I think the main issue here is ATI has a very spotty track record - too spotty to be relied upon in serious production.
While it's true ATI cards can run faster, the problem is just because a driver works with one application doesn't mean it will work with all of them. In the case of Softimage, ATI has a very poor track record. By the time you find a working driver you often bump into a problem with a different application that prevents you from working, so you have to update your driver to something that likely doesn't work so well with Softimage. THAT is the problem. While nVidia has had its share of problems, at least you know when there's a problem relief is never far away. Can't say the same for ATI where you can often wait years before issues are addressed. Being able to work and get stuff done the first time is more important that being able to go 3x faster while constantly tripping over issues. The time spent on troubleshooting is often larger than the time saved from the faster performance resulting in a net loss of time. That's why we only use nVidia here and not ATI. Matt From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Raffaele Fragapane Sent: Friday, April 19, 2013 12:37 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: AMD & MAXON Cinema 4D. I'm not an ATI fan, but if you haven't tried one in 20 years maybe you might be a bit unreasonable :) While drivers wise nVIDIA still has an edge, and usually every generation they are the top performer for a while longer (although that's a chasing game), AMD has been on top of bang for buck for quite a while, and once you find a decent driver you can stick with it for quite a while with good success, just they are fewer and further apart than nVIDIA's, which also has had many messed up releases. It's not healthy to be so strongly prejudiced, while I don't think it's there yet for me to consider as a viable alternative, but I also have some time invested in CUDA and none in OCL, AMD is worth keeping an eye out for, and it's far from the catastrophic experience it was five years ago on average. For the record, C4D has run absolutely flawlessly on ATI for year now, all the way back to the first radeons. On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 12:44 PM, Sam <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: My motto for video cards is "if it says ATI AMD on the outside it's crap on the inside". I don't care how fast a card is, if the drivers suck, the card is going to suck. ATI drivers have always sucked (first one I bought was about 20 years ago (it was also the last one I bought)) and it hasn't changed since AMD took over. I've had friends buy the cards because of the benchmarks and they have always had problems, and just recently I had to fix my niece's laptop because the latest AMD update made her 3d games unplayable (built her a computer with an NVIDIA card for Christmas so I would never have to deal with it again). I honestly have never known anyone who had an ATI card that was happy with it. From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of Sven Constable Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 11:20 AM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: RE: AMD & MAXON Cinema 4D. "...AMD FirePro(tm) W-Series is fully tested, certified & optimised for MAXON Cinema 4D..." I don't buy that anymore. I bought a FirePro couple years ago (actually it was its predecessor named FireGL), just because AMD claimed the same for Softimage (fully certified, yeah right). They should have stated "...viewport glitches and selection hangs have been reduced somewhat..." :) From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Leoung O'Young Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 16:21 To: xsi Subject: AMD & MAXON Cinema 4D. Interesting development between Maxon and AMD Maxon is busy setting up partnerships, Adobe, and now AMD Now if only Autodesk will start doing some of this with Softimage, I will be a happy man http://www.animationxpress.com/images/AMD_FirePropacks_more_speed.html AMD FirePro(tm) W-Series packs more speed, power and performance to fuel stunning, cutting-edge 3D animations in MAXON Cinema 4D. -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
