just a question...

[stnkyfnga]

you guys proabably think this is a stupid question, but does your graphics card do any work in a final rendering or is it strictly for real time while your working in the program?

[stnkyfnga]

you guys proabably think this is a stupid question, but does your graphics card do any work in a final rendering or is it strictly for real time while your working in the program?

[jens g.r. benthien]

relies on the CPU only, unless you have an app that shows OpenGL - this is done by the graphics card.

jens g.r. benthien
designer
http://www.sacalobra.de

----------//--
If you don't know how to dream you'll never be a designer.
----------//--

[gidgit]

though there are now apps being written to take advantage of the newer gpu monster vcards...

Somewhere here at TG there is a link to a new render app which does this very thing... makes use of these new cards for realtime texturing or something to that effect... I will look around and get back to yas on this...

and yea, I am running an older system with a 128bit ATI vcard, to which when I am running Wings or Nendo, I have to have the card acceleration down to the second lowest setting in order to view the verts as dots, otherwise, they don't come in.... so needless to say, since I am learning to model primarily with Wings3D, that this option is always on low... and I use all of my other apps with out even noticing any difference once so ever... so just what the blinking card does for performance is beyond me... usually with these slower, older systems, you can tell differences in speed and the like very easily, but nada when it comes to my card anyways...

[stnkyfnga]

i tried wings3d and as soon as i start extruding faces off of a cube or something it slows down dramatically. i have a 700 mhz amd and a voodoo3 3500, is there anything i can do to speed it up?

[gidgit]

Naw, it does bog down, though not until you get to over say 6,ooo poly's... this is what I have found

Thing is... Wings was built to be a low poly modeler... mainly for characters in and around say 8oo - 1ooo poly's and up to say 4ooo poly's... to which, it handles this stuff pretty ok... from there... a) it's free b) it really is the best little box modeling toolset on the block... which therein lies the problem... the tools are just what are required for boxing high poly stuff as well, and... once you get used to box modeling in Wings, well, even when bogging down some, you work with it, do a loop, save the part and open just that part... etc... then bridge things back together when done... opening the part back into the scene via "merge" option...opens back up in the scene right where you loop cut it from... cool

It would be so cool to have this app work under D3D...

Question though, what are your OpenGL settings at?

[stnkyfnga]

everything is default...

3d Filter Quality - Automatic
Alpha Blending - Automatic
Depth Precision(16bit) - Fast
Level of Detail Bias - 0
Limit Texture Memory - Software Controlled
Maximum Buffered Frames - 1 Pending Buffer
MIP Map Dithering - Disable
Tripple Buffering - Disable
Vertical Sync - Disable

i have no idea what any of this means, perhaps i will do some investigating on the net tonite...

[Mark (theKeeper)]

I'm only running an AthlonXP 1700+ with a Ti4200/128 and i notice no slow down at all. I'm on WinXP also.

But i would guess that the bottleneck in your system is at the vCard. VooDoo cards are for gaming. I think they come up a tad short when having to run realtime 3D in the Windows environment.

That would be my guess. Your 700 should be able to run smooth enough if you don't go full-bore on the poly count.