Is Geforce4 good for CAD?

kyu614

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Aug 8, 2002
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hi, i am buying a new video card and want one that will be good for pro/E and 3ds max as i will be taking a class for those programs. is the gf4 ti4200 provide decent performance for these programs? i have been looking at the professional cards, but they are too expensive so am thinking about the ti4200.

Also i read somewhere that ati is dropping the price of their FireGL 8700, and 8800 cards, to $120 and $260, respectively, does anyone know if this is true? And would those cards be able to play DVDs decently.

Thanks for the help.
 

kylebisme

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2000
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yes, nvidia cards are cream of the crop when it comes to consumer level cards in cad programs, grab one that sells with dvd software at it will do plenty fine for you. i doubt you realy even have to go for a gefroce4 honestly, an older model may well suit you just fine and save some cash as well, granted that depends on what you plan to use it for specifily. as for firegl, they are respectable cad cards as well though i cannot comment the price drop rumers or dvd playback ablity.
 

lundog22

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Mar 19, 2000
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You know, as for 2D, I love ATi's 2D quality and 3D too. I just got the 9700Pro. The 2D is much much better then my TnT, TnT2 Ultra, Geforce 256 DDR, Geforce 2 GTS and Geforce4 Ti4200. I used them all before. Nvidia's good 3D, but bad 2D compare to ATi's. The text and lines are much clearer and crisper on the 9700Pro or Radeon's. Seriously you don't even need them to be side by side to see the difference.

I was going to buy a 19" LCD to replace my Sony 400PS because the text is kinda blury and washed out. And added to the fact that I had never tried anything buy Nvidia before. After I turned on the 9700Pro, I can say that Nivida's 2D really sucks compare to the Radeon's.
 

kyu614

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Aug 8, 2002
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Originally posted by: TheSnowman
yes, nvidia cards are cream of the crop when it comes to consumer level cards in cad programs, grab one that sells with dvd software at it will do plenty fine for you. i doubt you realy even have to go for a gefroce4 honestly, an older model may well suit you just fine and save some cash as well, granted that depends on what you plan to use it for specifily. as for firegl, they are respectable cad cards as well though i cannot comment the price drop rumers or dvd playback ablity.

Thanks for the info. I actually went with a MSI 4200 w/ 128 mb ram. I am gonna use it to render animations on 3DSmax later. Hopefully it will be able to do it quickly.
 

Telinar

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Feb 15, 2002
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Yea. I need this card for 3dsmax as well. Please post your results. The Geforce2 MX400 that we're using is just too slow for 3d
 

kylebisme

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2000
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ya mx is just too little of a card for big jobs. id say mimum these days is ateast a gefoce2 pro, with more money geting you beter preformce about even up the ladder. as for the 2d quality, i too just made the switch to ati and had came from a voodoo5, but i must say the moment my 9700 booted i was so very glad to see the geforce3 go. nvidia cards just never have had good 2d, mine was a visiontek and nicer than most but that doesnt say much at all. however if you want a reasonably power cad card cheap, they are the only thing there is. heck if you want a relitivly issue free gameing card they are about all there is too, thats why they get away with the bad immage quality.
 

Mingon

Diamond Member
Apr 2, 2000
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Well I cant say i have ever had an issue with nvdia cards 2D, I have owned most brands and even my current card (inno3d) has v.good 2d. Alot of people to easily blame the cards when sometimes the quality of the monitor is the problem, I have seen a CTX monitor which was unreadable with a Voodoo card and yet was alot clearer with a geforce2 card.
 

Telinar

Member
Feb 15, 2002
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I'm not sure what it was, but the designer's complaint was that the computer was too slow when rendering image, not that the quality was lacking. The Geforce2 was sufficient for 2d Cad drawings, but now they are doing 3d so they definately need a better card. I forgot what program they were going to use. 3d something... Actual cards optimized for these drawings such as the Quadros, don't seem to be worth it yet. Anyway, I'm ordering a Ti4600. I heard Nvidia is supposedly better at 3d than ATI.