Radeon X300 for CAD?!?

[Tobias Portmann]

Hello NG

I have i little problem with an ATI Radeon X300 card. My forerunner in
the office purchased this card for a CAD Workstation.

Sins then, there are some problems. Is the ATI Radeon a good possibility
for a CAD Workstation?

I have some death lines in AutoCAD, it I move some objects. And,
sometimes the colour of the objects change suddenly. It doesn't change
the colour really, it just changes the colour on the screen...

Any ideas and proposals?

Thanks a lot.

Tobias Portmann

 

[First of One]

The consumer line of Radeon cards do not receive much testing with
workstation apps (that's what the FireGL cards are for, but you probably
knew that...).

The problems you described probably comes and goes with each driver
release... so try both the latest drivers (Catalyst 5.12) and an earlier
generation (Catalyst 4.12) and see if there's an improvement. Also try
toggling the various options in the display control panel, such as FSAA and
Vsync.

 

[Benjamin Gawert]

I have i little problem with an ATI Radeon X300 card. My forerunner in
the office purchased this card for a CAD Workstation.

Sins then, there are some problems. Is the ATI Radeon a good possibility
for a CAD Workstation?

Depends on what CAD you're doing. Basically, most bigger CAD programs
rely on OpenGL, and the OpenGL part of the Catalyst drivers isn't that
good (but unlike earlier releases it works fine with MCAD packages like
Pro/E and CATIA). The thing is that Radeons are aimed at gamers, so
no-one tests the drivers for compatibility with CAD applications. That
is done with ATIs FireGL series, which have drivers that use the same
Direct3D part like Radeons but also use different OpenGL drivers and
which are certified for a lot of programs.

I have some death lines in AutoCAD, it I move some objects. And,
sometimes the colour of the objects change suddenly. It doesn't change
the colour really, it just changes the colour on the screen...

Any ideas and proposals?

Check the settings in your drivers, and perhaps ask AutoDesk for help
(it could well be another bug in their software). AutoCAD isn't really a
highend program, it doesn't make use of most features of todays gfx
cards and should run with almost any gfx card out there (even Matrox or
intels shared memory gfx). So if I were You I'd ask around in a CAD
forum and see what other users are using in terms of driver version for
their Radeon cards, and what settings they made in the control
panel/control center.

Benjamin