new computer, want comments!!! - Polyloop

shaunmckinnon · 18th January 2006, 19:42

I have just bought a new Dell Dimension 5150.
It has a P4 640 3.2GHZ HT, 1Gig of DDR2 533MHZ (2X 512DIMMS), 256MB ATI X600SE HYPERMEM PCI-E 16X, AND A 250GIG SATA HD. I do more web development then design, but I would like something to be able to handle my hobby in 3D. I can see that more RAM is always a good idea, but I'm more curious about this ATI card. I cannot find any reviews on it, so I'm concerned that it might be a lemon. The new system isn't here yet, so I can't say for sure what it's like. I'm also curious how Eovia products will operate on Windows Media Edition. thanks for you opinions,

Shaun McKinnon

medeamajic · 18th January 2006, 21:01

On the Carrara 5 Pro box is states Eovia recommends Nvidia GPUs.

AWBenson · 18th January 2006, 21:26

It should work with flying colors. Also, the graphic processor/card is only for the designing/modeling stage of 3D with Carrara. Carrara doesn't use the graphic card for any rendering, so for rendering it doesn't make a difference if you have an ancient 16 mb card verus a new 256 mb one.

Keep your old computer and do network rendering. That'll even make your 3D rendering faster. :-)

mykyl1966 · 19th January 2006, 04:41

That card will be fine. As far as I remember the only thing is that it actually only has 128mb ram onboard and the other 128 mb comes from your system ram.

Cheers

Mike R

Thomas · 19th January 2006, 09:42

At Eovia, we use both ATI and Nvidia, without problems.
But ATI just changed their control panel display, and it won't launch on my personnal computer. I can't change my openGL/DirectX properties as outpout..

That sucks..

Corndog · 20th January 2006, 16:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas

At Eovia, we use both ATI and Nvidia, without problems.
But ATI just changed their control panel display, and it won't launch on my personnal computer. I can't change my openGL/DirectX properties as outpout..

That sucks..

Thomas what do you mean by change your openGL/Direct X properties as output ?

Pete Exxtreme · 20th January 2006, 20:00

Thomas > their shittv control panel running using .net can be removed

Shaun > the X600 is not fastest GPU it seems..

(http://www.bytesector.com/data/bs-ar...ID=324&page=1), but still that as you said, until you didn't used it you cannot said if it will fit your needs or not.

Having said this, i think that you can upgrade later on if needed, like what i did on my Dell Dimension too from an ATI9800 Pro to another Ati but X850 XT

Otherwise i'm really happy with my Dell !

Thomas · 21st January 2006, 10:41

Pete : and how can you access to the display properties ?

toonman · 21st January 2006, 22:04

Hi Shaun,

You may want to consider adding more RAM DIMMS.
Nice system.

shaunmckinnon · 30th January 2006, 16:49

I finally got the system!!! (damn UPS crossing Canadian border). It's wonderful. In fact it does everything I need it to. However, I noticed that the hyper-threading breeds a new thing in Carrara 5. A second render block. This is wonderful, however, on one picture that I rendered, there was a seam line in between the two render blocks on the rendered image. Now, unfortunately I'm at work, so I can't show you the image, but I was curious, is there a way to shut off the second render block?

OH, and just one note. My old computer used to take forever to calculate physics. This one just produces them, without any load time.

shaunmckinnon · 30th January 2006, 16:53

Oh, I forgot. One other strange thing with the new system. If you enable dual-monitor support you can't really put hexagon in one screen and carrara in the other unless you don't use the maximize button in the software. Like for example, if you shrink hexagon so it's not the entire screen, taskbar and all, but make it still the standard maximize of windows, you can put it into the second monitor. However, the second you make it full screen on the second monitor, it disappears. Has anyone else had this problem?

-ash- · 30th January 2006, 21:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by shaunmckinnon

Oh, I forgot. One other strange thing with the new system. If you enable dual-monitor support you can't really put hexagon in one screen and carrara in the other unless you don't use the maximize button in the software. Like for example, if you shrink hexagon so it's not the entire screen, taskbar and all, but make it still the standard maximize of windows, you can put it into the second monitor. However, the second you make it full screen on the second monitor, it disappears. Has anyone else had this problem?

Hi, Shaun,
I've just tried this, Hexagon only running, Hexagon and C5Pro running. Sorry, but had no problems. Each app could run maximised or not on either screen.

I'm running a P4 2.0 with and ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. Sorry can't be of more help.

Regards
Tony

Corndog · 30th January 2006, 23:47

Shaun.. I run dual monitors as well.. The hexagon app wants to run full screen on the primary monitor only.. So if you have carrara open and Hex on the second monitor and then maximize Hex it will goto the primary monitor underneath Carrara

-ash- · 31st January 2006, 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corndog

Shaun.. I run dual monitors as well.. The hexagon app wants to run full screen on the primary monitor only.. So if you have carrara open and Hex on the second monitor and then maximize Hex it will goto the primary monitor underneath Carrara

This is very starnge. It doesn't happen to me. Both apps running, Hex can be maximised on the secondary monitor with C5Pro maximised on the primary monitor.

OR Hex can be maximised on the primary monitor and C5Pro on the secondary.

Perhaps it's a system thing. Shaun, Corndog, what operating system are you running? My system is P4 2.0, 1GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128mb, Windows 2000 Pro (SP4).

Perhaps we can figure out what is different.

Regards
Tony

shaunmckinnon · 1st February 2006, 17:14

I'm running Windows XP Media Edition (came with the TV tuner card). It's quite buggy. i can run both apps in maximized, but not the eovia way of maximized where it takes up the entire screen, taskbar and all. The second I click the "eye" icon on the second monitor, the app disappears.

-ash- · 1st February 2006, 20:54

OK I can confirm this happens on my system too. I don't use the Eovia way as I have the app partially on the second screen.

What happens is that when you click the maximise icon Hex jumps to the first screen. So you can't use Hex in this manner on the second monitor :-(

By the way, the eye icon is the minimise one. I assume your talking about the one next to it that looks like a window. This is the maximise button.

Anyway this does seem to be a shortcoming of the way the Eovia style maximise.

Regards
Tony

shaunmckinnon · 3rd February 2006, 12:40

you're right ash, the little square beside the eye.

curious, has anyone set their dual SATA drives to RAID 0 here? I realize the risk in doing this, losing all data if one drive goes down, but I was wondering if you can partition both drives, and set the RAID controller to affect only 1 partition on each drive. Essentially having Windows installed on a major partition on one drive, having a major backup on another drive, but for data installation (such as carrara, and other data heavy applications), put them on the RAID configured partitions.

Actually that wouldn't be the best configuration. I don't care when the software goes down, but by having a backup of the files on the system would be nice. having to major partitions handling the RAID and two minor partitions handling seperate backups (even if you could RAID 1 half the drive and RAID 0 the other half). Or maybe I just install a third IDE hard drive for backup purposes.

Any suggestions?

Shaun McKinnon (please don't make fun of me

. This RAID stuff is very new to me )

-ash- · 11th March 2006, 17:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas

At Eovia, we use both ATI and Nvidia, without problems.
But ATI just changed their control panel display, and it won't launch on my personnal computer. I can't change my openGL/DirectX properties as outpout..

That sucks..

Thomas, don't know if you ever sorted this out but just had the same problem on my son's PC. We found out that you need to have .NET framework installed. There's a link on the ATI download page. https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...e&folderID=295

After .NET was installed the control panel worked fine.

Thomas · 12th March 2006, 00:27

I reinstall windows and now it works. I had .net installed before. (and the new driver sucks.. new process, a lot of memory used..)

sparrownightmare · 12th March 2006, 02:53

I just put together a mid-high end machine for 3D work. I was tired of C5 taking 4 hours to 2 weeks to render a single image. Here is what I built.

AMD Athlon64x2 3800 CPU (really makes C5 Fly!)
Abit KN8 Ultra Motherboard with the Nforce 4 ultra chipset
2BG PC3200 DDR400 Dual Channel Corsair RAM
Leadtek Nvidia GeForce 6600 TD 256MB PCIE Video
Seagate 200GB SATA II Hard Disk 3GB/s Transfer rate
Maxtor 300GB SATA II Hard Disk 3GB/s transfer rate
Creative Labs Audigy 2zs Sound
Sony CDRW
Samsung DVD-RW

I personally have always liked AMD CPUs. More bang for the buck and even Intel admits they are playing catch up to the mid to high end AMD chips.

The fast RAM really helps. I plan on adding another 2GB later on as well.

This box flies on C5, Poser, even Maya.

Oh yeh and it plays a mean game of Sims 2.

Rich

18th January 2006, 19:42	#1 (permalink)
shaunmckinnon Extrusion Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 187	new computer, want comments!!! I have just bought a new Dell Dimension 5150. It has a P4 640 3.2GHZ HT, 1Gig of DDR2 533MHZ (2X 512DIMMS), 256MB ATI X600SE HYPERMEM PCI-E 16X, AND A 250GIG SATA HD. I do more web development then design, but I would like something to be able to handle my hobby in 3D. I can see that more RAM is always a good idea, but I'm more curious about this ATI card. I cannot find any reviews on it, so I'm concerned that it might be a lemon. The new system isn't here yet, so I can't say for sure what it's like. I'm also curious how Eovia products will operate on Windows Media Edition. thanks for you opinions, Shaun McKinnon __________________ "I put a hexagon on you, cause you're mine. And I love the things that you do.." DELL DIMENSION 5150, P4 3.2GHZ HT, 3GB RAM, 256 ATI X600 (128 SHARED), DUAL 250GB SATA, XP PRO CARRARA 5 STANDARD, HEXAGON 2, DREAMWEAVER 2004MX,COREL SUITE 12, BRYCE 5.5, POSER 5

18th January 2006, 21:26	#3 (permalink)
AWBenson Box modeling Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Miami, FL Posts: 292	It should work with flying colors. Also, the graphic processor/card is only for the designing/modeling stage of 3D with Carrara. Carrara doesn't use the graphic card for any rendering, so for rendering it doesn't make a difference if you have an ancient 16 mb card verus a new 256 mb one. Keep your old computer and do network rendering. That'll even make your 3D rendering faster. :-) __________________ Andrew Benson AKA: AWBenson www.awbenson.com andrew (at) awbenson (dot) com

19th January 2006, 09:42	#5 (permalink)
Thomas Always learning new stuff Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Merignac, France Posts: 11,213	At Eovia, we use both ATI and Nvidia, without problems. But ATI just changed their control panel display, and it won't launch on my personnal computer. I can't change my openGL/DirectX properties as outpout.. That sucks.. __________________ Polyloop owner & Administrator - no support by PM or email. Polyloop [EN/FR] - Meuuh [FR +16 ans] - Totyo [FR] - Pixologic [JOB] - Le ZBlog [JOB] - La3dpourlesnuls [FR]

20th January 2006, 20:00	#7 (permalink)
Pete Exxtreme Lick it up Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Thonon/France Posts: 4,618	Thomas > their shittv control panel running using .net can be removed Shaun > the X600 is not fastest GPU it seems.. (http://www.bytesector.com/data/bs-ar...ID=324&page=1), but still that as you said, until you didn't used it you cannot said if it will fit your needs or not. Having said this, i think that you can upgrade later on if needed, like what i did on my Dell Dimension too from an ATI9800 Pro to another Ati but X850 XT Otherwise i'm really happy with my Dell ! __________________ Toute faute de frappe ou erreur de syntaxe sont dues a un clavier rebelle à toute forme d'autorité. LightWave 9 \| Hexagon 2 My gallery

21st January 2006, 10:41	#8 (permalink)
Thomas Always learning new stuff Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Merignac, France Posts: 11,213	Pete : and how can you access to the display properties ? __________________ Polyloop owner & Administrator - no support by PM or email. Polyloop [EN/FR] - Meuuh [FR +16 ans] - Totyo [FR] - Pixologic [JOB] - Le ZBlog [JOB] - La3dpourlesnuls [FR]

18th January 2006, 21:01	#2 (permalink)
medeamajic Now, I learn animation Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 1,026	On the Carrara 5 Pro box is states Eovia recommends Nvidia GPUs.

19th January 2006, 04:41	#4 (permalink)
mykyl1966 Box modeling Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 278	That card will be fine. As far as I remember the only thing is that it actually only has 128mb ram onboard and the other 128 mb comes from your system ram. Cheers Mike R

21st January 2006, 22:04	#9 (permalink)
toonman NURBS Booleans are your friend Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: USA Posts: 116	Hi Shaun, You may want to consider adding more RAM DIMMS. Nice system. __________________ Mac G5 Dual - OSX

30th January 2006, 16:49	#10 (permalink)
shaunmckinnon Extrusion Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 187	I finally got the system!!! (damn UPS crossing Canadian border). It's wonderful. In fact it does everything I need it to. However, I noticed that the hyper-threading breeds a new thing in Carrara 5. A second render block. This is wonderful, however, on one picture that I rendered, there was a seam line in between the two render blocks on the rendered image. Now, unfortunately I'm at work, so I can't show you the image, but I was curious, is there a way to shut off the second render block? OH, and just one note. My old computer used to take forever to calculate physics. This one just produces them, without any load time. __________________ "I put a hexagon on you, cause you're mine. And I love the things that you do.." DELL DIMENSION 5150, P4 3.2GHZ HT, 3GB RAM, 256 ATI X600 (128 SHARED), DUAL 250GB SATA, XP PRO CARRARA 5 STANDARD, HEXAGON 2, DREAMWEAVER 2004MX,COREL SUITE 12, BRYCE 5.5, POSER 5

30th January 2006, 16:53	#11 (permalink)
shaunmckinnon Extrusion Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 187	Oh, I forgot. One other strange thing with the new system. If you enable dual-monitor support you can't really put hexagon in one screen and carrara in the other unless you don't use the maximize button in the software. Like for example, if you shrink hexagon so it's not the entire screen, taskbar and all, but make it still the standard maximize of windows, you can put it into the second monitor. However, the second you make it full screen on the second monitor, it disappears. Has anyone else had this problem? __________________ "I put a hexagon on you, cause you're mine. And I love the things that you do.." DELL DIMENSION 5150, P4 3.2GHZ HT, 3GB RAM, 256 ATI X600 (128 SHARED), DUAL 250GB SATA, XP PRO CARRARA 5 STANDARD, HEXAGON 2, DREAMWEAVER 2004MX,COREL SUITE 12, BRYCE 5.5, POSER 5

30th January 2006, 23:47	#13 (permalink)
Corndog Edge modeling Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 384	Shaun.. I run dual monitors as well.. The hexagon app wants to run full screen on the primary monitor only.. So if you have carrara open and Hex on the second monitor and then maximize Hex it will goto the primary monitor underneath Carrara __________________ daz3d forums blow chunks

1st February 2006, 17:14	#15 (permalink)
shaunmckinnon Extrusion Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 187	I'm running Windows XP Media Edition (came with the TV tuner card). It's quite buggy. i can run both apps in maximized, but not the eovia way of maximized where it takes up the entire screen, taskbar and all. The second I click the "eye" icon on the second monitor, the app disappears. __________________ "I put a hexagon on you, cause you're mine. And I love the things that you do.." DELL DIMENSION 5150, P4 3.2GHZ HT, 3GB RAM, 256 ATI X600 (128 SHARED), DUAL 250GB SATA, XP PRO CARRARA 5 STANDARD, HEXAGON 2, DREAMWEAVER 2004MX,COREL SUITE 12, BRYCE 5.5, POSER 5

1st February 2006, 20:54	#16 (permalink)
-ash- I'm Batman (in 3D) Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Over the road, round the corner, out of the noise. (Scotland) Posts: 749	OK I can confirm this happens on my system too. I don't use the Eovia way as I have the app partially on the second screen. What happens is that when you click the maximise icon Hex jumps to the first screen. So you can't use Hex in this manner on the second monitor :-( By the way, the eye icon is the minimise one. I assume your talking about the one next to it that looks like a window. This is the maximise button. Anyway this does seem to be a shortcoming of the way the Eovia style maximise. Regards Tony

3rd February 2006, 12:40	#17 (permalink)
shaunmckinnon Extrusion Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 187	you're right ash, the little square beside the eye. curious, has anyone set their dual SATA drives to RAID 0 here? I realize the risk in doing this, losing all data if one drive goes down, but I was wondering if you can partition both drives, and set the RAID controller to affect only 1 partition on each drive. Essentially having Windows installed on a major partition on one drive, having a major backup on another drive, but for data installation (such as carrara, and other data heavy applications), put them on the RAID configured partitions. Actually that wouldn't be the best configuration. I don't care when the software goes down, but by having a backup of the files on the system would be nice. having to major partitions handling the RAID and two minor partitions handling seperate backups (even if you could RAID 1 half the drive and RAID 0 the other half). Or maybe I just install a third IDE hard drive for backup purposes. Any suggestions? Shaun McKinnon (please don't make fun of me . This RAID stuff is very new to me ) __________________ "I put a hexagon on you, cause you're mine. And I love the things that you do.." DELL DIMENSION 5150, P4 3.2GHZ HT, 3GB RAM, 256 ATI X600 (128 SHARED), DUAL 250GB SATA, XP PRO CARRARA 5 STANDARD, HEXAGON 2, DREAMWEAVER 2004MX,COREL SUITE 12, BRYCE 5.5, POSER 5

12th March 2006, 00:27	#19 (permalink)
Thomas Always learning new stuff Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Merignac, France Posts: 11,213	I reinstall windows and now it works. I had .net installed before. (and the new driver sucks.. new process, a lot of memory used..) __________________ Polyloop owner & Administrator - no support by PM or email. Polyloop [EN/FR] - Meuuh [FR +16 ans] - Totyo [FR] - Pixologic [JOB] - Le ZBlog [JOB] - La3dpourlesnuls [FR]

12th March 2006, 02:53	#20 (permalink)
sparrownightmare Vertex Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Midwest US Posts: 6	I just put together a mid-high end machine for 3D work. I was tired of C5 taking 4 hours to 2 weeks to render a single image. Here is what I built. AMD Athlon64x2 3800 CPU (really makes C5 Fly!) Abit KN8 Ultra Motherboard with the Nforce 4 ultra chipset 2BG PC3200 DDR400 Dual Channel Corsair RAM Leadtek Nvidia GeForce 6600 TD 256MB PCIE Video Seagate 200GB SATA II Hard Disk 3GB/s Transfer rate Maxtor 300GB SATA II Hard Disk 3GB/s transfer rate Creative Labs Audigy 2zs Sound Sony CDRW Samsung DVD-RW I personally have always liked AMD CPUs. More bang for the buck and even Intel admits they are playing catch up to the mid to high end AMD chips. The fast RAM really helps. I plan on adding another 2GB later on as well. This box flies on C5, Poser, even Maya. Oh yeh and it plays a mean game of Sims 2. Rich __________________ Rich Sensale sparrownightmare@verizon.net VWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWV The More they overthink the plumbing, The easier it is to stuff up the drain... WVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVWVW (Cmdr Montgomery Scott, USP Engineering Div.)

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