More CAD Options.

If you have access to Solidworks, that's the ticket. I drive it daily as well. I spent a significant amount of money on the software and hardware to run SW2013/2014. The veteran price is amazing. Do look at the system requirements though. A substantial graphics (not video) card is required. The rest can be so so if you're not in a real hurry. I opened some parts I downloaded once and SW told me it was created on a student version and is not for production, which I thought was curious.

For me SW was very intuitive, and even being away from it between version 2000 and 2008 it was easy to pic up. its' easy to learn and there are plenty of guides, tutorials, and books. I took classes at a reseller in 1998 on version 98+. Back then, it was magic compared to Autocad R13 or Microstation.

Greg

 

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A few years ago when I bought Solidworks 2012 , I also bought an Nvidea Quadro 4600 graphics card because it was on the Solidworks Approved graphics cards list.

This Nvidea Quadro graphics card cost me a damn fortune.

About 6 months ago it developed a fault, and I had to get a job finished, so
I took the graphics card out of my other computer, and I was surprised to find that the cheapo card works perfectly with Solidworks.

So I bought another graphics card of exactly the same type from Amazon.

This card is a Geforce GT610

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0083YIGXI/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

The Geforce GT610 card has 2 Gb memory, which is more than twice that of the Quadro card, and it cost just about £ 30, which is less than 10% of the cost of the Quadro card when I bought it.

I don't notice any difference in the refresh rate, screen display quality, or model edges sharpness.

The only thing that the cheapo card does not give is the Real-view graphics and the ambient shading options that the Nvidea Quadro card gives.

However I found those visual functions totally irritating and unnecessary crap, never used them, and so I had them permanently turned off.


So it is quite possible that Solidworks will work quite well with the graphics card that you already have in your computer, if it is a 2 Gb memory version.

There are also thousands of instructional videos on You-Tube for Solidworks,
so learning will not be too much of a struggle !


dave



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I didn't know it will run a typical video card, but without rendering. If rendering isn't important, that's a lot of money saved. I've also heard that you can reflash the GeForce card to Quadro firmware, but I just need stable system. My last system was not so much and it simply isn't worth any money saved.

Also check the community college, many have SW classes.

Greg

 

This cheapo graphics card also supports renders perfectly using the Photoview 360, that is built into Solidworks, and gives Photo quality output, which I can then

output to a .Jpg file for storage, or send the picture to a A3 size printer for

photo quality prints of the models and assemblies.



dave

 

Interesting. Maybe, I'll remember when it comes time to upgrade. Thank you.