VMD-L Mailing List

From: Axel Kohlmeyer (akohlmey_at_gmail.com)
Date: Sat Oct 01 2011 - 08:53:36 CDT

>> the first thing you have to worry about for visualization
>> is not the GPU, but having sufficient RAM.
>
> And does the GPU RAM matter? I'm planning to start with Intel i7 CPU and 16
> Gb RAM, and I have spare $1K for additional memory and GPU. What else should
> I take in mind when selecting GPU hardware? My aim is smooth interaction
> with large cartoon rendered system, its rotation etc.

with that type of CPU you want memory in multiples if 6GB since
you want to have the same size memory modules throughout and
use them in multiples of 3. otherwise your performance may be impacted.
high-end GeForce cards have 1.5GB which is plenty.

the challenge of doing a cartoon rendering of a large system
is likely to be elsewhere, e.g. the limitations of STRIDE.

>> high-performance quadro cards are very expensive,
>> but most of the features that they offer over geforce
>> cards are not exploited by VMD.
>
> Just to make clear: which specific features of quadro cards are exploited by
> VMD? It's sort of curiosity.

most prominently, quadro cards are required for stereo display
since geforce does not support quad buffered stereo which VMD
needs for windowed stereo display.

>
>> so you are probably best
>> off with a GeForce GTX 580 card.
>
> Looks OK.
>
>>
>> cheers,
>>     axel.
>>
>>> Thanks in advance and best regards,
>>> Dmitry Osolodkin
>>
>>
>
> --
> Dmitry Osolodkin, PhD
> Researcher
> Group of Computational Molecular Design
> Department of Chemistry
> Moscow State University
> Moscow 119991 Russia
> e-mail: dmitry_o_at_qsar.chem.msu.ru
> Phone: +7-495-9393557
> Fax: +7-495-9390290
>
> 

-- 
Dr. Axel Kohlmeyer
akohlmey_at_gmail.com  http://goo.gl/1wk0
Institute for Computational Molecular Science
Temple University, Philadelphia PA, USA.