ok, i know that it is not possible to mod any nvidia gpu after the 6800 to quadro under windows, but what about linux? i already modified the bios on my 6800gt pcie to get procaps enabled under opensuse 10.3 and it works perfect. so, i know that the gpu is lasercut or something like that, to prevent us moding a 8800 to their quadro pendant. so just for curousity, what would happen under linux if i flash a quadro bios on a 8800? it seems like the linux nvidia driver just looks for the bios. would it be possible to enable procaps? for me, speed is not the most essential, it is stability and viewport display correctness which counts. so, what exactly makes it unpossible to enable quadro procaps on a 8800 gpu? and what about this firegl mods? would there be much improvement compared to my modded 6800gt? i'm still quiet happy with this card, but i also sometimes like to play games on my box and so a new card with quadro support would be nice. and lastly, would it be possible to put two cards in my box? one for maya under linux and one for gaming under windows? sorry if i asked something stupid. greetz
I'm not sure about linux or about putting two cards together, but I can tell you my FireGLified HD2600XT is quite powerful... but it has some glitches, as any other fireGL card has right now the only time this card ever gave me the sensation of not being powerful enough was when using some very HiRes textures (about 40MB of jpegs), which surely could not fit in the memory; anything else I've needed, this card coped with it at 30fps or more then again, selection lag can be problematic, selection bug surely is, and eventual lock-ups might appear (though I'm still not sure about the underlying reason for these, it might be something else in my system); and you still have a list of OSs and cards you won't be able to use so far my general advice is: if you think those glitches won't be a problem for you and you want performance, get a radeon and mod it; otherwise, get a cheap quadro, like an FX370 or an FX570; if you already have a working FX3450, you're better off as you are just curious: what kind of viewport performance do you get in maya under linux, with an unquadrified 8800? (I don't know if specviewperf will work there, or the specapc maya test, but you always can open the scenes from that specapc maya test and press play)
Hi Norman! Well, I'm sorry that i can't test the 8800, because right now i don't have one. I first want to check, if this card could be modded under linux or at least gives me the same stability i have with my 6800gt@quadro. i also followed the threads about modding the 2xxx cards to firegl and this just proofs my experience with ati when it comes to pro apps like maya and general opengl issues. once i had a 8500 and this was just a terrible experience with maya. so, i really would like to stay with nvidia but i don't want to spend soo much more money for a quadro. maybe ati/amd will fix the issues within their drivers and then i maybe will overthink my decision. for now i will stay with my 6800gt because it just world perfect in any way with maya and this is the most importend for me. the performance is also very good. i think i remember that i got around 40 points in specview 9 on maya bench. when working with maya i can handle scenes up to 1 million polys without a problem. well, i normaly use layers and stuff and try to only see what I'm working on. Also the hardware rendering and hardware render buffer for particles and stuff works perfect stable and fast. by the way, would there be any improvement in maya viewport performance if i put two 6800gt@quadro into my box? i mean this card is really cheap. dont know if maya can use sli and stuff. greetz
