Have a simple Nvidia GeForce 210, with no fans, just a huge cooler taking an extra slot space.
But silent then of course.
 
Thinking if there are any benefits to move up in performance?
 
Are there noticable differences between cards, not doing computer gaming?
But also concerned that noisy fans are not that nice.
 
I run one monitor currently, but might get another one.
Is it more of a concern with better card doing two monitors?
 
Thanks.

While it is true that Sonar technically does use the graphics card for window rendering and some third party plugins do too, that kind of performance is laughably low key for a video card.

If your video card can run two monitors at all, it can run Sonar.

I run two 27" Monitors on my 512 meg 210 no problem.
 
Not sure that Cake employs any spare GPU processing power offloading for Audio. 

Gainward GTX 760, 27 inch monitor and 24 inch monitor.
 
Cheers,
Jerry

Wookiee
Not sure that Cake employs any spare GPU processing power offloading for Audio. 

That is something I would love to know! If it doesn't happen it should! Maybe the OS does it automatically...

Thanks guys - good to hear 210 is not completely ruled out.
 
I ran into some gui issues the other day, and the thought came up that maybe card is not fit for the task.
 
I have this "half freeze" thread, and audio was running fine all the time, though gui changed every 3-5s or so. So seems that bakers got that right, nothing more important than audio - not even a crackle.
 
Would be nice if card is not to blame, since it makes no noise at all. Just computer power supply and hdd subtle spinning that is audible at all.
 
Any input welcome...

Doktor Avalanche

Wookiee
Not sure that Cake employs any spare GPU processing power offloading for Audio. 

That is something I would love to know! If it doesn't happen it should! Maybe the OS does it automatically...

As far as I know the application has to be written for purpose and the Graphics card has to support such access, there was quite some noise made about it a couple of years ago shame if it is not exploited more.

lfm
Thanks guys - good to hear 210 is not completely ruled out.
 
I ran into some gui issues the other day, and the thought came up that maybe card is not fit for the task.
 
I have this "half freeze" thread, and audio was running fine all the time, though gui changed every 3-5s or so. So seems that bakers got that right, nothing more important than audio - not even a crackle.
 
Would be nice if card is not to blame, since it makes no noise at all. Just computer power supply and hdd subtle spinning that is audible at all.
 
Any input welcome...

 
Obviously update the drivers. I had a problem the other day with the card freezing and in the end (many months of pain) and I ultimately cured it by upgrading the BIOS.
 
I used a utility called GPU-Z (well worth installing anyway) to exactly identify an appropriate BIOS:
http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/
 
I then flashed this BIOS like this one:
http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/114395/msi-g210-1024-110622.html
 
You have to be extremely careful, there are much better instructions than this on the internet. If you don't do it correctly it could brick your card.
 
In your case you might get a performance benefit, on the other hand the risk may outweigh the benefits.

Doktor Avalanche
Not sure that Cake employs any spare GPU processing power offloading for Audio. 

Wookiee
That is something I would love to know! If it doesn't happen it should! Maybe the OS does it automatically...

 

Wookiee
 As far as I know the application has to be written for purpose and the Graphics card has to support such access, there was quite some noise made about it a couple of years ago shame if it is not exploited more.

The only people who would really know this are the bakers (we don't have access to the code). I'm sure there are plenty of graphical optimizations that haven't happened though looking at the responsiveness of the UI in certain scenarios.

I have run 2 displays from my on-board graphics for 2 years or more, and that adds zero noise and zero problems. One is set for HDMI, and the other is using VGA, though it might be able to use DVI.  In any case, it works fine, with no performance issues.
 
I have 32 GB of memory so whatever it is using as shared memory doesn't impact me whatsoever.
 
Bob Bone