Matrox Parhelia 128MB (AGP) TripleHead

[IchI]

Yo, I am looking into getting a gfx card specially made for 3dgraphics but I don't have a clue what to get. I am looking to build a specially made computer for my 3d graphics actually, but atm my 9700 pro starts lagging in 3dsmax when I hit about 20,000 polgons. I was wondering how good the Matrox Parhelia 128MB (AGP) TripleHead actually is. Does anyone have like a rough idea about how many polgons it could handle in a 3dgraphics program? Its very hard to learn high polgon modelling without something like this because basiclly your computer just lags. I heard that Nvidia cards are better for 3dgraphics? could anyone show me the way to go on buying one? Maybe even have some info on this one?

Here is its spec's:

Key features:
512-bit GPU
256-bit DDR memory interface
128MB or 256MB DDR memory
High performance 2D, 3D & video
Triple-RGB, Dual-DVI, TV output
Surround Design and Surround Gaming
DualHead-HF and TripleHead Desktop
16x Fragment Antialiasing
UltraSharp Display Output technology
10-bit GigaColor technology
Matrox PrecisionCAD driver for AutoCAD®
Realtime Display Color Adjustment
PureVideo Preview
AGP 4X

Multi-Display configurations:
Parhelia offers the most advanced multi-display support in the form of DualHead High-Fidelity, TripleHead Desktop, Surround Design and Surround Gaming. This support is enabled through highly flexible output configuration options including dual-RGB, dual-RGB + TV-out, triple-RGB* and dual-DVI**. Matrox Parhelia cards feature two DVI-I connectors integrated on the bracket. The full flexibility of display configurations are offered to end users by the standard bundling of three cables/adaptors:

One "Y-shaped" DVI-I to dual HD-15 cable
One DVI-I to HD-15 adaptor
One HD-15 to S-video (Y/C) and composite cable

Minimum system requirements:
AGP 2.0 compliant system
128 MB RAM
600 MHz CPU
Microsoft® Windows® 2000, Windows XP, or Windows NT 4.0 operating system
(check regularly for updates on support for other operating systems)
300W system power supply
CD-ROM

:cheers: Thanks :cheers:

 

[mrchimp]

I heard the parhelia had very good image quality but it's performance will most likely be worse than a r9700.

the two types of card you should be checking out are Nvidias Quadro series and ATi's FireGL series, I think the latest Quadro is the best for high poly modeling. You have to be serious about it to buy one of them though they cost a fortune.

 

[jonbob]

To be honest it's best to stick with nVidia when it comes to 3d-pro stuff. They have a much better track record, and the extra benefits that the Quadro series offers is definitely worth the slight added expense.

 

[The Dark Elf]

I'd suggest learning to optimise the display while working instead of spending on cards that wont make all that much difference to the display, and certainly absolutely no difference to the rendering. We don't have everything running at full detail while we work. We'll use standin imagemaps, standin lower detail objects, hidden objects, bounding boxes for the parts we're not working on, we don't bother with fancy effects unless we're working on them, they cause distractions. Subdivision is set low, same with NURBS quality while you work unless you need it high for working on it. Very little is at full detail while putting things together, and most of it is done in render passes anyway and rarely in a single scene. It's not until Rendertime that the low detail standins are replaced with the full detail versions, maps are swapped over for the high res images and so on. Take the big battle at the end of the Two Towers, when they were generating the crowd animation in massive, very low poly models were used, it made the calculations very quick, then at rendertime they were replaced with the high poly/detail models.

Say your doing a city scene, Create a model with full detail, place it in your scene, make sure its correct, then replace it with a low poly version while you work on another part of the scene and so on. If you need to check how it all looks just swap the low versions with the high detail ones to do test renders and so on. If you optimise your workflow you can easily work on scenes with millions of polygons and never worry about it slowing down or having to work in such a detailed environment until rendertime and then you'll not have to suffer working in it then either, since large scenes like that are gonna be done in passes and across a renderfarm anyway.

Thats how we do it, its a smooth way of working and your never distracted by area's your not supposed to be working on at that moment in time. Keep a to-do list too, so you can keep a note of what needs to be done and if you spot any problems you can make a note of them without disturbing what your doing at the time, sort the todo list out once you've done your particular job, it becomes less confusing and more streamlined.

 

[ankalar]

I know a lot of people who have gone out and bought a Quaddro or a Wildcat and then realised they didn't need it. Plus they wasted $1000+ on a piece of computer hardware that doesn't even help them in games.

Fenric definitely has it spot on, and he has more experience and authority than me, so I would listen to him.

 

[dawdler]

I agree with Fenric1138, its more design than raw power you need

I dont know much about it as I'm basicly a n00b at modelling, but personally I fail to see the need for editing a single 20k mesh. True, the display eventually slows down just by showing all the polys, but that's at around 500k polys on my computer. I split up my scenes (well, the few I've done) in small parts.