Digital Art Zone

I have Carrara installed on my Mac Pro 3.1 (Early 2008) and Mac OS 10.6.8 with Carrara 8.1.1.12.

I have not been able to get Carrara to run right for almost 2 years now (even with my previous version of Carrara). The main problem I have with Carrara is that I get no real-time visual feedback when I drag with the mouse. After I release the mouse button the display updates… so it is pretty much unusable. (It does work fine on my newer MacBook Pro that I purchased last July with i7 processor).

Carrara Tech Support tells me that they “think” it may be a Video Card issue on my Mac Pro?

I currently have an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Card in PCI Slot 1 and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 in PCI Slot 2 and (3) NEC Monitors connected.

My question is, do you think that if I replace both my Video cards with ATI Radeon HD 5770 Graphic Cards, that will solve my Carrara issue? Has anyone tried anything like this?

I should mention that I own tons of high-end graphics software that I use daily and Carrara is the ONLY APP THAT HAS A PROBLEM with my configuration.

Any incite would be greatly appreciated.

HI choreo

I’m not a Mac user,. but,.. I can’t see that having two different brands of graphics cards on the same motherboard is going to be an advantage anywhere. normally on PC you’re advised to have two of the same Model.

I know there were issue with the ATI Drivers on C8 at one point, and it was recommended that the users go back a driver version,  but that was some time ago, so I’m sure it’s been resolved at both ends now.

I’ve used both Radeon and Ge-force and have no problems with either, but not together on the same system.
that just seems like an issue waiting to happen.

3DAGE - 21 June 2012 03:47 AM

HI choreo

I’m not a Mac user,. but,.. I can’t see that having two different brands of graphics cards on the same motherboard is going to be an advantage anywhere. normally on PC you’re advised to have two of the same Model.

1.  I have to agree with this and even wonder what possessed you do such a thing. I mean having 2 different cards is running interference with each other.
2. The ATI is only a 256MB DDR2 video card and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 is essentially for watching Blue-ray movies on a PC, accelerating the Microsoft Windows Vista experience and powering Microsoft Direct 9 and 10 games. It is a 512MB DDR2 card, so even it is not too impressive in the power range.
3. Go with one or the other. I would recommend the GeForce simply because it is the stronger of the 2, but a Stronger Video Card would work much better than it also.
By contrast I am running a GeForce Quadro FX 5600, 1.5 GB DDR3 and I still have to click in my Carrara work window after I make a change to some objects in the model room for it to update, but all movement of objects or cameras is instant.

3DAGE - 21 June 2012 03:47 AM

HI choreo

I’m not a Mac user,. but,.. I can’t see that having two different brands of graphics cards on the same motherboard is going to be an advantage anywhere. normally on PC you’re advised to have two of the same Model.

I know there were issue with the ATI Drivers on C8 at one point, and it was recommended that the users go back a driver version,  but that was some time ago, so I’m sure it’s been resolved at both ends now.

I’ve used both Radeon and Ge-force and have no problems with either, but not together on the same system.
that just seems like an issue waiting to happen.

Update…

Well, I finally broke down and purchased/installed an ATI RADEON HD 5770 (w/1-Gig GDDR5 memory). I removed the NVIDIA GT 120 card, but kept the ATI RADEON HD 2600 XT Card in Slot 2 for the secondary monitors. I performed this upgrade “exclusively” so that I could run Carrara again (as ALL my other apps worked previously).

I just launched Carrara for the first time and at first I got the same behavior (no real-time display feedback). I had Carrara Reset the Prefs to their default and relaunched the app. EVERYTHING APPEARS TO BE WORKING NOW!!! First time in over 2 years I have been able to use Carrara! So far so good.  Thanks for the assistance.

With all due respect, the 5770 can run up to 3 monitors by it’s self. There is really no need for the second ATI card unless you are going to “CrassFireX’ them together. Nice card and really glad you got Carrara running correctly. If you want any help with Carrara the guys and gals at the forum at Renderosity.com are always ready. Happy Rendering!!!