Surfcam Video Card Recommendations.

[moldcore]

I checked Surfware's Website and typically it’s out of date by two years and more. I was wondering if anyone can suggest a video card for the Velocity series. Nothing too fancy will do, just be compatible. By that I mean it will render and shade quickly.

The local stores like Best Buy and Comp USA have the GeForce 8800 series. Has anyone tried these? I know you're supposed to use Quadro FX cards for CAD/CAM but they’re not quickly available and overpriced for what I need.

[Cammotion]

Originally Posted by moldcore I checked Surfware's Website and typically it’s out of date by two years and more. I was wondering if anyone can suggest a video card for the Velocity series. Nothing too fancy will do, just be compatible. By that I mean it will render and shade quickly. The local stores like Best Buy and Comp USA have the GeForce 8800 series. Has anyone tried these? I know you're supposed to use Quadro FX cards for CAD/CAM but they’re not quickly available and overpriced for what I need.

Moldcore, I have a GT6600 nVidia with 128 megs of ram on my home box, and it runs Surfcam just fine. About the only issue I've seen, is when using a Spaceball, I get ghosting of the crosshair cursor. By ghosting, I mean it leaves a static copy of the crosshairs untill I zoom a click or two with the mouse wheel. I can avoid this by having the crosshairs off the work area when moving the model with the Spaceball. Annoying.

I have a Quadro FX3400 on my machine at work, (256 megs I think), and it doesn't do any better. If I were getting another card, I'd get an nVidia with at least 512 mags. I haven't priced them though.

[moldcore]

I installed the GeForce 8800 GTS today and so far no problems in Surfcam or Solid Edge and KeyCreator. The Card has 320 MB of GDDR3 memory and is very quick and smooth as silk. Price was under $300, half the price of my old Quadro FX card. I’m convinced that Quadro cards are nothing more than old game cards recycled. This is the first “game card” that I’ve tried so time will tell. I can’t imagine that they would be any less useful in the CAD environment after seeing some of the games produced today.

[Cammotion]

Sounds like you did well. I doubt that there will be any issues with that card. Mine works with SolidWorks and Surfcam, and some other demo downloads that I've tried, even ran Microsoft Flight Simulator at meduim settings, and it has only 128 megs on it.