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Best card for Motion?
Quick question to the Motion-heads out there. I’m working at company that has Motion 2.0, but have a RAM and video card starved G5. I want to increase both so I can enjoy that real-time goodness that I relish on my home system. At the time that I last upgraded my system, the Nvidia 6800 was the hottest card I could put in it. Any changes since then? Nvidia or ATI? I know I could purely go on specs on their sites, but I know sometimes specs don’t tell the whole story. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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6 Replies
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For the Dual 2.0 I would suggest the ATI x800XT. the nVidia 6800 takes up two slots while the ATI takes up one. We run both cards in our two Dual 2.0’s and I can’t see any difference between them as far as speed. But they are both a LOT faster for Motion than just the stock graphics card.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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As Walter mentioned. both cards are equivalent in terms of performance but not functionality.
Choose the nVidia if you want to drive 2 30″ Cinema Displays or want to go up to 4096×4096 pixel projects. Downside is that it takes up two slots so it limits PCI card expansion, and it is more expensive than the ATI.
Go with the ATI x800 if you need PCI slots or want to drive an older Cinema Display (that uses the older rounded ADC connector, not the newer DVI connector). The ATI is also a little less expensive.
Jim Kanter,
Digital Film Institute
http://www.dfilminst.com -
[Jim Kanter] “Go with the ATI x800 if you need PCI slots or want to drive an older Cinema Display (that uses the older rounded ADC connector, not the newer DVI connector).”
But also know that you can pick up an ADC to DVI adapter from Apple. I run those here with our older Cinema Display when it’s connected to our new Quad.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Greetings… Regarding the ATI Radeon X800 XT card… a comment and a question. The comment: I just bought one direct from ATI, and it offers both ADC and DVI connectors (one each). This was the standard retail version. So with any vintage Apple Cinema display, you should be able to plug in without an adapter. Only the 30-inch would be unusable.
The question… In my dual 2-gig G5, the X800 card definitely offers some speed improvements over the stock graphics card, but not as much as I had expected. Can anyone suggest any tweaks to the ATI control panel, or Motion settings, that might yield faster performance? What about that OpenGL Override?
It may be that my expectations were unrealistically high… I was reading so many raves about this card, I figured it would just zip through anything Motion could throw at it. I am still a stumbling newbie with this app, though the Ripple Training tutorials are helping a lot.
Thanks!
Don Riemer
D O N R I E M E R / A I R W O R T H Y
concepts, writing and directing for film and video -
Heya,
The benefit of having the 4K texture limit on an Nvidia card is much more than having 4K-res projects: large text objects, for example, can very easily break the 2K limit of ATI cards, so being able to process out to 4K can make the difference of being able to complete a project or not.
That being said, it seems to be nigh-impossible to get an aftermarket Nvidia card. I have heard that there are a number of people who are managing to flash PC versions of NVidia 7800/7900s to work in a G5.
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Thanks to everyone that replied! Decided on going with the ATI option. Cow is an invaluable resource!
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