Video card for laptop

[MPhillips]

Hello

i am purchasing a new computer (notebook) which will run Solidworks and Creo in addition to CA. I notified on the suggested video cards are gaming not workstation. I plan on a Nvidea Quadra 4000. Will I have issues with CA

 

thank you for your answers

 

merlin

 

[Kbird1]

No I don't think so , it is just that Chief does not need the Quadro Series Cards, so they suggest saving some money but I believe Solidworks does like a Quadro ......

[TheKitchenAbode]

As per Mick's comment. There is no real benefit concerning Chief, however some of your other programs may benefit from the exclusive features Quadro offers. Not aware of any issues using Quadro with Chief, my first workstation had a Quadro card and everything worked fine.

[lbuttery]

correct, from everything I have read here over the last decade is that Chief doesn't need a Quadro 

but can use the best video card with a decent amount of video ram

 

other CAD software may benefit from the Quadro 

but Chief is gaming based - not CAD based 

 

Lew

[TheKitchenAbode]

19 minutes ago, lbuttery said:

correct, from everything I have read here over the last decade is that Chief doesn't need a Quadro 

but can use the best video card with a decent amount of video ram

 

other CAD software may benefit from the Quadro 

but Chief is gaming based - not CAD based 

 

Lew

 

Chief is not really gaming based, it uses Open GL, very few games use this. The reason CA recommends gaming cards is the fact that they are less expensive than Quadro cards. Both gaming and Quadro cards support Open GL, gaming cards have specialized routines that gaming developers can use to improve gaming performance while Quadro cards have specialized routines that CAD developers can utilize to improve performance. The fact that CA does not rely on either of these specialized routines is often the cause of some confusion when using video card reviews to determine CA performance benefits. What's worse is that it's almost impossible to find video card reviews that focus on Open GL performance, which is really what is needed.

 

Discrete memory is certainly a consideration. Most camera views and plan views do not consume much video card memory, however if you are running PBR's memory consumption can be extremely high, have had some that will eat 5GB per scene. Users must also be aware that all of their other running programs will also be taking a piece of your video cards memory so the accumulative total must be considered. Fortunately, even if this accumulative total exceeds the video cards discrete memory the card will start swapping with your system memory to compensate. Most users will not notice this unless the system has to start swapping to the disk. What's most important is to ensure that the discrete video card memory is sufficiently sized to hold the largest anticipated scene/page, really big problem if you have a single 5GB PBR scene and only 4GB of discrete video card memory. This is one of the advantages of Quadro cards as they can be obtained with discrete memory far in excess of any gaming card should one have the need for such, you will just have to pay the big bucks to get this.

[lbuttery]

Graham:

 

sorry, but CA has repeatedly stated time and again that Chief is gaming based and not CAD based

 

their recommendation has never been about cost 

 

CA has stated time and again that there is no benefit to Chief from a Quadro card 

since it is CAD based

 

Lew

[TheKitchenAbode]

21 minutes ago, lbuttery said:

Graham:

 

sorry, but CA has repeatedly stated time and again that Chief is gaming based and not CAD based

 

their recommendation has never been about cost 

 

CA has stated time and again that there is no benefit to Chief from a Quadro card 

since it is CAD based

 

Lew

 

That is what I said, Chief can't take advantage of the finely tuned drivers that are provided in the Quatro cards. However, Quadro cards have all the same graphics hardware as NVidias gaming cards, what they may lack are some of the finely tuned drivers for certain games.

 

The OP stated that they also use SolidWorks which is designed to be used with a workstation graphics card such as Quadro. If they use a gaming card SolidWorks performance may be reduced. As this is a laptop the OP is not going to have two discrete graphics cards, a gaming card for Chief and a Quadro for SolidWorks. The Quadro P4000 that the OP is considering is a very competent graphics card and I have heard of no technical reason why Chief would not function fully on one of these cards.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Here is a chart that demonstrates the potential benefit a SolidWorks user may experience when using a Quadro card in comparison with NVidia RTX gaming card.

 

 

The article is here, worth a read.

 

https://www.bing.com/search?q=quadro+p4000&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=quadro+p4000&sc=8-12&sk=&cvid=C13AA4EDB2D4459E9E40FBCA91CB0852

 

 

[Kbird1]

The Quadro Cards have a special Double Precision Floating Point Chip along with the NV GPU and that precision is needed in Engineering , scientific, etc Applications for instance, and thus far outstrip the GTX/RTX line for those Applications , but Chief is not one of them, so they suggest the GTX line instead ( now RTX line). the Quadro cards can also have alot more dedicated memory up to 24GB currently I think , Chief suggest 4GB though I'd go 6 or 8 on a GTX/RTX card if I could.

 

Quadro is Nvidia's brand for graphics cards intended for use in workstations running professional computer-aided design (CAD), computer-generated imagery (CGI), digital content creation (DCC) applications, scientific calculations and machine learning.

The GPU chips on Quadro-branded graphics cards are identical to those used on GeForce-branded graphics cards. The Quadro cards differ substantially in their ECC memory and enhanced floating point precision, which tremendously reduce the risks of calculation errors.

 

https://www.velocitymicro.com/blog/geforce-vs-quadro-whats-the-difference/

 

https://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArticles/ArticleID/18630/Whats-the-Difference-Between-GeForce-and-Quadro-Graphics-Cards.aspx

 

 

There is still alot of heated discussion on the Quadro VS GTX everywhere ,  some more talk over at Autodesk for example here.....

 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-forum/quadro-vs-geforce-what-s-the-truth/td-p/8681995

 

Mick.

[lbuttery]

Graham:

 

and I did state that other software may benefit from the Quadro card

 

Lew

[MPhillips]

Thank you all for your input.  I will be getting the Quadro card in a Dell Precision 7740, replacing a  8 year old Dell Precision 6800.  I use the laptop to meet with clients, and to work on site in addition to at the office.  I do run Creo (ProEngineer) and SolidWorks extensively in addition to Chief Architect.  Thank you all again.

 

Merlin

[RobDesLLC]

I built my workstation for CAD, 3D rendering, and VR. I have an NVIDIA QUADRO P4000 card, 64GB DDR-3200 RAM, and a Ryzen 2700X processor on an X470 Taichi board. I have been very pleased with the graphic quality and performance. 

[melpat]

I have a laptop with an amd ryzen 9 and and nvida rtx 2060 card.  I am a novice and would like to know what settings on the graphics card I should use for best performance.  Seems like I keep getting many unwanteed spinning circles while trying to manipulate objects in the open object viewer.  

[MarkMc]

7 hours ago, melpat said:

I have a laptop with an amd ryzen 9 and and nvida rtx 2060 card.  I am a novice and would like to know what settings on the graphics card I should use for best performance.  Seems like I keep getting many unwanteed spinning circles while trying to manipulate objects in the open object viewer.  

The main thing on a laptop is to make sure that Chief is using your nvidia card. Open Nvidia control panel, manage 3 d settings, add, navigate to chief architect exe. Go down the list if you like, most settings I use either lete the program decide or high performance.