Upgrading Video Display Adapter

[Anonymous]

Would upgrading the Video Display Adapter from our current 256 Nvidia FX 570 Card to a 512 card be beneficial?  Would it speed up our Civil 3D drawings?  Would it keep the program from crashing as often.  We are currently running Windows XP w/ 4 gb ram.

[TravisNave]

Yes most likely and be sure to download the WHQL certified driver from nVidia.com. 

[Sinc]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Would it speed up our Civil 3D drawings?  Would it keep the program from crashing as often.  We are currently running Windows XP w/ 4 gb ram.

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No, it won't speed up your C3D drawings.  The best you could hope for is a slight improvement in the responsiveness of 3D Orbits.

You really need to upgrade your computer to a newer CPU, more than 4GB RAM, and Windows 7 x64.  The effects of video card on C3D performance pale in comparison to these other three.

[Anonymous]

Listen to Sinc & see my sig.  Bought the parts at Newegg.com & put it together myself.  With a DVD burner & card reader & Win764 pro, came in at just under $1400.

Reid

[david.lau]

Can you check out this URL for certified video cards?

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/cert?siteID=123112&id=16391880

I agree that if you have 4 GB of ram, you should use a x64 operating system.    The main advantage of x64 is that it can use more RAM and handle larger files.

2^32 = 32 bit

2^64 = 64 bit

Windows XP (32) can handle a max of 3 GB:

http://dwf.blogs.com/beyond_the_paper/2009/04/enabling-3gb-switch-on-windows-vista.html

[pendean]

XP only reads 3Gig, so you have one "idle" for the most part: as noted above, I truly believe you are wasting money on new video cards on such limited systems.

If you have a very tight budget, buy Win7 64bit for each PC, run it in Classic Mode to emulate WinXP in appearance: install that instead of a new video card, and take advantage of that idle Gig of Ram and improve performance a little bit more.

[Sinc]

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@david.lau wrote:

The main advantage of x64 is that it can use more RAM and handle larger files.

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 Even more important is getting off of XP and onto Win 7.  Win 7 has significantly-improved memory management over XP.  Civil 3D hammers the memory management, and exposes problems in XP, resulting in crashes.  Win 7 is much better at memory management.

And if you're going to Win 7, get the 64-bit.  If you have hardware that can't handle Win 7 x64, then you DEFINITELY need to replace your entire system - you can get some pretty awesome C3D machines for as little as $1000 these days.

The 3GB switch can help if you're crashing on "Out of memory" errors in C3D, but won't help with general crashing, the way moving to Win 7 will.

[DarrenP]

i would say the 3gb switch would probably cause more issues with your computer

i agree with the above post is to move to 64 bit

[TravisNave]

I agree with Darren.  Running the /3GB switch with Direct3D is a bad idea.  Upgrading the video card and using a WHQL driver always helps, but moving to a 64-bit system will be your best bet.