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OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
I am preparing to build a new system for home use.
I would like to be able to run SW on this new system for the sporadic days that I am fed up with the office  clown , but I also want to play the occasional 3D shooter to for example get rid of all my frustrations after one of those less successful SW sessions (due to myself or SW).

I have done a little research on OpenGL and SW...

The problem is that the OpenGL cards are not really up to the 3D game task (except when you buy a really expensive one, has anyone got experience with gaming on a OpenGL card btw??), and the game cards aren't really fit for SW.

I have spoken to and read stories from several people who use SW with a conventional game card and not even really high-performance models; the only difference I can see with my quadro fx560 at work is that the realtime views look a little bit less slick. And sometimes SW puts itself in software OpenGL mode, which is disastrous for performance.

When you use a high-performance game card, can you expect an exceptable performance from SW?? I don't really mind the realtime viewing being less slick, but find it important that SW doesn't slow down significantly or craps up the views. And what to do to override/prevent SW using software opengl mode??
(i know about the certified cards on the SW site!)

Motherboards nowadays can have two PCI-e slots. All info I can find is about SLI with two identical cards. But could it be that, for example, in the Bios you can select which card to use for the next computersession? This combined with two installations of windows (normal use and SW use).


Hope some of u can advise me..

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

You could try to use the game card for SW, although you may run into problems.  Only you can find out if that is the case.  However, you should be able to put in two PCIe cards and run them at the same time.  You can disable them from Windows by disabling the driver.  Or you could just not activate the monitor that it is connected to.  In this case, you would need a monitor that could support two inputs (or a switch device), one from each card, then you just switch between them.

I have a monitor with a DVI and VGA card connected (two different computers though), and I just switch between them.

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
Thanx keepinitcool!!

I think about buying a 22'' widescreen that indeed has two inputs that u can switch between. Perfect!

Maybe you or someone else can help me further..

Will the disabled graphic card not work at all? Or will it still work as a standard-vga adapter and accordingly render a signal (and thereby consume power)?

I don't know if it's possible to have different hardware enabled for different users in a single windows installation?? Or is it necessary to make two seperate installations?


just to inform other readers with the same wish as me:

I've been doing some more research. I found out that two pci-e graphiccards need two pci-e x16 slots. A lot of motherboards come with two pci-e x16 slots, but if you look closer the second one is often only 4 lanes. I reckon that the graphicscard in that second slot will not perform as well as it would in a x16 slot.

Second thing I found out is that for some reason you should not mix a nvidia with an ATI card. Something to do with certain drivers that have to be shared...

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

As a data point for your decision, when I bought my home system back around 2003 (a Gateway), I got an nVidia GeForce4 4200Ti or something like that with 128MB. I have played Doom, Thief, Cube & Sauebraten and have nothing but excellent performance on the game side. In SolidWorks, I have always been surprised at how well the card works compared to more expensive cards I have used at work (including some $3000 super card at one place).

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
thanx audiv8,

i am starting to think of investing in a motherboard with two full 16x pci-e slots (about $40-$50 extra), and for the moment only purchase a fancy gamecard. If my experience with SW is satisfactory I will leave it at that. If it isn't I can always buy an extra opengl card. Especially because I found out that even the budget models cost a lot of money.

still interested in peoples experiences though....

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

I run an 8800GTS 640MB working from home sometimes, besides the occasional insignificant glitch and no realview, its actually really stable.

Try looking on ebay or google products for a good professional card, some places sell workstation videocard pulls for half price or more off the retail box MSRP.

Dell Precision 690
Xeon 5345 2.33Ghz Quad
Quadro FX3450 FW91.36
SW2008 Premium SP0 - Rhino 4.0
www.icanhascheezburger.com

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
for that money (8800GTS) one could buy itself a really nice .... low-end opengl card :)  
and since you are accustomed to a fx3450 and not complaining...

thnx luca

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

If you want a game card, only consider the brand new 8800GT (beats 8800GTS in almost all tests) which is almost as good as the $500+ model, but cost about half the price (at least in the US ~$260).

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
thnx for the tips luca and kic

for the interested reader, i'll let u know in a couple of weeks time what system i built and how well it's performing with SW.

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

I benched the 8800GTS 640MB against the FX 3500 256MB in several pro OpenGL tests about half a year ago. From memory the 8800GTS got about 30% off the FX 3500 performance.

Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer
Searching Eng-Tips forums

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

Would buying two cheaper graphics cards be better than buying a more expensive powerhouse one?

I'd like to buy a Powerhouse Card for home use as well. Let me know your results. I know Desktop Engineering magazine has done graphic card reviews and tests in the past and most likely in the future. You can search their website for past issues available online at the following likk

www.deskeng.com
Use the Search DE:

Here's a link to an article in one of the summer issues.
Even More Graphics Power

Michael

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
stefan, thnx for the info. Does that large difference have equally large practical consequenses for let's say 100 hours a year of sw'ing? I doubt it, but am not 100% sure.

mj, I think it's the best way to go.. but i keep the option open to put in an extra fx560 when necessary.

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
update:
Ofcourse time changes opinions, so I changed my plan just a little. :)
I have recently ordered a 8800GTS and a motherboard that does not support a second 16x pci-e card. I bet on it that a powerhouse card will give me sufficient quality in SW.
A motherboard that would support a full extra 16x lane costs 100 bucks extra, let alone the minimum of 300 bucks for a quadro. (dont like secondhand either).
The card will be working on an overclocked core2duo E6850 with 4 Gig (3,2gig in XP) memory.
Next week the goods will be delivered. I will soon post my opinion on working with SW using a powerhouse gamecard.

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

IMO if you use a non-supported Video card, you have to take the good with that bad. If it crashes sometimes or often its just part of using a Non-certified card. You can't complained about because you were warned ahead of time.

I use a non supported card at home and I accept that if I crash or see strange things in my screen its just the way it is. However I have had great success with the 6600 GT Nvidia card and my 24" wide flat panel Monitor. I don't recommend this card to anyone simply because I have accepted if something happens its because its not certified. I have done ZERO hacks to the card and I can still play all my first person shooter games or any of my space games I choose.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP pc2
www.scottjbaugh.com

Quote:

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
I accept the fact that it could cause some minor problems, and swear not to complain Scott :)
SW'ing using a budget card sometimes gets that bad that you cannot work properly anymore, like screens that will not refresh when you change views. My hope is that the card I bought reduces those problems to a acceptable level.
That I can play games on maximum settings is merely a unexpected but pleasant advantage ;)

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
Well.. I swore not to complain, so I won't.
But I want to inform other people about my findings:

+
The 8800GTS is giving me great gameplay :)

-
When not using 'software opengl' in SW, the modelwindow screws up badly when doing particular stuff, like using the measuring tool.


I can use SW well when software opengl is enabled. Luckily I have a fast CPU, so it's not too bad. Btw graphic-drivers are uptodate, Intellipoint driver is disabled (can cause problems, see other threads).

As told before: SW'ing on a gamecard..., you'll need a bit of luck

I Gambled and lost... on the SW part that is... tomorrow Im gonna buy Crysis :)

(if anyone with a 8800 is doing fine without the 'software opengl' enabled, please leave a message)

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

Are you running Vista or XP? I've noticed a big hit in graphics performance using the Vista version of SW on a gaming card.

Dell Precision 690
Xeon 5345 2.33Ghz Quad
Quadro FX3450 FW91.36
SW2008 Premium SP0 - Rhino 4.0
www.icanhascheezburger.com

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
XP, Luca. Thnx for the reply. I will stay away from Vista for at least another year, for reasons of (unjustified?) fear clown
Are you using 'software opengl' or not? If not I would be very interested to know which graphic driver (version) you are using. And did you have to tweak some settings to get things working properly?

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
IMPORTANT INFO FOR USERS OF THE NVIDIA GEFORCE 8800GTS EXPERIENCING GRAPHICS PROBLEMS (may be important for similar geforce cards too)!!

Luca, I should have read more of the old threads on similar subjects. In thread559-185654: Graphics card for home computer you already gave the solution to my problem:

"Just make sure that the Anti-Aliasing and Anthroscopic filtering are set to "application controled" or you will get some weird graphical anomalies in SW."

That did the trick for me. I can use SW without the "software opengl" enabled!!! Great stuff, I'm happy now smile

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

Oh yeah thats can also screw things up, I try to keep AA and AF settings at the game option level rather than at the windows driver level.

Glad it worked out for you!!!

Dell Precision 690
Xeon 5345 2.33Ghz Quad
Quadro FX4600 FW91.36
SW2008 Premium SP1.1 x64 - Rhino 4.0

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

I have used a ati radeon 9800 pro card for some years in my home computer. I set up the pc with dualboot, and softmodded the card to FireGl for the work version.
This can be done with some newer cards, but I think the Geforce4 series is the last ones from Nvidia, but for ATI/AMD its possible with radeon 2900xt, that would make it a FireGL V8600.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=237273&highlight=firegl


The prosess can be somewhat tedious, but you get great value for your hardware.

Best of luck!

PS: some people have done the reversed thing, modding a Firegl or Quadro card back to its gaming sibling.... smile but I think that does not make much sense for you if you are going to be using this PC mainly for gaming.

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
I've read about that. And you're right about that it is not possible with my card. Oh well, knowing myself i would probably screw up the card during the process anyway smile

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

I have an EVGA 8800GTS 640MB and did the soft mod on it.  Realview works now and it's sweet!  The mod only took me 5 minutes too thumbsup2  The 8800GTS is now seen as a Quadro 4600 AND I don't have artifacting when it was a 8800GTS in SW2k8.  To top it off it still plays Crysis (the single player demo) very smooth with all settings at high.  

For REF I have a Quadcore Q6700 overclocked to 3.0 GHz per core and running 4 Gigs of Mushkin DDR2 Ram on an Abit IP35-PRO with WinXP64.

I just need to figure out how to setup a boot screen to be able to switch between CAD and Gaming mode like Mindnumb mentioned.  But if it can play Crysis fine the way it is then no real need to do that.

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
...... wow.... really??

These are some of the threads i've read on the topic:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=215588
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=220942

All i can find is people saying that Nvidia locked the newer cards to prevent performing a successful mod, or that it works but not in programs like SW.
Could you post some more on what you have done exactly to make it work (in only 5 minutes)? You've made me really curious, moreso since you have the same card I have (8800GTS G80 , not the newer G92).

looking forward to your reply

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

I previously knew about it with the earlier GeForce and ATI cards and was hoping that it would be possible when I bought my video card and current computer setup (August '07).  At the time it wasn't so I began looking around again recently.  I came across a SWUG Forum page where the person had success soft-modding their 8800GTX based upon the instructions from a sidefx.com link.  I then just followed the directions in the links.  The first post in the sidefx.com link forum is basically all the directions you need.  Here's the link for the Riva Tuner app.  

Here's a generic breakdown of what I did.  
-Downloaded the latest Quadro drivers from nVidia
-Uninstall the Geforce 8800 drivers
-Restart the comp
-Follow the directions from the sidefx.com forum page (NVstrap).  There's a couple restarts involved here.  I chose Quadro 4600 during these steps.
-Restart the comp
-Open up SW2k8 and enable RealView
-After checking out Realview start up Crysis and play.

I don't have the full version of Crysis just the demo.  That game is also very dependent on your system (CPU, memory, hard drive, etc) and not just your video card.

Let me know if that helps.

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
you are forgetting step 1: generate image of system

smile

This sounds like a nice project for the weekend. From what I've read on the houdini-forum, it should be pretty simple indeed, the more because I know I should be aiming for modding towards a FX4600. Hope it doesn't matter i do not have a EVGA card though.

Ooh, can't wait to try... thanx beforehand for the instructions and links Kim. If this works you'll end up on my hero-list for sure.

itmt, setting up a dualboot (geforce and quadro) should not be difficult. Just install XP two times on different partitions. If all has gone well, you will be able to choose during startup which of the two versions you want to use. ('generate a system image first' is also very applicable here). There are also some third-party bootmanagers that can achieve this for you, but I don't know the exact benefits of doing it that way. Google will find you several how-to's and what-not-to-do's on this subject.

more later on my softmod-attempt

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

you are forgetting step 1: generate image of system

Like a backup?  Oh that's done automatically once every two days with Acronis.  I've lost too much before to not have a backup system.  Especially running a RAID 0 + RAID 5 array now it's mandatory 4 eyes

No need for a weekend project.  It really only takes 5 minutes not including the computer startup times from the restarts.

The 4600 equivalent for this card does work.  Card Brand doesn't really matter since they're all made by one company and then a brand name is slapped on the board (for ~90% of them I guess).  If you wanted to make it a 3600 Quadro you would need a 8800GT (G92) 512MB since those two cards are  the same on the hardware level.  It's an easily reversible process since it's all done through the software and not the hardware.  The 4600 is the closest equivalent to the 8800 GTS 640MB even though the 4600 has 768 MB.  I haven't had any issues memory wise yet.

My comp runs 24/7 and so far it's been stable for the 3 months I've had it this way.

Cheers and let me know how it goes.

PS - The name is James.  Kimo is Hawaiian for James (or so I've been told) and Cal is for CA, where I live.  Sacramento to be exact.

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

(OP)
James, you are now officialy on my HERO list.

If you had not posted that the softmodding could work for my card, I would have stuck to the opinions of other users that it doesn't work.

The process is slightly different from what you stated:
1. make sure you have installed the drivers for your card (you said you have to uninstall the Geforce drivers first, but if you do that, Riva Tuner won't be able to be of any help.. at least with me)
2. run rivatuner and setup nvstraps to the right model (as shown in the link you provided)
3. after reboot install the latest quadro drivers (went a little messy, because windows was convinced it had newer drivers. Have to look at this again, because I am missing the GL settings in the Nvidia-settings. Maybe something went wrong here)

After having done this I started up SW and was amazed. Realview was ON and everything went much, MUCH more smoother, like drawing or rotating and zooming the model!!! It really is a big difference.

This is just silly. The 4600 costs more than 5 times the money I have spent on my 8800GTS.
Probably they increase the costs because they have to make drivers suitable for professional use (so they have to be very stable, maybe more than the geforce) and smear out the costs over a relatively small group of buyers. But they may be overdoing it a little bit, I can't check their balancesheets though...

Again, many thanx to you, James. If I'll get stability issues i'll inform the group. Also later on I will look at the performance difference in 3d gaming using the 8800GTS drivers or the FX4600 drivers. If there is any I'll setup a dual-boot of XP, one for normal use and one for SW use.

Greetz Pete (that's english for Piet smile)

RE: OpenGL- AND game-card in one system (?)

Hello Everyone,
I'm not sure why everyone is having issues with 3D image rendering (zoom,rotate,etc..). I think if a mediocre system is set up properly SW works fine. I have a 2.5 year old laptop with no problems.

HP Pavilion zv6000, XP Pro sp.2 (resources and systems settings tweaked), AMD Athlon 64 3200+ , ATI Mobility Radeon Xpress 200, 2GB RAM.

I'm not sure if your OS's have many unneccesary resources running, or too many TSR programs running to cause delays in running.

For those of you whom are running stand alone versions with  XP, what i would recommend trying is create a users just for SW,
then turn of any unneccesary resources and use msconfig and disable all start-up programs, reboot and login using the new user. Now that SW has more breathing room try to run one of the larger files that have given you problems and see if this helps.

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