OPEN GL Video Card Required for Solidworks?

Is an Open GL video card required for Solidworks 2004?

Secondly, does anyone know how well an Intel DVMT Integrated Video Card will
work on a Dell Optiplex GX280 for Solidworks?


PS: While I have your ear, anyone have over 512MB of system RAM? If so,
why?

 

Yes i have more, ram than that on my Inspiron 8200. The more the better.
Also an integrated video card is not a good idea. You want at least a 64mb
Nvidia Card.

 

The integrated video is likely to make for a VERY unhappy experience. If
you're looking to save money, consider using a hacked GeForce card

I'm running 1G memory, and would put more in if the motherboard would take
it. For large assemblies and complex parts, it's a gotta have. My crash
frequency has gone down by at least half since I doubled the memory

 

Go with a M60 Dell

They will blow your mind when runing SW on them!

Regards
Scott

 

I am running a GB of Ram also and I wanted more. Where I work now had
to purchase a new computer for me. I spec'd out 4 computers and of
course they picked the cheapest one which is a Dell Precision 670. P4
3.2 Xeon I GB ram with an Nvidia FX1300 (which has 128Mb for video and
is PCI Express and RealView works great) . It was (without monitor
and shipping) just under $1800. It is a nice computer but I still
work faster in SolidWorks than this computer does. Which costs the
company money when I have to wait but they saved money on the
immediate purchase.....

Why I would want for RAM is for all the PhotoWorks renderings they
want me to do here. They take forever.

If you are an IT guy or a company head trying to figure out what you
can get away with in buying a PC please buy a good workstation and
save the mind of the poor engineer that has to work with what you buy.

Definately do not get a shared Video Card.

 

Dont Laugh but,

On system I use with regularity and passable results is a 1.7 ghz
celeron with the intel 850 chipset & onboard video, but also 625 megs
of ram which I consider an absolute bottom end for ram. Its my home
machiine and generally work on smaller assemblies up to 30 pcs. It
only cost $400 bucks and fit what I was doing very well, also my
wallet.

For giga assemblies get a giga machine, but a "good" video card is not
MANDATORY to run SW, but advisable if you have the money. If I had
spare cash, I'd (mind you - my personal preferences follow) make sure
the ram was ample, then focus on the disk access then the video.

Later -

SMA

 

Not to rain on Sean's parade but focus on the Video Card , you could have
the ram in the world and a junk video card arrangement will stop you cold.
Plus Ram can always be added where in a portable a video card is very
difficult to impossible to change. Trust me on this and you will not be
unhappy.

 

Believe what Rocko says about the video card. I just had a couple of
days training in Cosmos and the computers they had wereover 2Ghz
Pentiums with 1GB ram but with Intel built in video. The video
performance with just simple parts and assemblies in SolidWorks was
HORRIBLE!!

Dave H

 

Dave,

Ditto that. Nothing makes even the fastest CPU machine slower, than a crummy
video card.

Mark

 

Ditto that. Nothing makes even the fastest CPU machine slower, than a crummy

The major performance improvement that I got out of this machine was
the operating system. Going from 98 to XP made all the difference in
the world.

Likewise adding a great video card to a under-preocessored,
under-rammed, under-disk-accessed, narrow bus machine will not make SW
scream. They all need to synchronize and balance for the program to
"perform".

Sort of like putting mag rims, flames & a chrome valve cover on my
geo-metro won't get me blazing speed either, only make me feel good.

I was keying in on the REQUIRED part of the question. Laugably, I
have adequate results with the MoBo video - Intel-82845G/GL adapter
with the intel 850 chipset. I also have a dedicated 2gb swap file
hard drive on the "other" IDE channel which seems to make it work a
little better. The real answer is: no, open GL is not _required_,
only highly advisable. I actually added a dedicated card to this
machine and it worked worse than the on-board video (so I returned
it), but then again, I spent only $400 on the whole machine and don't
need a card that costs 2x the machine or even 1x - and I'll even tell
you another dark secret - the machine does not even have an AGP slot -
it's got one o' them new fangled PCI slots though. . .

If you really want to laugh, I started using solidworks on an
amd486dx120 with 12 megs of ram, a 2 meg S3 trio video card and
windows 95 and it ran well and provided enough productivity to make me
fall out of love with autocad. I ran it in a poorly heated room in
the north in the middle of winter. I also generated my own
electricity with a bicycle crank attached to a motor to keep the
electrons flowing . . .

My 9-5 computer is a really nice 1.3ghz with a absolutely fast SCSI
drive & bus, a nice elsa video card and this machine smokes the
previous one I had which was a 1.7 ghz without the SCSI which had the
same video card. Strange, but this really made me reconsider the
importance of disk access speed and a wide bus to transfer the data.
Sadly there is no hardware upgrade path in sight, so this will have to
do.

If any of you dare-devils want to take my home machine out for a spin,
let me know. You will have to sign a waiver first and prove that you
can handle it - it has a chrome valve cover you know . . .

Later-

SMA

 

And this isn't what I was implying now, was it. I said fast (implied state
of the art) machine. Not an underpowered cheapie

Nope.. not if it's a good card in a reasonably fast machine. Large
assemblies have lots of polygons. Zooms and rotations will eat up alot of
time over the course of a week. Most people aren't patient enough to wait,,,
I'm not

"Required" is an "opinion" based on personal preferences and needs. Since
you waited until the release of XP to switch from win98, "your" needs must
be simple beyond my comprehension. This is far from the norm.

I tried SW95 on a 486DX under NT3.51. It took about five minutes to extrude
a rectangular block

If your talking a 1.7 P4, and a 1.3 Athlon, a big part of the reason is the
Athlon is a more "efficient" processor than the P4. Clock speed is only one
part of the formula, and an overrated one at that. We use nothing but Athlon
64FX's and Opteron 246's or 248's. These machines crush our fastest P4's
(3.2. 3.4ghz ) at two thirds the clock speed. The reason is they process
twice as many instructions, per clock cycle, as the P4. We also use SCSI
drives. As much for reliability as speed.

Do you mean their "are" no viable upgrade options, or that "you" are unable
to upgrade for financial reasons ? The current AMD offerings (as listed
above) will give you at least a 2X increase in SW performance over a 1.3
Athlon, and more than 3X over a 1.7 P4. They're cheap to build too. You can
pick up a PNY 980XGL (still a very good card) pretty cheap these days

If I recall, the last card Elsa made (before they went belly up) was an
Nvidia Quadro 2. We have an old 1.4 Athlon with one of these cards. It's
acceptable for small stuff in SW2003, but SW2004 bogs it down big time.

Regards

Mark

 

"Required" is an "opinion" based on personal preferences and needs. Since

Yeah - I got that strange need for groceries and heat and luxuries
like that. Remember its my home machine and I do assemblies of about
30 pcs or so (almost always without any agony).

Wow, now that IS amazingly bad, even for that set up. I experienced
nothing that horrible, but occasionally have to wait for up to 2
minutes for a model to rebuild - note that I also did parts only or
2-3 pcs assys.

Plenty of great hardware avaialable, but money is thin, so "make due
folks". This probably will not work when (&if) we upgrade to 2005
next year as we are still on NT 4.0 (need XP pro as I recall).

Yeah the bios tells me its from 1999, but surprisingly, I have had ok
results with large assemblies (im not really sure what large is - like
200-300 pcs - 400 megs on disk).

Don't worry, I'm not trying to say you can run SW on a etch-a-sketch
and if the budget allows, get the best hardware based on what SW corp
recommends. But passable results can be had with with less. That's
all.

I think maybe the gods of computing like me or something, but I also
try not to offend them. I try to take the plain vanilla route when
possible.

I'm glad you are having success too.

Later-

SMA