i need a good graphics card for my main machine. does anyone here use the ATI FireGL accelerator? every single forum or book i can find about video hardware is full of gamers. i need a good card for CAD. does anyone know if FireGL cards really give you an advantage with modelling and rendering (to the tune of the ridiculous price difference), or whether linux drivers for them are available? i'm dual-booting mdk9.2 with winXP, and i use win-based software for 3d graphics, but i'd like my video to work in linux, too. it's really expensive, and i'd like to know a bit more before i blow my savings.

I use AutoCad and Microstation at work on windoze machines. I use VariCad at home on my Linux machines. Unless you are doing some serious rendering (i.e. Architectural models) most medium ranged video cards will handle whatever you can throw at it.

Yeah, some serious architectural models. Right now I've started using Revit, but for the most part AutoCAD, and some Vectorworks. More complex models just freeze up my machines, both here at home and at work. And I work on two pretty decent desktops, but with low-end graphics. Hence the need for something a little more potent graphic-wise. I've read that most commercially available graphic cards (in other words ATI Radeon and nVidia GeForce) are aimed at high-frame-rate motion 3d graphics, and not necessarily for photo-realistic renderings of CAD models and similar apps, or for working in multiple viewports.

How is VariCAD, btw?

VariCad is pretty good. It's primary use is Mechanical applications but from a CAD standpoint, you can use it for anything. I like the 3D applications associated with VariCad, it's the best 3D CAD software i have seen for Linux yet. It can do anything AutoCad and MicroStaion can do except Rasta images. It can't import Rasta images which i think is lame. But other than that small flaw (which i hope will be implemented soon) it's pretty sweet for the price compared to AutoCad and MicroStation.

www.varicad.com