Question
-
Topic
-
Choosing a graphics card – manufaturers don’t understand their products??
LockedI contacted Nvidia customer support to ask for advice on choosing a video card – below is the question I posed.
“I am looking for a graphics card that is sole-ly for me to be able to view static greyscale digital xray images – there is no need at all for colour, photo-realism, high fps-rates, anti-aliasing or any other rendering effects – just static 8-bit 256 greyscale images at 2048×1536. This does seem pretty low end to me… I have been looking at the (Nvidia) 8000 series cards but cannot see whether an 8400, 8500, 8600, 8800, GT/GS/OC fits my requirements best
It would be a lot easier if I was looking for a game-playing card but that is precisely why this is hard for me to assess. I have no idea how to assess a card’s specs and whether it will meet my particular needs. When I have looked at cards specifically for digital xray viewing they are horribly expensive (?1000 ballpark!) but I believe much of this may be due to the need to run multiple monitors (in hospital radiology departments) and the lower production scales. Multi-monitor capability is something I won’t be needing at all so it seems that much “lower” spec (ie. bog-standard) cards should suit me fine… I just don’t know how to rate standard video cards against my needs.
Can you advise me?”
This was the gist of the reply I received…
“I understand from your mail that you would like to know if there are any NVIDIA based graphics cards that support 8-bit gray scale images at 2048 x 1536.
Please be informed that there are NVIDIA based graphics cards that support 8-bit color and they are Quadro FX series cards. The GeForce series cards does not support gray scale images. The latest Quadro FX 4600 and Quadro FX 5600 cards support 10-bit and 12-bit color. I am sorry to say that there are no NVIDIA based graphics cards that meet your requirements.” (WTF!!!)
So Nvidia seem to be saying that their latest cards can’t display black, grey and white??!!!!!
I’ll end with my original question – how do I figure out which graphics cards are best to use, and most cost effective, to run an 8-bit, 256 scale mono monitor at 2048×1536 displaying only static images?
Regards, Mark