fx5800 is $5,163-00 dollars each over here!! Crazy!
Go ATI over Nvidia!! I'm pretty sure my computer guy said a ATI 5950 (or whatever it was) would run 3 monitors faster than my 2 GTX 275's anyway. I just never got around to changing because my ¢ monitor had to have HDMI input and it doesn't, but work is really picking up now so I might have to tackle the situation again.
I went Nvidia because ART recommended it and it certainly was a mistake for me!! I never dreamed Nvidia would not have all the controls that my old ATI had! DUH!! Big mistake!

[Ray C]

I went Nvidia because ART recommended it and it certainly was a mistake for me!! I never dreamed Nvidia would not have all the controls that my old ATI had! DUH!! Big mistake!

Hadn't thought of looking into ATI. Whatever I end up going with,,, I'll report back here.
great info,,, thanks, Ray

[Doug Park]

We don't consider the desktop management options of video cards when we make our recommendations. Use of one of these systems is not supported by or tested by us.

Our recommendations on video cards lean toward Nividia because they have fewer compatibility issues with OpenGL in general than ATI. However, ATI cards are still a good choice so if the use of the supplied desktop management software is an important consideration to you, then that may make ATI a better choice for you.

[Ray C]

Thanks for that, Doug

Ray C

[BuildingDesign]

BTW: let me sate my experience was a few months ago with Vista not win7. Drivers change and NVidia's policy may change?? I was surprised to read Ray got Nview working at all with his GTX so who knows what will happen even as soon as tommorrow? So do your homework.

I didn't even get an acknowledgement that Nvidia even received my emails so who knows?? I might also be able to have another look at Ultramon once I go to win7 as well.
I dunno if ART, being a software developer, may have a contact that they could get an answer from on Nvidia's position in this matter but I certainly got no joy??

[Brian Batson]

Ray......... I have used dual monitors exclusively for years and nview was a real time saver for window management. On my last hardware upgrade I found that nview was not an option. What I do now and actually prefer to nview is simply open chief on the left monitor, hit shift f6 to put the drawing window in its own window, stretch chief across the right monitor (the drawing window will stay on the left screen). Now you can open any other view in another window and hit shift f6 and the two windows will fill the two monitors. The currently active screen will always fill the left monitor when you shftF6 so you can easily move windows from one screen to the other. Maybe this will help....

[Ray C]

Ray......... I have used dual monitors exclusively for years and nview was a real time saver for window management. On my last hardware upgrade I found that nview was not an option. What I do now and actually prefer to nview is simply open chief on the left monitor, hit shift f6 to put the drawing window in its own window, stretch chief across the right monitor (the drawing window will stay on the left screen). Now you can open any other view in another window and hit shift f6 and the two windows will fill the two monitors. The currently active screen will always fill the left monitor when you shftF6 so you can easily move windows from one screen to the other. Maybe this will help....

Thanks for that
It's just not the same though :-(

Ray

[vintage58]

I am working on the specs for a new computer for X3. There is very little talk of AMD 1090T 6 core. All that I read on other sites say it is a great gaming cpu and will be better in the future as software takes advantage of the 6 cores. The price is very low, so has anybody considered this?