Thread: Graphics Cards from the Factory

Good little blog on Graphics Cards and Revit, from Inside the Factory.
I don't care how much that card is I just have to have one. It looks so cool !!

Just thought I would post out of character and note that this Inside the Factory post is a direct response to a question I had for the Factory elsewhere all of a month or so ago. So credit where credit is most certainly due. Thanks Erik; for good info, and good info made public in a very timely way.

Gordon

Originally Posted by Gordon Price

Just thought I would post out of character and note that this Inside the Factory post is a direct response to a question I had for the Factory elsewhere all of a month or so ago. So credit where credit is most certainly due. Thanks Erik; for good info, and good info made public in a very timely way.

Gordon

Nice of you to mention this, especially considering your ranting here.

Just trying to be balanced. Sometimes Autodesk chaps my hide. Sometimes they balm my hide. In neither case are they actually concerned about my hide, but I tend to bring it up anyway. Both ways. Or at least try.

Gordon

Far to much talking about your hide in this post. LOL

Correct me if i'm wrong but the post from "inside the factory" does it only applies to the realistic view or also the other visual styles?

Only Realistic views involve textures, so only Realistic views use Graphics RAM in this way. Other views will be impacted by graphics card performance if shadows and/or ambient occlusion is turned on, but only Realistic views will use the RAM.

It should also be noted that Windows 7 also uses graphics RAM to store application windows. The card holds the entire app window, not just the exposed part, and all the app windows are then composited on the screen (just like the Mac circa 2002 ) The net result is that when you move windows around on screen, and the underlying app is too busy to update its window, instead of blank white areas you see the newly exposed area of app window, based on the last update.
And lastly, 64 bit Windows, be it Windows 7 or (shudder) Vista, map Graphics RAM differently, so there is not a down side to more graphics RAM like in 32 bit Windows.

What does it all mean from a use perspective? If you are running 64 bit Windows 7, you can buy a graphics card with the performance you need, and rather than causing problems and not getting used, the graphics RAM will actually now be of benefit. The more you have, the more open application windows you can have, and also the more you can use Realistic Views and not see a performance hit.

I don't think more than 1-1.5 GB of graphics RAM is ever really going to get used this way. Unless you have 100 open app windows and Realistic views with hundreds of different textures. But at least it isn't the bad old days where the only fast cards had 512 MB + of RAM and actually caused problems for Revit users, while 100% of that RAM also went wasted.

Gordon