[Chimera-users] Recommended HW for Chimera 3D

[Greg Couch]

On 12/07/2010 12:36 PM, Marek Basler wrote:
> Hi,
> what would be recommended HW and OS for trouble free 3D using glasses
> with new 120Hz LCDs? Linux or Win? What is the best graphics card? I
> don't care about money but nothing crazy either. Any suggestions?
> Thanks a lot!
> Marek

NVIDIA appears to have temporarily cornered the market.  And Linux has 
the least overhead.  So my recommendation would be to use Linux (my 
current favorite is Ubuntu 10.10) with a NVIDIA Quadro card that has a 
3-pin stereo connector (so the 4000, 5000 or 6000, or an older FX 3800 
or better), and NVIDIA 3D Vision or 3D Vision Pro glasses.  The NVIDIA 
3D Vision web page has a list of supported 120Hz LCDs.  And be careful 
to size your system to handle the graphics card's power and cooling 
requirements and to handle the amount of data you wish to visualize.

See the chimera benchmarks page, 
http://plato.cgl.ucsf.edu/trac/chimera/wiki/benchmarks, for some help on 
choosing a graphic card.  As you can see, we need more benchmark results 
submissions.  So especially if you get one of the newer Quadro cards, 
please submit the benchmark results from the Tools / Utilities / 
Benchmark tool.

     -- Greg