Recommended hardware requirements

[Todd Dodd]

Hi, I am currently looking to up grade to Accurender nXt but hav not been able to find any suggested hardware requirements.  I am also wondering if nXt is as reliant on OpenGL as past accurender version have been.  I am also curious as to if video cards such as the Nvidia Quatro line are still the recommended cards or if there is now a wider range of selection that will be compatible with the new nXt.  Thanks in advance for any suggestions and info you are able to give.  Todd

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Any video card that runs an AutoCAD display should pretty much run nXt. nXt only uses OpenGL directly in the Plant Editor (an external application.) AutoCAD now runs the WalkAbout display-- any performance increase seen in the AutoCAD display should translate directly to the WalkAbout display.

Video cards will not affect rendering performance (this was true in previous versions as well.) Render performance is mostly determined by the processor speed and the # of true cores (not hyperthreaded cores.) You can multiply these two numbers together to get a decent performance index.

64 bit is recommended for large data sets or high resolution rendering. Memory > 4GB can help in these situations. Neither of these is required.

[Todd Dodd]

Thanks for the info.

I am confused however, if the video card did not affect rendering performance than why have i been fighting it for the last eight years? Every time my company upgrades computers they get systems with one of the video cards that is recommended at the time for Running Autocad. I would then try to run a rendering and would have many differant types of problems, most resulting in the the program crashing. And everytime I would talk to a Mcneel and Assoc. service tech, he would tell me that the video card that came with our system was not OpenGL compliant and did not have WHQL certfied drivers. He would then suggest the Nvidia Quatro line and which ever Nvidia card that was the current one meeting these requirements. So after convincing the powers that be to upgrade the video card as suggested my problems almost everytime would go away. As you can see from my experience I am having a hard time understanding how the video card does not have a direct effect on rendering performance when having a specific card installed fixed my problems.

I was hoping i would not have to go through all of this on our next system upgrade but since you say the plant editor uses OpenGL I will continue to look for OpenGl cards and WHQL certified drivers.

Again thanks for helping me sort this out.

[Wayne Williamson]

You should look for a card that is designed for workstation use and not video games or standard office work.

Do your research on the specific video card you are considering. If you stay with the Quatro line or you go with the ATI FireGL series you sould find several suitable cards that are designed for workstation use with GL capablity. It is however important to look at the reports on the specific card you are considering as there have been a few lemons over the years.

Good Luck.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

The ar4 version of WalkAbout used an OpenGL display. It's possible (but not very likely) that a bad OpenGL driver was creating a problem. This should not be the case w/ nXt. I'm not saying it's impossible that a video card will cause problems-- but very unlikely-- particularly in the case where both AutoCAD and Windows are behaving themselves. If you want to test it without nXt, make sure that it runs

The Plant Editor uses some pretty basic OpenGL-- again-- you're pretty unlikely to see problems here.

So far, I haven't heard of any video-related problems re: nXt. It's not impossible that you'll be the first-- but I wouldn't spend a whole lot of energy worrying about it. OTOH, OpenGL certification is not a terrible thing-- it may help w/ advanced Rhino displays, for example.

[akinlolu olugboji]

Back then with AR4, had to upgrade all the graphic drivers, to prevent a crash whenever the render button was hit and at time even when loading the model into AR4. What I discovered is that, most of the hardware is already expired before it gets to the end user.

[Peter Milner]

Always download and install the latest WHQL certified drivers.
A bad driver can cause all sorts of problems.

[Wayne Williamson]

I would highly recommend the 64 bit system and as much RAM as you can reasonably afford if you are using a single computer for all of your work. I found that while the 32 bit system would run the software very stably that the limitations from the 32 bit system and the associated memory limitations really had an affect on almost every model I did.

Currently my 64 bit system is fast but by no means is it top of the line nad I find that I can do truely large models and still do my regular work will the system is rendering. This was a must in my situation but I think in most cases the 64 bit system will be of great advantage.

Of course these are my own personal observations and others my have differing experience.

[Sergio Astorga]

I am using the following and I love it!

Intel Xeon 2.27 GHz (2 processors)
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800
12 GB RAM
64 bit Windows 7
Two 19" monitors side by side

The Quadro video cards are best for CAD and 3D modeling.