United3dArtists Archive

I got my first computer in 2001 and had it made up for TS, which was my first app....Haven't upgraded since then (!) except for 2 external hard drives.....I am (finally) getting a whole new system......I work in TS6.0 SSE (what's SSE?) as I need modelling--not into gaming or animation--and couldn't afford the time to start acclimating to v.7. I obviously need a system which will work well for 6 but would also like to be prepared for 7 and 8......Any suggestions for a full system would be welcome, but I am particularly interested in recommendations for the video card, as I know that is crucial as regards good TS behavior, and throughout the years many video cards were not good for TS....I am on XP Professional. Just for the record, my longstanding video card is Matrox Millenium G450 DualHead which has served me well.....

Thanks for any help!
Janet

janetb wrote:I obviously need a system which will work well for 6 but would also like to be prepared for 7 and 8......

You will never get prepared enough for tS8
More seriously, any 3D card above 100$ will display trueSpace -tS6.6/Modeler- interface at good framerates. Keep in mind that tS6.6/Modeler display still relies quite a lot on CPU performances. For this price, ATI and NVidia performances are almost equal. Personally I would advise to go with a fanless card as graphic cards fans are generally small and making noise over time.

If you plan to work in tS7.61 Workspace interface, things are different as you can use the real-time engine to render your scenes. Here, a powerful 3D card is a plus, and an SLI/Crossfire solution (with 2 or 3 GC) can be considered seriously.

Hi,

I am also building a new system, but I am new to 3D. I have been looking around and see recommendations for workstation cards for 3ds etc. These seem to me like a ripoff and a scam (I don't know what the drivers are), but I guess they make a lesser card worth 10 times the money. If you spend $4000 on software whats another 1 or 2 on a gpu?

I don't have that money and I am looking at nvidia cards as I have an nvidia mobo.

I am looking at the 250gts in particular. Would there be any advantage to going above this or getting one that supported ogl3+?

Could I get a cheaper card. 9600gt?

Thanks for any advice.

Chris

Hi i have read somewhere that the gt 240 is the same
as a 9600 gt260 is 9800. another thing to watch out for
is that the mother board supports these cards
i mean with open gl the 9600 is open gl 2.1
the gt 240 opengl 3 .if the motherboard does not have
opengl 3 the gt cards will not work

pugman 1 wrote:Hi i have read somewhere that the gt 240 is the same
as a 9600 gt260 is 9800. another thing to watch out for
is that the mother board supports these cards
i mean with open gl the 9600 is open gl 2.1
the gt 240 opengl 3 .if the motherboard does not have
opengl 3 the gt cards will not work

That is somewhat true. all those cards use the g92 (i think) technology. The 200 series are standard 256 bit (and more stream processors) ddr3 while the 9x00 series are standard 128 bit ddr2. There is a slight performance gain and a little less power used (for about $20 more). I hear alot of criticism about this as well, but if something works stick with it, and if you can make it a little better...

The motherboard has nothing to do with any api support. It supports the card type or it doesn't. The card you have has certain drivers available and those drivers (software) support apis such as ogl, glsl, dx, ocl, etc. I believe nvidia now has ogl 3.2 drivers for all cards above the 8800. My question was if truespace uses these apis or if it is using ogl 1.x or 2.x and if a cheaper card would work.

My other question was what card/system you are using and how well it works for you. As this is always the best way to make a decision. If it works it works.

Also is truespace still being developed? Does anyone other than M$ have the source code?

Chris

Hi BIGDOG76 , i have a nvidia gts 240 ,w7 4core 6gig ram
ts works fine animation also ,
ts is no longer developed only plugins from forum
members

Hi Bigdog76.

trueSpace is no longer being developed. MS bought and discontinued it and only MS has the source code. As Pugman1 said, some forum members are working on fixes and plugins.

There is a thread somewhere about TS and video cards. Maybe in this forum or maybe at the Caligari forums http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/index.php" .

A thing to note when considering video cards is that TS 7.X has two programs in one. There is the workspace side, the unfinished new style of TS, which relies heavily on the video card and DX for its realtime display. Also there is the model side which is TS 6.6 plus some nice new things. Model side can use the DX (and optionally OpenGL) a little but does not need a fancy video card.

You might consider that TS is no longer being developed when selecting a program to use. TS is great for those of us who already have it, use it, and love it. Without long term development is it really a good choice if you are new to it?

What ever programs you use remember that this forum is for 3D artists regardless of the programs used.

Hi,

Thank you for your replies.

@pugman1 are you using win7 64 or 32? I will look into the savings if I go with a gt240 thank you. I know there is a lot of "nvidia bashing" about reusing the 9x00 series chip in the new 2xx series cards, but they are better products and I think most of that hype is from ati loyalists. edit: the new cards are much smaller too.

@finis thank you for your reply. It is too bad it seems this great program is coming to an end and I just found it. I am creating a hard drive now just for truespace and I am going to download all info and resources I can get. I am glad to hear there are still some people working on it. Most of the programs I have looked at are still using ogl 1.1 or 2.1 so I don't think that should be an issue for a year or more. I just wanted to check as this is the most "mature" program I have looked at.

I can't ignore truespace as it is now free and it seems comparable to multi thousand dollar programs. I am also going to be using some others as I am new to 3D and trying to decide what will work for me and what I can work with. Any suggestions on other free or low cost programs?

I realize I have gone off topic here with my last query and way off with this post. Feel free to move and retitle as appropriate. Thank you

Chris

Other free or low cost: Blender is the main free program for most people. I recommend waiting for Blender 2.5 to advance until it includes most of the previous abilities. It is getting a new user interface and many find the old one hard to learn.

Any chance of getting back to the original question of this post........which is basically:

How to build an ENTIRE new system (mine is 10 years old) which will work well for TS6 AND TS7x, with particular emphasis on the graphics card and the d3d and openGL issues.

The problem is that all the detailed threads about TS6 graphics cards are very old and thus no longer relevant........especially if you want to be able to go to 7 eventually. Could you folks perhaps direct me to someone who would be have this info? I have all the listings of system requirements for different OS's, but nothing recent which speaks to both 6 AND 7.
Any referrals would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks!
Janet

PS: TS is unknown in the country where I live, so there is no one here to confer with. Also, we are 220V, so US-appropriate hardware is often not available here....

@finis Thanks I will give blender another look and download both version to familiarize myself with the program and the new ui. I will also definitely be trying truespace.

@janetb Sorry for taking this off topic. Since I did I will give you what info I can on a full system. First I am guessing you are in Europe (220v) so I am not sure what brands are available so I will specify products by chip manufacturer. The only matrox cards available here (USA) are very high priced ($500+) workstation cards. From what I have read you do not need this type of card to use truespace of any other program. They are recommended for apps such as 3ds, maya, etc. which are ~$4,000 programs here, but you can still use those without the workstation cards. Anyway here is my recommendations:

Motherboard: I am using msi n750-g55. This has an nvidia chipset so will support sli with nvidia gpu. I would recommend nvidia for gpgpu's (which includes 3d and grapic design). This is an affordable mobo (I only paid ~$20 with the cpu combo). I will upgrade this in a year or so when usb 3.0 and sata 6gb/s are more available and more affordable.

CPU: I am using AMD phenom2 955be (. I prefer AMD as they are usually ~25% cheaper for similar performance as intel. Any quad core will put you into light speed from where you are now (pentium 2/d/4? 256kb cache? and 533mhz?)

Memory (RAM): This cpu will support ddr3 1333mhz (crucial, adata, mushkin, and patriot are very good brands) and I would go with 4gb (max usable if you're using xp 32) and each application can only access about ~3.33gb at a time. If you switch to 64 bit you can add up to 16gb. Always buy in dual channel matched pairs (i.e. 2x1gb, 2x2gb kits)

GPU (video/graphics card): I am going with the nvidia GTS250 as it is the best price:performance ratio available for my needs (hd video editing, decoding/encoding, graphic design, 2D animation, and now 3D) and as I stated earlier nvidia is a better way to go for GPGPU (if you are not a gamer). They are more dedicated to this type card and there stream processors are better suited where ati is better suited to gaming. All nvidia gpus (8x00 + and 2xx) will have upgraded drivers for open gl as it is developed (currently 3.2). I belive they will be upgrading dx as well (currently 10.1), but this is not as important if you do not play games. All nvidia cards will also support open CL when it is actually used. If you do go with ati I would recommend the radeon 5670 as this is pronanly there best price:performance card for graphic/video editing/3D/animation. Good brands msi, bfg, his(ati), evga(nvidia)

Hard Drive: Unless you really need extra space wait until sata 6gb/s is available and/or to see how ssd drives develop and prices come down. In a year or so I would upgrade to one of these types.

DVD/BR/CD: Whatever your needs are here. Go with sata drives. If you need them buy now they are cheap enough. I am not sure how this will progress with sata 6gb/s, probably not for a couple years.

Power Supply: Often overlooked by people building systems. Don't cheap out here, this cheap part may take your expensive hardware with it if it fails. Single +12v rails are preferred. The "multi rail" design gained popularity (due to marketing) for a while, but you will need a much larger power supply to run the same system. example: single +12v rail 600w psu=~50A
2 +12v rails=~20A+30A maybe enough on the first rail maybe not, gets worse with 3, 4, 6 rails. These are really poinless. 1 or 2 rails is best.
You will need at least 50A +12v rail or 22+A x2 rails for this system. (20A for CPU+20A for GPU) In the above example you may need to go to 700w to make up for the split rails. Get a PSU with active PFC, most models by manufacturers below will have this feature. Modular is nice, as it leaves more airflow for cooling, but not neccesary.
Cooler Master, Corsair, and XFX are the only brands I would recommend here. There are other good brands, but these are the best.

Well there are some recommendations. I hope this helps, although I am not familiar with truespace, the setup here will work and being it (truespace) is not being developed you will never "outgrow" it. This setup should work with most applications and if you upgrade in a year or so as recommended you should be on the "cutting edge" for a few years, which is hard to do with pc hardware.

GOOD LUCK

Chris

Chris,
I really appreciate all the time you took to share the details of your system, etc. But what I am looking for is someone who has extensive experience with both TS6 and TS7. I know from my 10 years with TS that very often hardware that was supposed to be good for 3d did not work well with TS for various reasons that a non-TS person could not have known.....I have people here who can advise vis-a-vis 3d, but I need a specifically TS advisor.........! Can anyone out there refer me to someone...? All the active TS'ers I knew from days of old seem to have migrated to other progs.....

Thanks for any help,
Janet

Ask here:
http://www.truespaceplugins.com/contact-us.html"

Thanks Steinie----will do! Janet

janetb wrote: what I am looking for is someone who has extensive experience with both TS6 and TS7.

Hum, this forum is THE place where you will find people with extensive experience with tS6/7
I have used a Matrox Mystique, a Matrox G450, a Matrox G550, and when Matrox stopped to develop 3D chips, I went for ASUS and GIGABYTE with chips from ATI and NVidia : a Radeon 7500, a Radeon 9800 Pro, an Nvidia 6600 GT, an Nvidia 8600 GTS and my next card will be powered by the NVidia GTX 260+.
Matrox had very stable drivers and some nice features like the ability to run a desktop larger than the screen (useful for large screen capture and some particular workflows)
ATI chips are good in DirectX but its OpenGL mode was not very compatible with tS's OpenGL display mode.
NVidia is good in both DirectX and OpenGL modes of trueSpace.

Note that there is no hardware driver specifically designed for trueSpace, so the professional cards like Quadro or FireGL will not run trueSpace better. In 2006, I tried the FireGL V7350 (a 1000$ card) and its display was just as smooth as a simple GT 6600 ( a 150$ one).

In other words, trueSpace display engine behaves somehow like an old game engine from 2004-2005 days : just like many DirectX5 applications, it relies on the CPU at more than 50%, and almost don't make use of the graphic ram.
This means that you could save some money on the graphic card and get a better CPU.

Workspace render engine is a DirectX9 generation game engine. It will use some hardware acceleration Modeler side don't use. But Workspace engine is also more demanding so you will not see real improvments unless you work with huge models and very large textures.

Emmanuel wrote: I have used a Matrox Mystique, a Matrox G450, a Matrox G550, and when Matrox stopped to develop 3D chips, I went ...

Matrox work for professionnal 2d market now. His last Octal video card (M9188) can use a resolution of 20480 X 12800 with 8 monitors (2560 X1600 each)!

janetb wrote:Chris,
I really appreciate all the time you took to share the details of your system, etc. But what I am looking for is someone who has extensive experience with both TS6 and TS7. I know from my 10 years with TS that very often hardware that was supposed to be good for 3d did not work well with TS for various reasons that a non-TS person could not have known.....I have people here who can advise vis-a-vis 3d, but I need a specifically TS advisor.........! Can anyone out there refer me to someone...? All the active TS'ers I knew from days of old seem to have migrated to other progs.....

Thanks for any help,
Janet

The system outlined above will run any 3d software that I have heard of. You may see a little lag while rendering if you're using autodesk, adobe, etc. For Truspace, Blender, Daz, Bryce, Carrera, etc. this system is more than enough and will likely work for the next 5 years. As Truespace is not being developed any further it will work with ts forever. You can see above in this post @finis stated that ts may use a little ogl (I would assume v.1.1) and the gpu driver (gts 250) currently supports ogl 3.2 as well as all nvidia cards above 8xxx and all 2xx series. All nvidia cards with cuda support (all above) will also support ocl etc. when it is actually used. If you are not doing this as a full time income a workstation card is a waste of money, but if you have the money you're probably better off building a tesla system (link below). Truespace from what I have heard (including what is posted here) really doesn't take advantage of any particular software (drivers) other than the open gl mentioned above.

TESLA pc
nvidia 2xx series

Chris

wow, matrox is a legend.. I used to have Milenium G400 too! great

and about tS... you need a strong procesor at first and enough of RAM (best with 64bit OS). Graphic card is only the 3rd priority. I think you should just buy some from reliable manufacturer (Saphire with ATI or other brands for ati and nvidia), then you would be happy. its not so complicated.
I use ATI Radeon HD4780 and Iam happy with everything. Only highend models of 4xxx series are a little warmer.. newer 5xxx series are better bet ;)