stable board for intense 3D work (animation)

[papasukes]

Hey all,

Let me get this out of the way... - I am a newbie.

Anyway, I am planning on building an AMD system for 3D animation/rendering work. I have been reading the forumns and the web searching for the right components for my planned system. I have read through the 12/4 posting on stable 266A boards
but I wanted to know if any of you who work in 3D graphics/animation have any recommendations on motherboards (for now, I am not going to OC - since I have no idea about how and seems like it causes lots of stability issues)... It will be a great help if you can post your rig specs, also.

Here's what I am thinking about.

Shuttle AK31 rev3
crucial DDR 2100 512mb or 1 GB
AMD athlon XP 1500+
(haven't decided on a video card yet...)

(I read a review where one of the boards crashed when rendering a 3d max scene - I have been looking for that review but seem to have no luck... I will post it if I find it again).

Well, thanks in advance.

 

[Bingo13]

Tyan Tiger MP would be best for your line of work. Go here- Link

 

[papasukes]

Hey Bingo13,

thanks for the reply.


I am thinking about a relatively expensive video card (FireGL2, Qudro2, etc) so I was hoping to get by with a single processor solution... although no mobo is perfect, I am assuming that the shuttle ak31 will not choke on me when I am working ?

 

[Iron Woode]

for a video card you should check out 3dlabs if you are looking for a serious card.

 

[Lioness]

Papasukes:

My son gave me his old Bryce 4.0, 3d Max 3.1, Maya NT, Photoshop 5.0, adobe premiere (year 1995) version unknown. Do you have any of these old programs? And if so, what OS are you using? Any incompatibiliy issues? Hmmm....I sure would like to use Windows XP.

My sons office has him set-up with the dual CPU and I THINK the FireGL. His current software programs does not include those mentioned above. As an Architect he does intensive CAD work. His biggest complaint is that it's still not fast enough. I believe he is going to be changing his video card to something faster. To what? I don't know. If your interested I can find out.

Good luck to you.

 

[Bingo13]

papasukes,

You should not have an issue with the Shuttle board for most work. What type of software will you be running? You might would still want to consider a dual system and maybe go with Morgans or the 1.2 MPs to reduce your cost. As far as video cards go I had very good results with a Quadro2 Pro card but it all depends on whether you will be doing single scene rendering / cad work compared to motion capture and full animation type work. Depending upon your applications a P4 might be the better choice but it all comes down to your budget and requirements. In the area of video cards, the ATI FireGL 8800/8700 series looks promising along with the Elsa Gloria DCC for mid-range work. I would suggest the 3DLabs Wildcat II 5110 for high end graphics work but if you can afford that card then a dual MP1900+ system should not be an issue for you.

take care.......

 

[papasukes]

Hey,

Lioness:
I have used 3ds max 3 and Maya on windows 2000. I haven't heard many people complaining about using those programs on XP but I can not say for sure because I personally haven't tried. You may want to look at the forums at www.highend3d.com to see if people are complaining about compatibility issues.

Bingo13:
Thanks again. I am most likely going to go with a shuttle (once I figure out which case/psu to get with it - I actually just posted about that ) but I read that I can just get a dual motherboard like the tyan and only buy one processor for now and upgrade to duals later, do you know if this is true or has major issues? I am most interested in doing animations but I'm not that experienced so I am sure the shuttle would be just fine for now

I read a little bit about how the geforce3 is basically the same as a quadro DCC card and that you can mod it or something to convert the gf3 to a qudro so I may try that but then I again I might just be safe and bite the bullet... ah decisions, decisions

 

[Bingo13]

papasukes,

You can run the Tyan Tiger MP with just one cpu. I tried just for testing and had no issues with a MP1800+. The Quadro DCC is a GF3 with additonal features in the core turned on by the drivers. I have seen the GF2 modded but not a GF3 so I cannot comment on the subject.

 

[subhuman]

Definitely get the Tyan Tiger bingo is talking about, and if budget is a concern, get one processor for now, although honestly if you can go dual straight off, you'd be better off doing that. In fact, I think going dual processor will do a lot more if you're rendering your animations than even a faster video card... but it depends on how you work. So my advice is Tyan Tiger dual procesor AMD for 3D animation.