Dear Chimera users, I want to buy new computer for my lab and I'm not sure which graphic cards I should buy. Is it really necessary to invest in expensive nvidia quadro graphic cards in comparsion to the nvidia gtx consumer cards? My private desktop computer has a GTX570 and everything is working fine. I searched the internet and talked to a lot of people, but nobody could say if you really recognize the difference in your daily work. The background: I want to use the computer for modelling (Chimera, Moe, ...) with two screens and stereoview using nvidia 3d vision. The OS will be linux (presumably scientific linux). I would be very happy if you can share your opinion. Many thanks Oliver -- Dr. Oliver Koch Junior Research Group Leader "Medicinal Chemistry" Chemical Biology Faculty of Chemistry Technische Universität Dortmund Otto-Hahn-Straße 6 44227 Dortmund EMail: Oliver.Koch@tu-dortmund.de
Hi, We've tested that you still need a quadro in linux to do 3d vision, however there are two ways to do 3d vision now, you can either go with a 120Hz LCD monitor that doesn't have a built in 3d vision emitter, e.g. Asus VG236HE, Acer GD235Hzbid, or BenQ XL2420T, etc and a quadro with a 3 pin mini din port that also has at least a G80 GPU (your cheapest route here is a refurbished quadro 3700). If you purchase the 3d vision kit bundled with the monitor or get the 3d vision v2 kit you'll need to purchase the 2.5mm stereo to 3 pin mini din vesa cable since these kits don't come with this cable. It's sometimes available at nvidia's store and sometimes out of stock : http://store.nvidia.com/store/nvidia/en_US/pd/ThemeID.326200/productID.22782... The other option and the one I currently recommend for workstation setups, is to purchase a monitor with the built-in 3d vision v2 built-in emitter (you also get 1 pair of v2 goggles, the picture quality is indeed much brighter due to the tech in the monitor), we've tested the Asus VG278H, there's also the Samsung S23A950D, but you might as well go with the Asus since you get a 27" vs a 23" monitor for not that much more $. With this monitor you can use a newer more powerful quadro than the 3700, but you don't have to purchase the expensive high end ones that have the 3 pin mini din port. We tested with a quadro 600 and also a quadro 370 and both worked, but I'd recommend at least the quadro 600. HTH, Sabuj On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 7:25 AM, Oliver Koch <oliver.koch@tu-dortmund.de> wrote:
Dear Chimera users,
I want to buy new computer for my lab and I'm not sure which graphic cards I should buy.
Is it really necessary to invest in expensive nvidia quadro graphic cards in comparsion to the nvidia gtx consumer cards? My private desktop computer has a GTX570 and everything is working fine. I searched the internet and talked to a lot of people, but nobody could say if you really recognize the difference in your daily work. The background: I want to use the computer for modelling (Chimera, Moe, ...) with two screens and stereoview using nvidia 3d vision. The OS will be linux (presumably scientific linux).
I would be very happy if you can share your opinion.
Many thanks Oliver
-- Dr. Oliver Koch Junior Research Group Leader "Medicinal Chemistry" Chemical Biology Faculty of Chemistry Technische Universität Dortmund Otto-Hahn-Straße 6 44227 Dortmund EMail: Oliver.Koch@tu-dortmund.de
_______________________________________________ Chimera-users mailing list Chimera-users@cgl.ucsf.edu http://plato.cgl.ucsf.edu/mailman/listinfo/chimera-users
The quadro cards have had many more graphics driver bugs than the much more widely used gtx cards. For example, the current quadro driver on Windows has a power management setting default value (save energy) that causes 30 second chimera freezes when picking atoms in large molecules. Also the quadro cards are usually slower at rendering even when they work. The only reason to use a quadro card is if it is needed for using stereo glasses. I don't know if any stereo setups can work with a gtx card. That is more likely to work on Windows. Tom On Nov 22, 2012, at 5:25 AM, Oliver Koch wrote:
Dear Chimera users,
I want to buy new computer for my lab and I'm not sure which graphic cards I should buy.
Is it really necessary to invest in expensive nvidia quadro graphic cards in comparsion to the nvidia gtx consumer cards? My private desktop computer has a GTX570 and everything is working fine. I searched the internet and talked to a lot of people, but nobody could say if you really recognize the difference in your daily work. The background: I want to use the computer for modelling (Chimera, Moe, ...) with two screens and stereoview using nvidia 3d vision. The OS will be linux (presumably scientific linux).
I would be very happy if you can share your opinion.
Many thanks Oliver
-- Dr. Oliver Koch Junior Research Group Leader "Medicinal Chemistry" Chemical Biology Faculty of Chemistry Technische Universität Dortmund Otto-Hahn-Straße 6 44227 Dortmund EMail: Oliver.Koch@tu-dortmund.de
_______________________________________________ Chimera-users mailing list Chimera-users@cgl.ucsf.edu http://plato.cgl.ucsf.edu/mailman/listinfo/chimera-users
On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 11:50 AM, Tom Goddard <goddard@sonic.net> wrote:
The quadro cards have had many more graphics driver bugs than the much more widely used gtx cards. For example, the current quadro driver on Windows has a power management setting default value (save energy) that causes 30 second chimera freezes when picking atoms in large molecules. Also the quadro cards are usually slower at rendering even when they work.
The only reason to use a quadro card is if it is needed for using stereo glasses. I don't know if any stereo setups can work with a gtx card. That is more likely to work on Windows.
Yes it'll work in windows, but in Linux we tried with a gtx 680 to get stereo to work with the LCD's that have the built-in emitters but the driver won't enable stereo. There may be soft-quadro hacks in linux that'll make your gtx look like a quadro (IIRC there are these things in windows land), which may trick the linux driver into giving you stereo. We haven't had any issues in Linux with more modern quadros, i.e. those made within the past 4-5 years, e.g. the 3700's (2008 release date) still work well with a variety of applications. The majority of our users work with small molecules and most of them have the 2D geared passively cooled quadro NVS 295's in their dell workstations that are more than 3yrs old and they continue to work well and be supported by the latest and greatest nvidia drivers.
Dear Sabuj and Tom, thank you very much for your reply, I was not aware that 3D Vision on Linux only works with quadro cards. One last question: Does stereo view also works simultaneously on two monitors connected to one quadro card? Or does it only work on the main monitor? Oliver Am 22.11.2012 19:21, schrieb Sabuj Pattanayek:
On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 11:50 AM, Tom Goddard <goddard@sonic.net> wrote:
The quadro cards have had many more graphics driver bugs than the much more widely used gtx cards. For example, the current quadro driver on Windows has a power management setting default value (save energy) that causes 30 second chimera freezes when picking atoms in large molecules. Also the quadro cards are usually slower at rendering even when they work.
The only reason to use a quadro card is if it is needed for using stereo glasses. I don't know if any stereo setups can work with a gtx card. That is more likely to work on Windows. Yes it'll work in windows, but in Linux we tried with a gtx 680 to get stereo to work with the LCD's that have the built-in emitters but the driver won't enable stereo. There may be soft-quadro hacks in linux that'll make your gtx look like a quadro (IIRC there are these things in windows land), which may trick the linux driver into giving you stereo.
We haven't had any issues in Linux with more modern quadros, i.e. those made within the past 4-5 years, e.g. the 3700's (2008 release date) still work well with a variety of applications. The majority of our users work with small molecules and most of them have the 2D geared passively cooled quadro NVS 295's in their dell workstations that are more than 3yrs old and they continue to work well and be supported by the latest and greatest nvidia drivers.
-- Dr. Oliver Koch Junior Research Group Leader "Medicinal Chemistry" Chemical Biology Faculty of Chemistry Technische Universität Dortmund Otto-Hahn-Straße 6 44227 Dortmund EMail: Oliver.Koch@tu-dortmund.de
Yes, it'll work on both, but the modelines need to be the same on both monitors, i.e. 1920x1080 @ 120Hz, so I'd recommend that you get two of the same monitors that support 1080 @ 120Hz. Note, I have no idea what happens if you get two of the monitors with the built-in 3d vision 2 emitters. Do both turn on? Seems like that would cause interference at the goggles since you'd be receiving two sync signals from two different sources if they both turn on. The dual monitor 3d vision setup we've tested is with two Acer GD235HZBid monitors connected via dual link DVI-D cables (the monitors come with these and must be used to get 120Hz @ 1080) into a quadro 3700 (has dual DVI outputs). Also a 3d vision kit (first generation) with the emitter connected to the 3 pin mini din port on the quadro 3700 (one emitter/sync source for the entire setup). If you end up getting a quadro 600 with one dvi and one displayport output (and dual built-in emitter displays), you'll need to get an active displayport to dvi-d dual link adapter for the displayport output : http://www.amazon.com/Accell-UltraAV-B087B-002B-DisplayPort-Dual-Link/dp/B00... These are not the same as the standard (and much cheaper) displayport to dvi adapters since they are powered (from the usb cable) and support 120Hz @ 1080 with a dvi-d dual link cable to the monitor. On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 5:48 AM, Oliver Koch <oliver.koch@tu-dortmund.de> wrote:
Dear Sabuj and Tom,
thank you very much for your reply, I was not aware that 3D Vision on Linux only works with quadro cards. One last question: Does stereo view also works simultaneously on two monitors connected to one quadro card? Or does it only work on the main monitor?
Oliver
Am 22.11.2012 19:21, schrieb Sabuj Pattanayek:
On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 11:50 AM, Tom Goddard <goddard@sonic.net> wrote:
The quadro cards have had many more graphics driver bugs than the much more widely used gtx cards. For example, the current quadro driver on Windows has a power management setting default value (save energy) that causes 30 second chimera freezes when picking atoms in large molecules. Also the quadro cards are usually slower at rendering even when they work.
The only reason to use a quadro card is if it is needed for using stereo glasses. I don't know if any stereo setups can work with a gtx card. That is more likely to work on Windows.
Yes it'll work in windows, but in Linux we tried with a gtx 680 to get stereo to work with the LCD's that have the built-in emitters but the driver won't enable stereo. There may be soft-quadro hacks in linux that'll make your gtx look like a quadro (IIRC there are these things in windows land), which may trick the linux driver into giving you stereo.
We haven't had any issues in Linux with more modern quadros, i.e. those made within the past 4-5 years, e.g. the 3700's (2008 release date) still work well with a variety of applications. The majority of our users work with small molecules and most of them have the 2D geared passively cooled quadro NVS 295's in their dell workstations that are more than 3yrs old and they continue to work well and be supported by the latest and greatest nvidia drivers.
-- Dr. Oliver Koch Junior Research Group Leader "Medicinal Chemistry" Chemical Biology Faculty of Chemistry Technische Universität Dortmund Otto-Hahn-Straße 6 44227 Dortmund EMail: Oliver.Koch@tu-dortmund.de
participants (3)
-
Oliver Koch -
Sabuj Pattanayek -
Tom Goddard