The use of ati radeon graphics cards in CAD
ATI Radeon Professional Graphics for CAD
To improve the performance of any CAD tool, your system must be equipped with professional GPUs. Currently, professional graphics cards from the Nvidia Quadro series or AMD ATI Radeon from the FirePro line are available on the market.
Most CAD engineering software will benefit from having a dedicated graphics processing unit (GPU).
CAD User Requirements
For one, professional users such as designers and CAD engineers have stricter hardware requirements than average users or gamers. The primary concern of workstation specialists is stability and reliability, but equally important are issues such as the quality of the reproductions of the designed models or the availability of additional options.
AMD's ATI FirePro (FireGL) professional graphics card is designed to meet these demands.
For the CAD user, this can mean greater efficiency, precision calculations, display quality of the generated image, and more importantly, solid stability.
When you're looking at ATI graphics cards, you'll probably want to go with the ATI Radeon HD series of professional cards. Regardless of the product line you choose, remember that you should acquire a graphics card with at least 512 MB of RAM, which is a compromise between the graphically undemanding creation of 2D drawings with descriptions and dimensioning, and 3D modeling. If you don't do a lot of 3D modeling or are on a budget, you can probably get by with a 256MB card.
Professional card equipment
Professional cards can also expand the range of available options in CAD applications.
For example, the cards used for gaming in SolidWorks do not offer the ability to enable a high-performance, ultra-realistic display mode called RealView. It allows designers to display models with detailed shadows and reflections to provide a more realistic representation of the design.
On the other hand, in applications based on the IntelliCAD engine, where the basic library responsible for generating is OpenGL or OpenGL ES in newer products such as ActCAD include enhanced modes and performance of full-screen anti-aliasing (FSAA) and improved performance for displaying solid models with visible edges (edge-shaded) when hardware acceleration is enabled. AMD's ATI FirePro series of graphics cards are known for working perfectly with most CAD applications. It also has a better price-to-quality ratio compared to professional Nvidia cards, which makes it a common choice with a limited budget of a design office while maintaining high hardware requirements.
AMD Certification for CAD Solutions
It is worth knowing that Ati AMD certifies engineering solutions for its products.
AMD FirePro™ Professional Graphics Certification assures engineers, designers, and all CAD professionals that the AMD FirePro™ line of professional graphics cards will provide a stable and high-performance desktop environment for Windows® and Linux® platforms.
AMD FirePro™ professional graphics cards are certified:
- Engineering & Design (CAD/CAE/AEC)
- Digital Content Creation (DCC) and the Geographic Area of Digital Media
- Information Systems (GIS) and Visualization in Life Sciences
Applications
ATI AMD graphics cards support the same features found in consumer gaming products. However, they have dedicated solutions for specialist applications and a certification system to provide customers with a uniform specification system in CAD applications.
On the other hand, although Radeon FirePro cards are designed for demanding professional use, they have extensive multimedia capabilities and are capable of providing entertainment after hours, allowing users to process multimedia, support advanced calculations or play the latest, most demanding games available on PC, such as Cyberpunk 2077.