Please help me decide which quadro card to buy

[richwebgfx]

I need to buy a quadro card which will be suitable for navigating my way around a large 3d model of a buisness centre and then for a fly through of the complex of one of the floors. The floor will be populated with the usual tables, chairs, items etc. The model will be given to us so i have no idea on poly count ATM, also bearing in mind when i populate the floors this will also put more of a strain on the card and it needs to be as smooth as poss when previewing the fly-through before i render it.

 

I know this might be a difficult question to answer but if anyone has any experience with this type of project - as a rough ballpoint would a quadro 3700 be up to the job?

 

Thank you!!

 

http://la.gg/v/city1.jpg

 

http://la.gg/v/city2_1.jpg

 

http://la.gg/v/city3.jpg

 

Rich.

Edited July 3, 2008 by richwebgfx

[deadfly]

I'm currently using a 3700. Its great, but I can promise you it will cruise around smoothly. I recently worked on a car showroom, which featured 30 or so high poly cars. The card did keep up well in a wireframe view.

 

Hope this helps.

[richwebgfx]

Thanks,

 

So I'm assuming you couldn't use this card with textures showing in the viewport as well, only wireframe. Is it the amount of ram which is the limiting factor?

[AJLynn]

Your models there aren't actually that high poly - a room full of 30 high poly cars would be much more difficult for a card. With the models in your renders, I think they're run comfortably on my 8800GTS (with or without my Softquadro hack) or my FireGL v5200, and on my laptop with a Radeon x1600 it wouldn't be great but I'd make do.

 

What software are you using anyway?

[richwebgfx]

I'm running studio max. I'm just a little worried that when i place all the objects to populate one of the floors if the card can handle a comfortable fly through in the viewport.

[AJLynn]

So put the stuff you're not looking at in box mode, or use Xrefs that can be loaded and unloaded by floor. Use proxies and instances. You'll need to do that stuff anyway when rendering the animation if it's high poly enough that a Quadro 3700 can't handle it.