G80 Quadro soft-mod

Hi there.
I recently found a driver (forceware 97.73) that seems to be working for these cards :

NVIDIA_G80.DEV_019D.1 = "NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600"
NVIDIA_G80.DEV_019E.1 = "NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600"

In rivatunner's nvstrap driver, when i set graphics adapter identification to custom i can select both 019D and 019E, but they are unknown devices. Hopefully this can lead to a soft-mod into quadro. (i've had in the past a leadtek 6800gt wich perfectly modded into quadro 4000, allowing shadows to be perfetcly rendered with Maya hardware render).

My request goes to Unwinder. Can you please provide an update to rivatunner's nvstrap driver that recognises graphics adapter identification 019D as NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 and 091E as NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600 so that all G80 owners can successful mod their cards into profesional ones.


PS: Unwinder, thank you so much for your wonderful tool called RivaTunner.

 

Having driver recognition or even a soft-modded deviceID is no guarantee for a succesful mod, unfortunately.

Rivatuner is a marvellous piece of technology, but it can't perform miracles on request... (although it looks like it most of the times)

 

i don't need a full mod, i need only driver based optimisation for quadro.
6800gt to quadro 4000 isn't a full mod as a real Qfx4000 outperforms an modded one (due to bios optimisation, i think).

Now i'm really pissed cuz i have the same viewport performance with 8800gts as i did with modded quadro4000. It's not....fair..a G80 is far more powerful in opengl than a NV40 and all this is driver-related (in my case). I just need to set pixel overlay on. To do this i need windows to "see" my video card as an Quadro (fx4600 or fx5600, i don't care) and this can be done with rivatunner nvstrap driver.

 

Sorry, but no matter what you do, you will not get the "optimizations" you want. G80 is completely locked, so there is no possibility to enable indexed overlay planes.

And by the way, my genuine Quadro FX 4000 is absolutely identical to a softmoded 6800 Ultra provided the Ultra is downclocked to 375/1000.

 

I don't know which software you used for testing the viewport performance - but in 3dsmax (D3D mode) a 8800 GTS blasts away any Quadro FX4000. 3dsmax?

There is no sense of Quadro in 3dsmax anymore and D3D is so strongly optimized by the gaming industry already, that there is nearly no difference between D3D and Maxtreme D3D.And OGL...OGL is just an old and slow deadman.

 

sit back ... relax and wait...

Overlay planes is an obsolete technology used to improve performance...

the new approach in vista to deal with the graphics subsystem actually requires you to turn off this so called "feature".
Firegl and quadro are paths to make more money out of the same hardware ... and directx performance si leaps ahead of opengl right now.

 

Maybe that's true for D3D and Vista, but OpenGL is alive and well in Linux and OS/X and it's going to stay that way.
That being said, most of the big studio guys are running Linux and OS/X machines.

 

I mostly use Paint Effects in Maya. Modded quadro 4000 worked perfect, 8800gts has display errors due to the lack of Overlay planes.
3dsmax users can use directx viewport rendering with an geforce, but Maya uses Opengl.
Now i wish i didn't spent 800 euro "upgrading" my pc. Games run smoother, solitaire also, but no performance gain in maya: incorrect shadows and no subdivs in hardware rendering, working with paint effects is now a pain in the ****

 

btw:

Autocad 2008 is D3D also now (for VISTA)! And this is a pure CAD software - so this clearly shows what's going on...I expect the next Autodesk Maya version to be D3D also.

 

Maya with D3D? Highly unlikely.
3DSMax and AutoCAD are Windows only applications, so ditching OpenGL in favor of D3D is an easy decision. Maya on the other hand, is a multi platform application, with lots of big customers (Pixar, ILM, Dreamworks PDI, Animal Logic, etc.) that run it on Linux or OS/X machines so developing a D3D port for Windows only users would be stupid from a business standpoint.

 

AlecRyben, can you please give me some some info (or some usefull links) about what exactly an hardwire device id is ?

 

Hardware device ID is a value that is hardwired into a (usually a read only) status register when the chip is made (using bonding options)
On some devices it can be overridden with different firmware (BIOS strap) or device driver (NVStrap) provided the register is read/write capable.

 

hmm..i'm thinking of something else..An interesting Question is: IF there is Quadro specific optimization now in D3D-driver also...Maybe it's like in the first days of SoftQuadro and we just need to patch the D3D driver to get a + in performance, like we did with the OGL-driver bevore NVStrap was released..

But right now it seems to me, as if D3D is not faster on Quadro boards in 3dmax, so at this time patching is not necessary

 

yeah i agree with bluefirexp, there is no performance gain for 3ds max, Quadros this time are based on the same G80 only optimized for more quality.

 

(Un)fortunately, not everyone uses 3DSMax... there are plenty of different 3D apps out there that use OpenGL exclusively.

 

I still don't get it, OpenGL is like an old man, and direct is more powerfull, and more quality as we see, but some apps like Maya can't loose it a bit, but anyway since Maya is for Autodesk for a while now, lets pray that Maya will start using DirectX.

 

offtopic: hey INGINE, what are your findings with that 8800GTS in 3dsmax? What was your previous card?

ONTOPIC:

well, VISTA has very, very weak OGL implementation. OGL is about 70-98% slower in VISTA than in XP. And it seems it will take much time, till things change. That's the reason why Autodesk optimizes it's products for D3D. All the other leaders in CAD/Animation (not Autodesk) would loose much time and money, if they let Autodesk rock&roll alone with VISTA for 6 months or even a year. So if they want to be competitive, they would need to switch to D3D also and not sit and wait for NVidia&ATI to optimize OGL for VISTA.

btw, here is the link (Microsoft about Autodesk and D3D):
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/shop/partners/autodesk.mspx

 

already benchin' Bluefirexp, i re-built the old rig to compare, the old GPUs was 6800GT SLI (Quadro FX 4000 on softmod) with Intel 640, gonna install windows tomorrow and go on it, i'll PM u on the results when done.

Cheers dude

 

OpenGL is an open standard that works across different platforms.
OpenGL is much easier to program for and is much more independent of the hardware implementation.
OpenGL drivers are also easier to write and optimize.

The main problem with Vista & OpenGL is the implementation of the Aero "3D desktop" technology that relies on Direct3D exclusively and is taking resources away from the OpenGL client driver.

Microsoft wants to ditch OpenGL mainly because they are aware of the (in)ability of their programmers to code Aero "3D desktop" technology to coexist properly with OpenGL.

They also hate multi platform based software because they want everyone to be vendor locked to them. Also, it's much easier for people to criticize and show the flaws in their OS by direct comparison of the same third party application running on same hardware but on different operating systems.

If Microsoft tries to force big multiplatform friendly vendors that have rather small Windows userbase and quite large *nix userbase like Dassault (CATIA), Alias (Maya/Studiotools), SideFX (Houdini), UGS (Unigraphics) and PTC (Pro Engineer), they are definitely risking to lose them as partners because no CEO with brains is stupid enough to lose their existing loyal customer base just because Microsoft wants to make a bigger monopoly.

 

great! try to bench with bmark4 or SPECapc for 3dsmax in d3d mode.The opengl-only specviewperf just doesn't matter for 3dsmax. But i guess you know that already cheers!

cheers Alec!
hm, about OpenGL: it's open but where is the benefit for me and you? You need an expensive Quadro or FireGL card if you want to use the power of OGL. And everyone on the planet knows already, that it's just "negative" cheating from NVidia and ATi, coz all the game cards have more than enough power to handle some ridiculous wireframes. :nerd: The only reason, why things are so expensive in the business sector of graphics, is the lack of real competition! Those multiplatform "friendly" vendors just feel very comfortable- they all have their customers and don't really care about speed. They exploit us, saying: if you want speed, pay big money.Or just go home...How dare they? Seems they just feel very comfortable. So OpenGL means: no competition, just an easy way to make money. History shows that this can't work for a long time.