Autodesk Mudbox 680, 7970, 7950

marbeljoyce · Jun 6, 2013

Hi,
i was wondering if anyone on OS X 10.8.4 could test 680, 7950, 7970 in Autdoesk Mudbox 2013/2104.
I'm interested in responsiveness and polygon count and what maximum level it goes to. It should not take longer than 30 min to install and test if someone happen to have it.
It would be an ultimate 3d modeling test.

( i'm not sure if radeons out of the box run pcie 1.0 or 2.0, my researched showed 7970 didn't. but 680 runs 5.0 and pcie 2.0 orb, could be a cool option for 3d work)

Derpage · Jun 6, 2013

From the Autodesk website:

The number of subdivision levels on a model directly affects the number of polygon faces and how much RAM is required. Unnecessarily subdividing a model to a very high polygon count rapidly consumes RAM and limits your ability to add sculpt layers and perform other work on the model.
______________________________________________________
You need more Ram. All of those cards will run the program fine.

marbeljoyce · Jun 7, 2013

yes this is common sense, i wanted to know which of those will run the best and smoothest on 100 000 000 polygons. RAM is no question, have to be in amount to accommodate high poly count. No RAM will save you from sculpting or viewport interaction lags though. It just stores your levels.

Derpage · Jun 7, 2013

Shouldn't an open GL or Directx based benchmark give you info you can extrapolate? I dunno, mudbox is sh!7, I don't use it.

marbeljoyce · Jun 12, 2013

Mudbox isn't **** per say, it only software on market that lets you sculpt on 170 mil polygons, anyways, OpenGL directX would say a lot for windows, but for OS X drivers are not so well adapted, and by many benchmarks 7950 seems to be 5% faster than 5870 which is redicilous.

So if anyone has 680 in their mac pro and uses os x 10.8.X i would greatly appreciate if test could be done against 5870.

MacVidCards · Jun 12, 2013

marbeljoyce said:
Mudbox isn't **** per say, it only software on market that lets you sculpt on 170 mil polygons, anyways, OpenGL directX would say a lot for windows, but for OS X drivers are not so well adapted, and by many benchmarks 7950 seems to be 5% faster than 5870 which is redicilous.

So if anyone has 680 in their mac pro and uses os x 10.8.X i would greatly appreciate if test could be done against 5870.

Contact rob @ barefeats.com

he already has a bunch of tests posted, might do more if you ask nicely

thekev · Jun 12, 2013

Derpage said:
Shouldn't an open GL or Directx based benchmark give you info you can extrapolate? I dunno, mudbox is sh!7, I don't use it.

What's wrong with mudbox? It has nice paint tools.

Derpage · Jun 13, 2013

thekev said:
What's wrong with mudbox? It has nice paint tools.

File size is ****. It's a ram hog. Autodesk does not officially support anything above a 4xx nvidia card (i'm not sure about the amd side as I use CUDA.) It's got horrible tearing and shuddering problems under heavy load. The auto-save function will crash the program. I can go on and on. I'd rather just model in zbrush and do diffuse/spec...etc in 3d-coat

thekev · Jun 14, 2013

Derpage said:
File size is ****. It's a ram hog. Autodesk does not officially support anything above a 4xx nvidia card (i'm not sure about the amd side as I use CUDA.) It's got horrible tearing and shuddering problems under heavy load. The auto-save function will crash the program. I can go on and on. I'd rather just model in zbrush and do diffuse/spec...etc in 3d-coat

You must have used it more than me. I haven't noticed as much prevalence in those kinds of problems, although I can respect the zbrush preference. I've never used 3d-coat, although I've heard their paint tools are realy nice. Autodesk software can be buggy in general when it comes to crashes. Just look at Maya and its weird archaic history system that can freak out on certain undos due to the limitations of certain nodes.

marbeljoyce · Jun 27, 2013

Derpage said:
File size is ****. It's a ram hog. Autodesk does not officially support anything above a 4xx nvidia card (i'm not sure about the amd side as I use CUDA.) It's got horrible tearing and shuddering problems under heavy load. The auto-save function will crash the program. I can go on and on. I'd rather just model in zbrush and do diffuse/spec...etc in 3d-coat

Not so.

I always wondered why there is need to input your opinion when you clearly know yourself you don't know what you talking about and even though it has nothing to do with the question asked? No need to put your frustration on rest, deal with it yourself.

Please don't tell me you own mac pro pre 2010 with 8800 or some other old card, which biased your experience or mac book pro and putting 2 cents into discussing high end PCIE GPUS, aren't you?

There is no autosave in mudbox. Yes going upto 130 000 000 polygons is ~24gb ram, thats why there are 48/96gb options for pro users like us right?

You use CUDA for what? Octane, AE, Indigo, V-Ray RT, how is this related to sculpting mudbox for god sake? Mudbox runs perfectly on 5870 1gb oldie card, after upgrading to 10.8.4 it handles 100 000 000 polygons, with confidence. And my house doesn't shake nor falling apart, display doesn't melt nor act like digital kaleidoscope in viewport.

I work in movies, so your love for 32 bit zbrush is useless to me, it can handle pathetic 16mil poly maximum. I don't do lowers game stuff so for me zbrush is already out of subject.

Since there are options to just upgrade i wondered how can i maximize my comfort, and yes i'm one of those people who will drill a 6 feet hole in a wall to power my card with telephone pole if it is necessary, as opposed to navigate in interface that was designed in mental asylum.

----------

MacVidCards said:
Contact rob @ barefeats.com

he already has a bunch of tests posted, might do more if you ask nicely

Thanks for advice man! This is the only option. It is tiring to read through tons of amateurs opinions to get to to the simple answer.

By the way, your gtx 680 4gb has clock speeds of reference mac 680 2gb for TDP purposes of 2 x 6 pins or it was a limitation that came with flashing rom?

Can i use Kepler BIOS tweaker and restore clock speeds to factory default, like Dr.Stealth did?

Derpage · Jun 27, 2013

sure kid, whatever you say. lol.

marbeljoyce · Jun 28, 2013

Derpage said:
sure kid, whatever you say. lol.

Precisely, i like that.

chrono1081 · Jul 8, 2013

marbeljoyce said:
I work in movies, so your love for 32 bit zbrush is useless to me, it can handle pathetic 16mil poly maximum.

(Actually it can sculpt up to a billion polygons in HD mode and around 40 - 60 million comfortably in standard mode...)

But aside from that did you ever find an answer to your Mudbox question? I have a 5870 and find that its not so great painting on denser meshes :/

marbeljoyce · Jul 9, 2013

chrono1081 said:
(Actually it can sculpt up to a billion polygons in HD mode and around 40 - 60 million comfortably in standard mode...)

But aside from that did you ever find an answer to your Mudbox question? I have a 5870 and find that its not so great painting on denser meshes :/

Nobody really has any valuable input, simply saying this card works better than this in maya mudbox.

now, mudbox surprisingly puts a lot on CPU which is freakin weird, for example amount of models in scene = CPU, subdues = RAM. Somewhere there most likely sculpting / paining / rotation in viewport is based on GPU and some of the data on CPU.

So in my theory yes radeon 7970 3gb and geforce 770 2-4gb are best options for mac os x right now for pro CGI work, quadro K5000 is out of my budget reach but probably is best solution out there if you really want smooth performance, since those are the only cards supported by Autodesk officially.

But heres catch, if radeon is 7970 so powerful in pc benchmarks, knowing that 7950 is absolute JUNK in os x 10.8.4 and speed bump over 5870 is 5%-10%, makes me feel like 7970 will not perform any better and is more of an investment for upcoming 10.9 Mavericks, but weird investment into old form factor, so kind of falls short here.

so the choice is 680 4gb or 770 2-4gb. I'm hundred percent sure for painting in mudbox 680 or 770 will be a drastic jump from 5870. Don't know for sculpting thugh.

From personal sources i know for sure that AMD right now collects feedback to simply get rid of performance issue in OS X with pro apps. They were busy with other important unknown task. So probably Mavericks will finally get rid of cards performance issue.

GTX 770 4gb (slightly better) > GTX 680 4gb and since it was kind of official card for macs the drivers seem to be somewhat adequate.

I will risk and go with GTX 770. Hopefully macvidcards will come out with 4gb version soon.

My setup right now i believe most optimal for Rednering/Modeling/Texturing.

MPro 5,1 (2010) 3.33 6 core.

Sonnet tempo pro with samsung 840pro ~256gb. + old 3g 120gb OWC hard drive for scratch drive ( should upgrade )
4 1tb FAEX western digitals in RAID 0 (i don't care i back up locally).
2 x 2tb EARX western digitals in Raid 0 (i don't care i backup to CrashPlan aswell, can't allow time machine being bogged down by RAID 1)
48gb RAM.
the card will be either 680 or 770.

there is lots of room to improve but really can't improve CPU GPU RAM any further without toooooooo much cash.

I think this is as much as you can go without blowing toooo much money, while waiting for new MP's.

But to be honest i'm tired of all this **** with apple targeting photographers and video editors as pros there are far more people in STEM industry who can benefit and have different opinion on mac pro.

P.S. HD mode is weird you get little circle which is not really useful for proper sculptors, especially coming from traditional media for me it's crucial to evaluate whole thing every other minute it has to all hold up together.

chrono1081 · Jul 9, 2013

marbeljoyce said:
Nobody really has any valuable input, simply saying this card works better than this in maya mudbox.

now, mudbox surprisingly puts a lot on CPU which is freakin weird, for example amount of models in scene = CPU, subdues = RAM. Somewhere there most likely sculpting / paining / rotation in viewport is based on GPU and some of the data on CPU.

So in my theory yes radeon 7970 3gb and geforce 770 2-4gb are best options for mac os x right now for pro CGI work, quadro K5000 is out of my budget reach but probably is best solution out there if you really want smooth performance, since those are the only cards supported by Autodesk officially.

But heres catch, if radeon is 7970 so powerful in pc benchmarks, knowing that 7950 is absolute JUNK in os x 10.8.4 and speed bump over 5870 is 5%-10%, makes me feel like 7970 will not perform any better and is more of an investment for upcoming 10.9 Mavericks, but weird investment into old form factor, so kind of falls short here.

so the choice is 680 4gb or 770 2-4gb. I'm hundred percent sure for painting in mudbox 680 or 770 will be a drastic jump from 5870. Don't know for sculpting thugh.

From personal sources i know for sure that AMD right now collects feedback to simply get rid of performance issue in OS X with pro apps. They were busy with other important unknown task. So probably Mavericks will finally get rid of cards performance issue.

GTX 770 4gb (slightly better) > GTX 680 4gb and since it was kind of official card for macs the drivers seem to be somewhat adequate.

I will risk and go with GTX 770. Hopefully macvidcards will come out with 4gb version soon.

My setup right now i believe most optimal for Rednering/Modeling/Texturing.

MPro 5,1 (2010) 3.33 6 core.

Sonnet tempo pro with samsung 840pro ~256gb. + old 3g 120gb OWC hard drive for scratch drive ( should upgrade )
4 1tb FAEX western digitals in RAID 0 (i don't care i back up locally).
2 x 2tb EARX western digitals in Raid 0 (i don't care i backup to CrashPlan aswell, can't allow time machine being bogged down by RAID 1)
48gb RAM.
the card will be either 680 or 770.

there is lots of room to improve but really can't improve CPU GPU RAM any further without toooooooo much cash.

I think this is as much as you can go without blowing toooo much money, while waiting for new MP's.

But to be honest i'm tired of all this **** with apple targeting photographers and DJ's and home video editors as "PROS" there are far more people in STEM industry who can benefit and have different opinion on mac pro.

P.S. HD mode is weird you get little circle which is not really useful for proper sculptors, especially coming from traditional media for me it's crucial to evaluate whole thing every other minute it has to all hold up together.

Thanks so much for this post! And yes HD mode IS weird. I never use it because there are rules with it I forget, some people adore it though (I wish ZBrush would hurry and go 64 bit!)

I think maybe I'll hold off a bit on the graphics card and see if anything changes with Mavericks. I love painting in Mudbox (Mari is out of my price range) but it does bog down on dense meshes on my 5870.

The big problem I have with the 5870 is Realflow and Houdini. Realflow has a viewport error using Hybrido Fluids (which they just acknowledged on the forums today two days after I posted the error which is awesome) and Houdini has severe lag issues when using geometry derived from curves :/

Mavericks needs to hurry (along with some new graphics cards for us!).

marbeljoyce · Jul 16, 2013

I opted to this model 04G-P4-2686-KR. EVGA GTX 680+ 4gb, i really don't need those 50mhz on clock speeds

Will make a thread if its not an epic fail and that thing won't even boot up.

chrono1081 · Sep 6, 2013

marbeljoyce said:
I opted to this model 04G-P4-2686-KR. EVGA GTX 680+ 4gb, i really don't need those 50mhz on clock speeds

Will make a thread if its not an epic fail and that thing won't even boot up.

How do you like this card for Mudbox? I got the Radeon 7950 and saw absolutely no difference (it was actually a bit worse) from my Radeon HD 5870 :/

I'm leaning towards getting the NVidia GTX680 instead.

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