Loklo Media 3D Animation Blog

Ahh… finally. I found a review that gives me what I’ve been looking for for months now. But it’s my own, that I’m creating now. I couldn’t find any hard proof of whether or not the Firepro v4800 (top-entry level) Workstation video card is better or worse than my existing Gigabyte Radeon HD4870.

Unboxing Video:

Fatures-wise, they are similar.

Both with 1GB GDDR5 VRam, both ATI.

Firepro has 2x Display Ports + DVI, Radeon has HDMI + DP + DVI.

MY question was this: in 3DS Max, real world scenario, which is better.

My quick conclusion now – the FirePro, but only marginally.

Here’s the system I was using:

• Asus P5N-MX uATX board, 4GB Ram (2x2GB PC2-6400 OCZ), Intel Q6600 Quad OC’d to 2.92GHz
• Windows 7 Home Prem x64, dual monitors – Samsung 226BW + Acer x203w – both at 1680×1050. Both With DVI, Samsung (primary) as DVI, the Acer via adapter (HDMI from radeon, DP from FirePro).
• 3DS Max Design 2010 SP1, running in Direct3D mode (9).

As you can see, the system is nothing short of budget/average for a home workstation.

Test Scene: from a current project… it’s got 1637 Objects, 77 Shapes, 4 omni lights (no shadows), 1 Camera, 95 Helpers (all groups I think). 2,755,615 Faces (1,451,778 verts). Mostly camera animation, texture Offset animation, object visibility track fades in and out. (It’s a technical training animation for a water plant.) Almost all objects have Mental Ray’s A&D material, some are using texture maps, most are non-square images, and not all are shown in the viewport. (How’s that for real-world testing??!!) Using scene lighting, not default. Not using Hardware shading, as it seems slower and less than good/accurate – for either card.

Findings with Radeon HD 4870

Not too bad.

• Smooth+Highlights: Slinging it around with an average of two viewports open, sometimes one, usually between 6-16 FPS according to Max’s built-in stats tool.
• Wireframe: nigh-unusable
• Smooth+highlights+edged faces: nigh unusable (let’s be real… who cares about numbers, right?)
• Viewport Transparency: glitchy – in smooth+highlights, which is the only mode I’m almost always in, object visibility seemed almost random. VERY hard to be efficient at animating things that fade in and out, without constantly referring to curve editor/track view.
• Viewport Transparency: never tried in edged faces mode, due to performance.
• other: Camera object z-buffer seemed to be backwards, always underneath the geometry until the view was nudged, showing the camera briefly (or showing it in Wireframe, which was slow).

RADEON is FOR SALE

Findings with FirePro v4800

Not Too Bad.

• Smooth+highlights: about the same as above – which didn’t really surprise me.
• Wireframe: holy fast, Batman! Definite driver improvements there, which makes sense. I’ve never seen anyone play a game in wireframe mode. Average about 18-26 FPS
• Smooth+Highlights+Edged Faces: A little slower than Smooth+Highlights, but usable.
• Viewport Transparency with Smooth+highlights: still glitchy… awww, this isn’t looking good.
• Viewport Transparency with Smoth+Highlights+Edged Faces: Now we’re talking! it Looks Accurate! And it’s at a usable, comfortable speed! (around 7-10 fps). This might be my new viewport shading mode of choice.
• other: camera object good in all view modes… yay!

Oh, and the Firepro allows me to comfortably use 8xAA also, which I never (recently) bothered to test on the Radeon, for obvious performance issues.

Bottom Line Conclusion: Up to you. I Paid just shy of $200 CAD for my card with shipping and GST (tax in Canada). If it means not screwing up timing of visibility tracks, and the ability to select the camera a fraction of a second quicker, then it’s worth it to upgrade. If you’re building a new system, and don’t have the extra cash for anything higher up, then it’s a great choice.

How does it compare to newer ATI 5XXX series? New GTX 4XX series? I don’t know. If someone gave me these cards to test them back and forth, I’d do it. Hopefully this comparison/review gives enough real world data to bridge the gap between gaming vs. workstation.

Cheers!

Update: It seems This page gets some traffic from people looking to get the 4800 for Blender.  It does work very well with Blender – I can’t complain.  But I never complained before… Blender’s viewport is stunning (speed-wise) compared to Max, for the most part.  High multi-res still slows down, even with 2.53 and the v4800 – with VBOs turned on.  But in sculpt mode, it’s faaast.  Exit back to object mode, and it’s slow.  I didn’t do any real comparison between the radeon and Firepro for Blender – sorry.  But, from what I can tell, you can stick with a decent or better gaming card to save some cash.

Someone needed help, so I offered this video screen capture demo of how to create decent lofts in Blender 3D.
1. Create Bezier Curve (loftbase)
2. Create Bezier Circle (loftprofile)
3. Create 2nd Bezier Curve (lofttaper)
(rename them appropriately if you like)

For loftbase, add loftprofile as the BevOb, and lofttaper as TaperOb. Then move around control points as needed.

Explore adding lattice, and using 3D paths instead of curves.

(vimeo version: Blender curve lofting)

Well, maybe it’s not a tip, but for me, it’s all new. I’m not really well versed in skinning and rigging, yet, so I learned something quite useful while watching a YouTube video.

first, put an armature modifier on the mesh so that it’s linked to the rig. Then select the rig. Then shift-select the mesh. (oh, the rig should be in ctrl-tab pose mode). Then go back to the mesh (both selected), and enter weight paint mode. Now you can select the bone (right click it) and start painting your skinning weight for that bone. You can enter f-key for painting mask – this lets you select certain faces that you can paint on, effectively masking your targeted area. Great for fingers and toes and tight spots. You can rotate/move the bone a little bit to make sure it’s influenced properly, and keep painting in real-time to make sure it’s all skinned properly.

I did an emperor penguin model and rig, with plans to animate it one day. It’s the first skinning job I’ve done (outside of auto-skinning/envelope bones), so hopefully it animates well.

One of the best (one of the only) magazine for 3D artists is 3D World. It’s a nice thick magazine, that costs $20/month if you buy it at a local stand. Annual subscriptions run at about $120 USD, which actually gets you 13 issues, as they publish a bonus issue in December for subscribers. 3D Worldmag.com

This magazine offers 3D tips, technical specs for new and recommended hardware, reviews, movie making how-tos, and the like. It also contains a great resource CD full of textures, models, light probes, software (some trial, some full versions) and stuff. For most months, the CD is worth more than the cost of the magazine. And at roughly half price for the annual subscription, more than worth it!! The magazine also has a section of a featured 3D modeling or animation tutorial for one of the mainstream apps each issue.

As I use Blender and 3DS Max, they are both featured applications that get plenty of coverage in the magazine. I think I’m going to subscribe very soon.

8500GT 3D Mark06 Stats

These are the embarassing stats of my existing entry-level/budget video card.  It works for Blender, since blender is so happy with any resources, and is not a resource hoggy type of an app.  But for 3DS Max, that’s another story.  Hence the coming of the ATI.  It should arrive anytime now, according to the tracking info.

The Nvidia handles 3DS Max objects pretty well, but when you get large scenes, with hundreds of objects, and then complixify it with animation, the display struggles.  Lower FPS than is acceptable.  (I’d be ok with 15-20fps for a large scene, but the one in question runs at around 3-5).

Now The New Radeon

Radeon HD 4870 1GB 3D Mark Stats

Ok – so the Radeon is definitely better.  It whopped the Geforce 8500, which was expected.  Interestingly though, the CPU score with the Radeon is a little lower.  I’m not sure if that’s reflective of the extra bandwidth being used, or something else.  Anybody with comments?

So the Radeon is also definitely faster in the 3D viewport in 3DS Max Design 2009.  It’s hard to give any exact test numbers for comparison, as I didn’t record anything officially with the Nvidia.  But it is faster – no doubt about it.

It’s also faster by a couple orders of magnitude in the GPU based Folding@Home program.  Again, no official numbers, but waaaay faster.

So for only $230 after mail in rebate, It’s definitely a worthy card.  My bottleneck now, I think, Lies in my motherboard’s budget abilities, and my budget ram.  Even though the q6600 is overclocked, it’s not fast enough due to mobo limitations.