#Display/Card for CAD??
9 messages in this thread
John,
A bird's eye view (BEV) is a small window that contains your entire
drawing. You can either pop it up when you need it or leave it on the
screen at all times. With a BEV, you can quickly pan and zoom around the
drawing. Say for instance that you are zoomed in and start a line command.
The line's end point is clear acroos the drawing, outside of the current
view. With a BEV, you can quickly zoom over to a view which contains your
desired endpoint and finish the line. You'd be amazed how much faster it is
than using zoom dynamic or restoring a top view and then zooming back in
again.
Pop up text menus is something that our DLDs use. They look and behave just
like a Acad pull down menu, expect they pop up at your cursor location. You
can fully customize them with your commands. Pop up icons are similiar,
except they pop up a table of graphic icons instead.
The "over $1000" boards don't offer any more real horsepower than
coprocessed boards. By this I mean that their vector drawing speeds are in
the same ballpark. They do, however, often include some nice software that
takes advantage of the board's capabilities. Rasterex is a good example of
this.
Generic CADD doesn't support display lists so it can't take advantage of
some of the fast drivers available for Acad. I'm not sure about Design CAD.
Brad Ek [Panacea Inc.]
Brad,
***************
The "over $1000" boards don't offer any more real horsepower than
coprocessed boards. By this I mean that their vector drawing speeds are in
the same ballpark. They do, however, often include some nice software that
takes advantage of the board's capabilities. Rasterex is a good example of
this.
***************
Last time I checked, our XJS series of controllers (34020 based) were 2x
faster than an 8514/A using our DLP software on both.
Tom <just keeping the record straight> Lansford
Tom:
Glad to see you on here… I'm a fan of your products.
C#
Craig,
Thanks for the good word… what ARTIST products do you use?
Tom
Tom:
I don't use any… I just envy those that have them <g>.
I always check out what you're doing at the trade shows and am always
impressed with the quality of the product, both software and hardware.
Maybe someday I'll buy a RealVision <g>.
C#
Actually, the performance of an XJS class product relative to a mass-market
coprocessed solution such as an ATI or S3 or C&T480, using similar
software, is heavily dependent on the base system performance (i.e. your
System's CPU and speed). For example, you won't see a 2x difference on a
486/50.
BTW, hopefully you're not comparing the XGA to an IBM 8514/A. Anyone can
look good showing second generation technology against first generation.
Jake <rearranging the record> Richter
Jake,
Actually, <g> the benchmarks that I referred to were run on a 486/25. Since
our XJS is optimized for total system performance, it will also run faster
on a 486/50 (like S3, 8514, Hitachi) and, IMHO, it will probably still be
2x faster… I'll let you know!
Tom <straightening that darn record back out> Lansford
Brad,
I see. I think I'm beginning to get a handle on some of these issues, and
it seems clear to me that an NI monitor, and sophisticated software drivers
such as those your company produces, will be cost effective for the vast
majority of Autocad users.
But let me ask you (and any lurkers who wish to join in) another question.
Our generic video card uses a Trident clipset. We also have another
semi-generic card (KLH, I think) that uses the Tseng clipset. Our cost on
the Tseng card is about $25 more.
Will the Tseng card give better performance? Is there another chipset
found on generic cards that is better than either? Leaving generic cards
aside for a moment, will buying a "brand name" (but not coprocessed) card
yield any benefits? Or is a generic card with the right clipset and the
right drivers basically as good?
IOW, if a customer doesn't seem to want to pay for a coprocessed card,
should I just happily sell one of our generic cards, or is there something
I should recommend for (say) $100-$200 more?
I really appreciate your help!
John
Since Brad hasn't answered yet, let me give it a try.
I would probably lean in the direction of the Tseng chip set, but only
because pop-ups and pull-downs will respond faster due to an architectural
difference in the chip logic.
As far as name-brand vs. non-brand. The benefit of name-brand hardware is
that you will generally get a better supported product, whether it be
technical support, documentation, better drivers, or better board design.
As far as any one specific brand goes, I can't really help you there, but
for Tseng based boards, look at products from Diamond, Orchid, STB, Sigma,
Cardinal, Focus, and Everex (all of which ship with Panacea drivers – and
in most cases you can pick up a cheap (less than $200) upgrade to our
Deluxe software).
Jake