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Hardware for teaching game programming

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Started by gtaylor November 08, 2004 12:09 AM

18 comments, last by PlayfulPuppy 19 years, 5 months ago

gtaylor

122

Author

November 08, 2004 05:59 PM

Quote:Original post by Trip99We teach DirectX and OpenGL and the graphic card needs to support shaders 2 at least in order to teach the programming of those.

Which graphics cards support Shaders 2.0? A quick search using google seems to indicate that Shaders 2.0 is not fully supported by NVIDIA cards.

Ravyne

14,306

November 08, 2004 06:28 PM

You don't really need hardware thats so powerfull, so I'll give you the same advice I give anyone: Look at the price for what you get and find the step that starts showing diminishing returns. Take for example a Pentium 4 CPU, if you start at say, 2.6Ghz you'll notice that the price difference is small (30-50$ or so) for the next-better CPU, up until about 3.4 ghz when it sudenly becomes 100$ or more. You can also use the simple performace/cost equation. Mhz is a good guide among one type of CPU, but its not neccesarily accurate between AMD and Intel.

Some of the labs at Digipen run as low as p3 600Mhz with GeForce3s, The better labs are roughly 1.4Ghz P4s with GeForce4s. Even the 4th year students aren't exactly pushing the hardware to its limits.

All that said, with an investment for the coming years, I'd go with a Dx9 graphics card. FX5200, 5700 or radeon 9600 are plenty, but make sure you get versions with a 128bit or better memory bus or the cards will be crippled (watch out for LE or SE versions, check the specs!) Nvidia gets bonus points for better linux/openGL support. At least P4 2.4ghz w/800 fsb and HT, since those features really don't cost you any more than not getting them. 512MB ram is good, bonus if you can get it as a dual-channel config. Integrated NIC/audio/USB are all more than sufficient.

Don't forget the cost of development software too. Visual Studio (or C++) .net will run you 100-200$ per seat, photoshop would be nice, but paint-shop pro is nearly as good for a fraction of the cost (also, I'll recomend ProMotion because its a great little sprite editor, google it!). Also, think about setting up a server for back ups, or even a CVS/sourcesafe repository. Don't skip on the tools, theres no excuse to not have Visual studio - its the best IDE available, you should however also plan on installing Cygwin and other compilers. Maybe get some copies of Borland C++ builder 6 for quick and easy tool development too. Make sure you have sufficient tools before you worry about how uber the PCs are.

Good luck.

throw table_exception("(? ???)? ? ???");

Ravyne

14,306

November 08, 2004 06:33 PM

Shaders 2.0 is fully supported by GeforceFX 5200 and up, Radeon 9600 and up... Possibly 9500 as well, I'm not sure.

throw table_exception("(? ???)? ? ???");

Sijmen

231

November 09, 2004 05:51 AM

Quote:Original post by Ravyne
You don't really need hardware thats so powerfull, so I'll give you the same advice I give anyone: Look at the price for what you get and find the step that starts showing diminishing returns. Take for example a Pentium 4 CPU, if you start at say, 2.6Ghz you'll notice that the price difference is small (30-50$ or so) for the next-better CPU, up until about 3.4 ghz when it sudenly becomes 100$ or more. You can also use the simple performace/cost equation. Mhz is a good guide among one type of CPU, but its not neccesarily accurate between AMD and Intel.

Some of the labs at Digipen run as low as p3 600Mhz with GeForce3s, The better labs are roughly 1.4Ghz P4s with GeForce4s. Even the 4th year students aren't exactly pushing the hardware to its limits.

All that said, with an investment for the coming years, I'd go with a Dx9 graphics card. FX5200, 5700 or radeon 9600 are plenty, but make sure you get versions with a 128bit or better memory bus or the cards will be crippled (watch out for LE or SE versions, check the specs!) Nvidia gets bonus points for better linux/openGL support. At least P4 2.4ghz w/800 fsb and HT, since those features really don't cost you any more than not getting them. 512MB ram is good, bonus if you can get it as a dual-channel config. Integrated NIC/audio/USB are all more than sufficient.

Don't forget the cost of development software too. Visual Studio (or C++) .net will run you 100-200$ per seat, photoshop would be nice, but paint-shop pro is nearly as good for a fraction of the cost (also, I'll recomend ProMotion because its a great little sprite editor, google it!). Also, think about setting up a server for back ups, or even a CVS/sourcesafe repository. Don't skip on the tools, theres no excuse to not have Visual studio - its the best IDE available, you should however also plan on installing Cygwin and other compilers. Maybe get some copies of Borland C++ builder 6 for quick and easy tool development too. Make sure you have sufficient tools before you worry about how uber the PCs are.

Good luck.

Seconding that.

gtaylor

122

Author

November 10, 2004 04:44 PM

I have obtained further details regarding the software which is to be used in the teaching environment. I have listed the software together with the components I believe most effect the performance of the software:

1. 3D Studio MAX - CPU
2. Adobe Premiere - CPU/Memory
3. SoundForge - CPU
4. MAYA - VIDEO CARD, CPU (Rendering)
5. TerraGen - CPU

Given the above software requirements what hardware should I recommend? Would the performance benefits (if any) of dual processors and workstation level video cards (ie Quadro) be worth the additional cost?

Spoonbender

1,258

November 10, 2004 05:45 PM

Quote:Original post by gtaylor
1. Is it necessary (or desirable) to have the latest generation graphics (x800XT or 6800 Ultra) card in each PC?

2. Would a mid-range graphics card (9800XT or 6600GT) be good enough?

3. Is there any particular advantage to using either ATI or NVIDIA graphics cards?

4. Is an integrated audio solution sufficient or is an Audigy ZS or other sound card required?

5. Is there any advantage to choosing an equivalently priced Intel Pentium IV over an AMD Athlon 64?

6. How much memory is required? Would 1GB be sufficient?

7. Would there be a significant advantage in using a dual-monitor configuration on each PC?

Any other advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

I'd say you should go for getting support for as many features as possible. Speed isn't as important for programming.
With that in mind:
1: A Geforce 6x00 might a good idea, with support for SM3.0
You should be able to find a 6600 or even 6200 at a pretty good price. They also have good Linux support, which might or might not be relevant. (ATI's Linux support is basically nonexistent)

3: As I said above, the 6x00 series has the most features, which could come in handy for programming.

4: Should be fine with integrated. Again, what matters are the features supported. If it can play sounds, how much more do you need? If you're going to make a sound studio, then yes, you need more, but if you just want to teach game programming then integrated is fine.

5: On the contrary. Lets ignore the performance and heat issues (Athlon 64 wins hands down in both these, but they're not really that relevant to programming), we're left with the important issue: Features. The Athlon 64 has 64 bit support, which might be fun to play around with when programming. The P4 doesn't support that. On a side note, an Athlon 64 is actually *way* faster at compiling, but as I said, I don't think performance really matters.

6: 1GB should be plenty. You could get by with less, but 1GB sounds good to me.

7: If possible, it could be nice. But I doubt it'd be neccesary.

But if I were to teach game programming, my #1 priority would be that the computer supported every feature I might want to play around with. That means both 32 and 64 bit code (Which means Athlon 64), it means I'll want to work in both Windows and Linux (Which means NVidia), and I'll want to have support for the newest graphics features (which also means NVidia).

Luckless

3,283

November 10, 2004 07:04 PM

Well,... what sort of game programming are you talking about? If its something like teaching highschool students how to code and end up with Pong or something, then, you can easily do it on 486s,...

Really bugged me that highschools get rid of 400mhz computer, as they're 'out of date' but they're still more than enough to type stuff up on!

Old Username: Talroth
If your signature on a web forum takes up more space than your average post, then you are doing things wrong.

Shannon Barber

1,684

November 10, 2004 08:18 PM

All of us assume you're teaching 3D graphics, otherwise the graphics card doesn't matter much. Anything you can buy will be overkill for 2D.

I'll weigh-in with nice CRT's as being better. If I had $600 to spend on a monitor, a high-quality flat-CRT is way better for graphics than an LCD; you get more inches of screen space, a lower dot pitch, and higher refresh rates. (19" is the minimum size, but you can get a 21" or 22" in a CRT for the cost of a 19" LCD).
For full-screen graphics, dual-monitors are useful because you can set it up to debug on the second monitor.

I would say it is desirable to have new graphics cards. You're going to use the machines for more than a couple of semesters, and the 3D cards will have the biggest impact on what you can do with them.

You should teach OpenGL because it has more applications beyond games and is most likely the API of choice in college courses. With OGL in mind, nVidia is the stronger vendor. I have both nVidia and ATI cards, and use both with Windows and Linux. If you have a new ATI with the proprietary ATI driver, it works quite well under Linux (and is more complicated to setup, but that's consistent with tweaking power of Linux).

If it were me, I would have lots of different machines. And part of the class would be making your stuff work on more than one OS, CPU architecture, and graphics card.

- The trade-off between price and quality does not exist in Japan. Rather, the idea that high quality brings on cost reduction is widely accepted.-- Tajima & Matsubara

Alpha_ProgDes

6,963

November 10, 2004 08:44 PM

Dude! You need a a XGameStation!

Beginner in Game Development? Read here. And read here.

PlayfulPuppy

420

November 11, 2004 08:07 AM

Out of what I can tell, you really dont need anything high-end at all.

I'm assuming you're going to be teaching students who have a basic grasp of programming and want to extend their skills into 3D, in which case the specs you have listed are SERIOUS overkill.

I'm sitting here developing my own engine, tools and artwork on an p3-850 with 256 megs of RAM and a GeForce 3 ti 200, which would cost all of about $500AU to put together (Probably less now :( ) and I can do almost everything you would probably be teaching throughout the extents of the course. You should be able to get away with spending well less that $1000AU per system quite easily.

HOWEVER, if your course is tailoring more to people who know 3D programming and want to extend their skills further (Mainly into advanced topics such as pixel-shading or real-time raytracing), or even if you're going to be using some middleware for the course, you will probably need some higher-end PCs.

As for LCDs VS CRTs, I'd personally go with the CRTs, but I'm an artist (Mainly) and I find the LCDs tend to disort the color somewhat, and the fixed resolution really irks me (When you're using 3D tools, you really need as much screen space as you can get). Dual monitors can really help when debugging fullscreen applications and is a godsend to any graphics work you might be doing, but it's also perfectly acceptable to get by without them.

Hardware for teaching game programming

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