Can someone explain the Quadro Line to me?

[batmanuel]

Originally posted by: Ineptitude
I've got to agree with JonnyBlaze. I've had many problems with ati cards and inventor.

I just upgraded to inventor V10 and it won't run on my 6800GT. I'm seriously bummed. Now I have to fork out the cash for a quadro or fireGL card.

Does anyone have any experiance running games (unreal, hl2, etc) on these cards?

You can probably use Rivatuner to softmod that 6800 into a Quadro. It's at least worth a try.

 

[Ineptitude]

Autodesk cliams they don't support the 6800 (or any consumer level cards newer than the geforce4). It appears that they mean it as I get the blue screen of death with hints pointing to the video driver when inventor 10 tries to start. I've tried several different drivers with no change. Inventor 7 runs great on the 6800.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

what driver are you running?

 

[Ineptitude]

Currently the latest (77.77), but Ive tried several older drivers with no luck.

As I see it, Autodesk has decided to not go to the trouble of writing work-arounds for the gamer cards. From thier point of view if I've paid $4K for the software I should be able to pony up $1K for a video card.

The worst part of this for me is that if I'm going to lay out $1K for a video card, I'm going to get a PCI-E card for future upgrade reasons. So now I've got to scrap my rock solid stable AGP mobo setup for a PCI-E mobo. At this point I almost want to scrap the whole system and start over. Or I can get an older quadro and just not play games anymore.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

get a quadro 750. they are pretty cheap now and handle everything except the biggest models no problem.

im sure they are ok at games too. before you spend money, try rivatuner. its worth a shot.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
very nice. ati cards are plagued with problems in inventor tho

yup, for professional apps id reccomend the quaddro line hands down over all others.

 

[Kenazo]

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
get a quadro 750. they are pretty cheap now and handle everything except the biggest models no problem.

im sure they are ok at games too. before you spend money, try rivatuner. its worth a shot.

The 750XGL is what was in the rig that I'm replacing. Good card. They were using it fine with up to about 1500 pieces in a model, after that it was a bit slow, but that might have been their 2 gigs ram holding them back, who knows.

And why didn't anyone say sooner that the FireGL line was buggy in Inventor!

It's listed on Autodesk's site as a recommended card, so I'm not too worried. And it's like 2/3 the price of a comparable performing Quadro

Oh, and Ineptitude why not go with one of the newer AGP cards? It should last you until the next generation anyway. What's ATI's line of AGP? I think they're T2 something or X2 or something.

 

[batmanuel]

I looks like it is pretty easy to mod your 6800GT to a Quadro using the nVstrap part of RivaTuner to force the system to id the card as a Quadro instread of a GeForce. It should only take a couple of clicks since you have a GT with 16 fully functional pipelines. The only cards that have issues are the 6-series cards that use a HSI bridge to change adapt the cards to a non-native interface (the PCIe 6800GT/Ultra cards and the 6600GT AGP, for example). I think all the 6800GTs were native AGP to begin with, so you ought to have no difficulty getting your card to be seen as a Quadro 4000.

 

[batmanuel]

Originally posted by: Kenazo

Oh, and Ineptitude why not go with one of the newer AGP cards? It should last you until the next generation anyway. What's ATI's line of AGP? I think they're T2 something or X2 or something.

Check the Hot Deals forum for the occasional good deal on a FireGL. Not long ago, I found a FireGL T2 for $129. What stopped me from getting it was that it was AGP Pro, which would have worked fine on my Athlong XP 2500+/A7N8X machine, but would have been useless to me since I would not have been able to use it with an Athlon 64. One good place I found for pro OpenGL cards is Hyper Microsystems. They have this AGP Quadro FX 3000 for $539.00. It is supposedly new in OEM packaging and is a heck of a lot better price than the $1299 newegg is asking for the same card.

 

[Ineptitude]

The 750GXL is essentially a Ti4800. Too slow for the larger models I run on Inventor, and definatly too slow for curent games.

I don't have any personal experiance with the FireGL cards and Inventor, but I have heard stories. I do have experiance with the radeon series and inventor - it was horrible.

The Quadro 4000 would be the AGP ard that would work. It can be had for $1500. The PCI-E version the Quadro FX 4400 can be had for $600-$900. and I can take it to a new (PCI-E) mobo if need be. With AGP I'm stuck with the old mobo for ever.

I'de like to try the RivaTuner mod. Is there a chance I will be stuck with a non op 6800gt if it doesn't work? Are there any sites that talk about this mod?

 

[JonnyBlaze]

try here:
http://forums.guru3d.com/forumdisplay.p...597a25a6b9efe5129ad872cd7f1&forumid=18

and: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php...5a6b9efe5129ad872cd7f1&threadid=122413

 

[batmanuel]

With the current versions of Riva Tuner and a 6800GT AGP, you shouldn't have to flash the BIOS at all. RivaTuner has a component called nVstrap that goes into the system bus and overrides the device ID for the card from a GeForce to the corresponding Quadro. Windows will then see the card as a Quadro and install the appropriate drivers. Inventor should also detect the card as a Quadro as well. If you have problems, you just uncheck the option and reboot. This page explains RivaTuner and nVstrap in more depth. With nVstrap you are not modifying the card or its BIOS in any permanent way, so you don't have to worry about hurting the card unless you are using it to overclock the GPU and RAM. Otherwise everything goes back to normal when you deactivate nVstrap.

 

[Ineptitude]

Thanks for the help. I will let you know how it works out.

 

[Ineptitude]

Just ran RivaTuner.
My old 6800GT is now a new Quadro FX 4000!
Inventor V10 runs great now (no BSOD).
HL2 seems to run fine still.

Thanks All.