Hi Mark,
I would like to give some positive feedback on what Kay has just suggested. We just acquired a couple of DELL Precision 470's (2 Xeon 3.0GHz/800MHz/2MB 64-bit processors, 2GB RAM) running RHEL4-EM64T with the Nvidia quadro FX1400 card and I am admittedly quite impressed not only by the computational power of this very affordable system but also by the quality of the graphics and stereo. I have O, Coot and Pymol all performing very well in stereo-mode on this platform. The FX1400 is 'stereo-ready' meaning that it has a DIN plug which, for example, allows you to connect the Nuvision 60GX IR-emitter straight out of the box.
Best wishes
Savvas
-----
Savvas N. Savvides
Professor of Structural Biology
Ghent University
Laboratory for Protein Biochemistry
K.L.Ledeganckstraat 35
9000 Ghent, BELGIUM
Phone: +32-(0)9-264.51.24 ; +32-(0)472-92.85.19
FAX: +32-(0)9-264.53.38
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Kay Diederichs
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 8:09 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [email protected]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb]: Computer Graphics
Mark,
just checking the Dell webpages - I find that e.g. the "Precision 380"
comes with a Quadro card and can be ordered with RedHat Enterprise Linux
4. It can run at 32 or 64bit.
I never had any problems with the cheap Quadros. You might need a
Y-cable for the stereo, though - they don't have a DIN plug.
HTH,
Kay
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> *** For details on how to be removed from this list visit the ***
> *** CCP4 home page http://www.ccp4.ac.uk ***
>
>
> All,
>
> Perhaps a topic with partial overlap with ccp4. After searching the
> ccp4bb for 'stereo' and 'graphics' I found lots of (valuable)
> information about video screens. My question is about graphics cards. We
> are going to update our computer facility for crystallography use.
>
> Sometime back (was it 2 years?) it appeared that a lot of
> crystallographers liked the Nvidia Quadro graphics cards - I heard from
> several people that they support stereo work well. Also, Gunnar Olovsson
> summarized in December last year that the Quadro graphics cards work
> well. But... I am surprised to see that these graphics cards are not all
> that common anymore (I am saying that I did an internet search to see
> who sells them and had to spend much more effort to find them than I
> expected). It was easy to find the FX3450 for sale (high-end, stereo
> capable, about US$1000) and the FX4500 (Ultra High-end, about US$1800
> (ouch!)), but not the more reasonable mid-range cards (FX1400/1500).
>
> The above occurs, of course, because "mid-range" isn't mid-range
> anymore
> but closer to out-dated, while the high-end cards are still 'usable'.
> Sticking with Nvidia, for the argument, it appears that right now the
> GeForce series of graphics is much more popular (for 'gaming' and also
> less expensive).
>
> Do these work well (enough) for crystallography, by anyone's
> experience?
>
> Then on to the next thought (showing that perhaps I am old^H^H^H, er,
> well you know...) is that today you can buy computers that are
> especially configured for 3D gaming (they come ready-to-go with
> graphics). Are these of any value in crystallographic model building
> etc? It seems (more) ecomical to buy a computer for (say) $1000 that is
> complete and attach a good CRT (as discussed a while back on this same
> channel) rather than take an old (really! Five years or so! :-) computer
> and buy a $1000 graphics card.
>
> Does anyone have experience with the ready-to-go systems? I'd prefer
> to
> run a flavor of Linux (probably Fedora Core) and would we need graphics
> that are supported with drivers for Linux. I'd prefer not to reinvent
> the wheel and will summarize if anyone else has experience with
> "graphics upgrades".
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mark
>
> Mark van der Woerd, PhD
> Research Scientist
> Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
> Colorado State University
> Fort Collins, CO 80523
> Phone (970) 491-0469
>
>
--
Kay Diederichs http://strucbio.biologie.uni-konstanz.de
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel +49 7531 88 4049 Fax 3183 Fachbereich Biologie, Universität Konstanz, Box M647, D-78457 Konstanz
