NVIDIA GeForce To Quadro Software Mod

babyshiori writes "The NVIDIA Quadro family of professional graphics cards are very, very expensive. But many people know that Quadro and GeForce graphics cards are virtually identical in hardware. Obviously, you cannot just use Quadro drivers with your GeForce graphics cards. However, there is an easy way to soft-mod an NVIDIA GeForce desktop graphics card into an NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics card. Tech ARP shows us just how to do it. 'It all revolves around the driver support for professional 3D applications like 3ds Max or Maya. Quadro drivers allow the Quadro to be used to accelerate the rendering operations of such professional 3D applications while GeForce drivers do not. This is the basis for the premium prices NVIDIA (and ATI) charge for their professional-grade graphics cards.'"

Comments

Re:Just Pencil-in the Broken Trace

[reezle]

I do the IT for a cad shop, and we've run the range of video cards, settling on these Quadros (the sub $1000 models). I'd be very curious if this mod just gives the cheap card some of the accelerations the real card has, or if it can actually keep up in the real world. Not just running canned demos, but actually plugging away in Autocad all day long...

A benchmark of a couple of cards would be handy.
(but for the price of a video card, I suppose I could find out myself)

Cool, but will pros use it?

[ramk13]

The mod seems simple and useful for some, but most of the people who use these programs work for companies who would probably spend a few hundred more dollars for a fully supported graphics adapter for their piece of software that costs thousands of dollars.

Re:Cool, but will pros use it?

[badasscat]

The first time one of your "new ideas" breaks your company's CAD software and your call to support goes unanswered because you were using an unsupported modification, thereby rendering thousands of dollars worth of both hardware and software pretty much useless, I expect your company will change their tune.

Companies that have been around long enough have usually learned the hard way that it pays to do things above board. Murphy's Law exists for a reason. Any failure point, given a long enough gestation period, *will* fail. And using an unsupported modification in a professional setting is, if nothing else, a failure point.

GPL drivers

[trenien]

I guess this explain the unwillingness from NVidia to release the specs and allow people to make gpl drivers for their cards.

Re:GPL drivers

[drinkypoo]

The simple truth is that a lot of the "magic" is in the driver and they want to try to protect this stuff. However, an even simpler truth is that if you release your drivers then the public will help you write them. As intel has stepped into the 3D market with its open source drivers - easy to justify since they're not chasing the #1 spot in quality - the other makers have had to look hard at how their closed source is going to cost them in the long run. Both ATI (AMD) and nVidia have come around to the right idea, and now it's just a question of how long it takes to make their original drivers irrelevant :)

Re:Just Pencil-in the Broken Trace

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I'm not sure. This sort of hack is "unsupported", meaning, if you run into any trouble at all, the CAD software maker, the computer maker and the video card maker do not have to help you. I think it's a nifty little hack, but if you depend on the CAD machine, getting the right card in the first place is less expensive than a day's worth of down time for a user + the tech trying to get it to work again.

The extra cost goes towards developing and maintaining a specific driver set for the very small number of people using a low volume piece of software. The driver will load different pieces, different versions of itself based on what software is running. That's because the software is aggressively tested with specific versions of the driver to work right. That sort of support isn't cheap, and that's what you get when you pay for a Quadro.

I remember Geforce to Quadro conversion

[flyneye]

Last time I did that I moved two micro-resistors.
I just used a jewelers loup and a small tip on my soldering iron.Found the instructions online somewhere.Worked well.

Re:So...

[montge]

Ah, to your comment "There's something that bothers me about companies that sell the exact same product for two prices and the only difference is some switch is thrown on the more expensive one. But maybe there's more to it than that." There is something more to it...

While there may be only minor technical differences to the cards, the real difference is in the software. In a nutshell when you're buying the "inexpensive" card, you're not paying for the extra costs that NVidia (or ATI) incurs when they must expend resources to provide drivers that support the high-end applications. So unless you want consumers that could care less about the high end features to pay more, and the people that care about these features to pay less, you'll probably be happier with differentiated products in this way.

Don't forget companies are there to make money, and if they're not able to do this then either the company or product is likely to disappear. Personally I'd rather have NVidia around, if I need the high-end features, I'll figure out how to afford it...

Re:Just Pencil-in the Broken Trace

[GregPK]

Seriously, I was in an internship and my boss wouldn't even let me touch the inside of the computer to install new Ram Sticks.

Think about it, if something fails anywhere would you rather it be on the IT approved failure that you can get remedied for free. Or would you rather trying to explain to your boss that you hacked something to work and it took a weeks time fix.

Seriously, Cad shops, on average, are responsible for about 100 dollars an hour worth of work. At that rate, its in their best interest not to be down at all.

The difference between something that runs perfectly and something that is hacked is not something you want to explain to your boss. Especially when IT or someone else comes around to update the drivers, etc.

It's all about smoothness and transition when dealing with Cad. I've had a batch printing issue when working with retail focus files in MAP3D that took me a nearly a week to remedy.

This hack is great for students or those just starting out in the business. But, not in a full-time shop.