Please , Your ideas are very important for me

[A.D king]

Hi friends , I need your help very very much so please answer my question , I want to know all your ideas about it .
I am working with 3dsmax software and I want to get a strong computer for development works but I don't know what hardwares are perfect for this work . I want to ask you to give me a direction with the best hardwares ( such as the model of motherboard , RAM , CPU and what needed for a special work ) . I am really waiting for your helps friends .

[minimus]

i dont know the smal details but i recomend 4g ram and you should take a look at the cad graphic car (custom made buy autodesk to render better)

[Need_Help]

If your viewport (the place where you model things) is slow, upgrade your graphic card. If your rendering is slow, I think you need to upgrade your processor/RAM. But still, make sure your computer is 'balanced' (without bottleneck problem)

Thanks :)

[A.D king]

When I want to do some advanced lighting for example work with mental ray lighting , advanced sky light , Dreamscape and etc..., it is too slow for rendering . When I want to make a complicated scene or even giving hair to my human models it is too slow for my viewport and rendering . These problems made me very angry and tired . I need a powerful system to be faster so I need more help about it .
I want to know if I decide to buy a new computers,Wich models of hardwares are best .
The things I need is :
1 : The model of best RAM and how much ( capacity) ( one of friends told 4G is good but didn't told which model )
2 : The model of best CPU and how much ( I mean the needed capacity by tellinf " How Much " )
3 :The model of best graphic card
4 : Hard disk
5 : etc ......
So I ask you to give me more information so that I can get a powerful system
And at last I thank these Friends ( Minimus , Need_ Help ) for their directings and I Hope you all give me more information .

[Need_Help]

These are the best (in my opinion)
1) 2-4GB DDR2 RAM (any 'famous' brand)
2) I'm using a 3.20GHz Pentium 4 at the moment. I think an Intel Dual/Quad Core with more than 2.2GHz should be very good.
3) This is the best gaming graphic card -- nVidia GeForce 8800 Ultra
4) Up to you, depends on your need but nowadays people usually have >120GB and running SATA2
5) I am using ASUS motherboard since long time ago, so far every of my PC that is running ASUS motherboard don't have any problem.
6) If your hardware is 'high-spec', you will need a stronger power supply.
7) More fan if your computer is having overheating issue, or just use 'water cooling'

I think thats all, again, those are just 'best' in my opinion.

Thanks :)

[minimus]

These are the best (in my opinion)

1) 2-4GB DDR2 RAM (any 'famous' brand)

edit: agree DDR2 ram is strong and 4g i a good number

2) I'm using a 3.20GHz Pentium 4 at the moment. I think an Intel Dual/Quad Core with more than 2.2GHz should be very good.

edit: sounds good may look it up later.

3) This is the best gaming graphic card -- nVidia GeForce 8800 Ultra

edit: definitiv not somthing you want to use if your just
making 3D.
it will maybe run good on games but it's not anygood for 3d rendering and such.

4) Up to you, depends on your need but nowadays people usually have >120GB and running SATA2

edit: i find good space important i would have gone for a 300G sata2.
Becaus if your really getting inn to this, you will have heavy programs, toons of textures, shaders, video tutorials, model, non compressed animations. (maybe this thing dont use much space separat but toghetter they will take much space inn the end)

5) I am using ASUS motherboard since long time ago, so far every of my PC that is running ASUS motherboard don't have any problem.

edit: i dont know much about motherboards but i recomend somthing that are flexible. let me check up this.

6) If your hardware is 'high-spec', you will need a stronger power supply.

edit: makes sens. agree.

7) More fan if your computer is having overheating issue, or just use 'water cooling'

edit: water cooling is good and dont make so much noise.


here is alsow maybe somthing you want to take a look on:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...112&id=5659453

Hardware
Minimum requirements for 32-bit versions:
Intel® Pentium® IV or AMD Athlon® XP or higher processor
512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended)
500 MB swap space (2 GB recommended)
Hardware-accelerated OpenGL® and Direct3D supported
Microsoft Windows-compliant pointing device (optimized for Microsoft IntelliMouse®)
DVD-ROM drive

Minimum requirements for 64-bit versions:
Intel® EM64T, AMD Athlon® 64 or higher, AMD Opteron® processor
1 GB RAM (4 GB recommended)
500 MB swap space (2 GB recommended)
Hardware-accelerated OpenGL® and Direct3D supported
Microsoft Windows-compliant pointing device (optimized for Microsoft IntelliMouse)
DVD-ROM drive

as you can see if you run 64 bit you need to pump up the stuff much more then 32.


so if you run 32, close to every thing will work fine really :)


need_help have covered many important issues here. good

i alsow recomend a good flattscreen with clear colores and brithness for better look over the workarea. but a new screen is not a must
i alsow find it easyer to lern the hotkeys inn the program if i have program able macro keys on the key board but thats alsow just somthing extra that you dont really need :)

BUT what you really need is a damn good chair so you can spend houres on houres making stunning graphic and animations

cheers. Minimus

[Need_Help]

Originally Posted by minimus

3) This is the best gaming graphic card -- nVidia GeForce 8800 Ultra

edit: definitiv not somthing you want to use if your just
making 3D.
it will maybe run good on games but it's not anygood for 3d rendering and such.

Well, I didn't know about good workstation graphic card, and since I always 'working' at the technical support forum section for games, thats why I know which 'gaming graphic card' is good

Originally Posted by minimus

4) Up to you, depends on your need but nowadays people usually have >120GB and running SATA2

edit: i find good space important i would have gone for a 300G sata2.
Becaus if your really getting inn to this, you will have heavy programs, toons of textures, shaders, video tutorials, model, non compressed animations. (maybe this thing dont use much space separat but toghetter they will take much space inn the end)

He is correct But other than that, you can burn all the stuffs into any CD/DVD according to the category (textures, models etc.) so that even your HardDisk have any problem (infected by virus and you haven't partition your HD, or even 'fatal error' of your harddisk), you still have them in your CD (take care of the CDs carefully, but usually it is not so easy to be broken, just buy some higher quality CD and you can use them almost forever) and its easier for you to search the CD than searching all over your PC (if you didn't arrange them properly :P)

I think thats all I need to 'add' at minimus's post. He is giving you some nice informations too and I hope now you will know which PC you are going to buy

Thanks :)

[minimus]

Originally Posted by Need_Help

He is correct But other than that, you can burn all the stuffs into any CD/DVD according to the category (textures, models etc.) so that even your HardDisk have any problem (infected by virus and you haven't partition your HD, or even 'fatal error' of your harddisk), you still have them in your CD (take care of the CDs carefully, but usually it is not so easy to be broken, just buy some higher quality CD and you can use them almost forever) and its easier for you to search the CD than searching all over your PC (if you didn't arrange them properly :P)


Thanks :)

Totaly agree. burn it all on dvd is the best thing really.
and ofcourse as said. arange them after you have burned them

here is the graphic card i recomend a nvidia quadro card. it's special made to handle 3d graphic and development.
http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadrofx_family.html


here if you scrool down on the site on this link you can see autodesk is a partner of this card. and if you combine the nvidia graphic card with the autodesk special driver for 3ds max you will have the best recomended graphic card for 3ds max :)
http://www.nvidia.com/page/partner_c...d_drivers.html

i think this Thread answeres much of the frecuently askt questions about hardware. we should gett it sticky.


Warning: this graphic card cost alot and it's not a gaming card.

and the link sends you to quadro FX i dont know if FX is the best of them.

[Need_Help]

I think the nVidia Quardro FX5600 is the best among all the Quadro FX Product. Here is the link to the comparison and below of the table, there is a benchmark for the graphic card on certain 3d modelling software such as 3ds max, maya, lightwave and so on.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_11761.html#pci

Thanks :)

Note : If this will be a sticky thread, then we will need to update this list regularly or we must write a date that we posted all these (sometimes people didn't notice about the posting time/date)

[minimus]

Ye your right. nVidia Quadro FX5600 looks nice but it needs directX 10 and not all have that. but 300 million Triangles per Second is niiiiiice
nice list btw.

ye maybe we should stick it. i forgot about the date and time issue.

[Need_Help]

Actually, from what I know, the DX10 doesn't mean that it needs DX10 in order to run.(I think its better for you to ask the salesmen when you are going to buy the computer to make sure that it can run on your computer) The 'DX10' means that that graphic card is DirectX 10 compliant, just like those gaming graphic cards (again), some games require the graphic card to be DX** compliant graphic card in order to run.

Thanks :)

[minimus]

ye whould have bin stupid if it only run on DX10 but it's somthing you should sheck with salesman as said.

i have also figured out that Xeon (intel xeon) will be the best prossessor to handle 3d. also somthing cald the Quad-Core Xeon.
i havent read mych about Xeon but i have alsow heard it's one of the moste powerfull and you can go on a Dual-Core Xeon then you have 2 (that must be damn nice)

i have bin asking around with some people i know and i alsow figured out that if your using quadro card and xeon prossessor you allsow need e special type of ram and utra fast one. (ye i know "Ultra fast" it's tru..but again this will cost damn much becaus it's a rare type just for that)

we din't manage to gett up with some name on the ram yett. but if i do i can post some links and stuff about that to. and with that RAM i think you gett 4g each. and you should buy 2 and gett up to 8G ram.


LIST:

Quadro FX5600

dual-core Xeon (x2)

8G special ram.

PS: if you serch on Dual-Core Xeon on google you will see that Intel will or have luncht a new Dual-Core Xeon this year.

[Need_Help]

But I think it also depends on your Operating System right? When your OS can only support 4GB of physical RAM, i think the other 4GB RAM left will remain 'unused' right?

Here is the quote from Microsoft :

With Windows 2000 Professional and Server, the maximum amount of memory that can be supported is 4 GB. The maximum amount of memory that can be supported on Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 is also 4 GB. However, Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition supports 32 GB of physical RAM and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition supports 64 GB of physical RAM using the PAE feature

Yes, the Intel Xeon is very expensive and usually used for server only, not for normal Personal Computer. So far I never heard anyone using this for personal usage, since its so expensive and maybe 'not needed' for them. I think a Quad/Dual core 'normal' processor should work quite well (make sure you have a good processor, if not, even you have good graphic card and good number of RAM, your processor will not be able to handle them and they remain 'unused')

Thanks :)

[A.D king]

Hi again guys . after I looked at these useful information you gave me I searched about the hardwares you named . I am agree with Quadro FX5600 and I think it can be the best one . and agree with 300G sata2 . but about the prossesor , when I was searching and looking for some information about it , I found there are two sorts of prossesors "Extreme Edition 965 Presler 3.73GHz
" and "Core 2 Extreme X6800 Conroe 2.93GHz" I want to know if they are better than "XEON " or not . and if you have more information about these two ones please let me know your ideas .

( At last I thank you guys again and hope to continue this disscusion to get to the best result for buying a very special computer )

[Need_Help]

Hmm....I'm not very sure about this.....maybe minimus can help you. I will post here when I found something 'important' ;)

Thanks :)