How to force Inventor 2012 to use GT635

[Anonymous]

Is it possible? I've heard that newer Autodesk products do not support any video cards except QUADRO and there is no possibility of boosting performance in onther way. For now, my CPU i working on 100% and GPU doesn't seem to do any useful job. 

Some time ago I have read something interesting - exchanging video drivers (from standard to quadro) actually transfers our card to Quadro. Of course it's as easy as it seems, but I can handle this - all I need to know is if it would work on my hardware?

i3 2350

4 GB RAM DDR3

GeForce Gt635

P.S Forgive my language mistakes 🙂 

[Anonymous]

Of course I do have WHQL, up to date drivers. GPU usage - 0%

[sam_m]

Dont worry about Quadro - Inventor moved to DirectX from OpenGL years ago, and with that move the need for Quadros went out the window.

As far as I know the GeForce 635 is a laptop GPU, which also has Optimus tech, that right?  If it's the case then your laptop actual has 2 graphics chips, the "external" GeForce 635 for 3d work and the i3's onboard HD3000 graphics for 2d use - it swaps between them automatically depending on the graphics load - from memory you can't force it to use the external gpu all the time, which is a pain.  (And you cannot simply disable the HD3000 gpu as it still needs it for non 3d use so Windows will completely stop working, i think).

I think there should be an Optimus program running in the toolbar - check it to see if there's any options for which gpu to prefer - make sure to move all options to the GeForce.  Might also have to check any power-saving options to make sure everything is set to high-performance instead of power-saving (which will prefer the HD3000).  Within Nvidia options there should be a "manage 3d" settings, i think, so select the Inventor.exe and check it's all set to the GeForce card, if there are any options.  Might be worth a read through Nvidia's mobile GPU support forum for Optimus help: https://forums.geforce.com/default/board/37/

I know you said drivers are up to date but from memory it's critical to keep Optimus drivers up to date, so double check - also make sure all other drivers (especially chipset) are the latest version too.

Next best bet is to go into Inventor's settings and try the different hardware settings (Compatibility, Performance, etc) - make sure to quit and restart Inventor after changing them to see any difference.

how do you know you have zero gpu use?  I think a lot of gpu tools actual only monitor the onboard HD3000 gpu, so if it's seeing 0% use then actually all the load is now on the 635, if that makes sense.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it's a laptop - forgot to mention that. I'm aware of having 2 GPUs on board, I have an opportunity to switch them manually and I know how to do this, it's all clear to me - it just doesn't work 🙂 What's more - I run Inventor with "Run with the graphic processor" option checked, Nvidia's toolbar icon is highlighted while the program is running, which means that GPU is working (it can be even read after clicking on that icon) - that's the theory. Practically, working on "realistic view" is impossible - CPU is fully loaded (all 4 threads) but of course it cannot be expected to do the job. Well, realistic view is not that necessary but in case of complicated 3D model I can't even use stadnard view (called "shadowed" or sth) and that's quite inconvenient.

I check load of GPU with small app called "GPU-Z" (it shows usage of both HD3000 and GT635) - temperature is normal, load is 0% (I checked this during working on realistic view)

This is my driver version:

http://www.nvidia.pl/object/notebook-win8-win7-winvista-64bit-306.97-whql-driver-pl.html - there are no newer than this one 🙂

So if anyone has already solved this problem - please let me kno.

sam_m - Thank You anyway. You directed my searchings on Nvidia Optimus - that may be the source of the problem.

[Anonymous]

Ok, I managed to run Inventor with GPU (Tools -> Application Options -> Hardware -> Compatibility with previous versions) but now I can't use DX11 - which makes this solution rather unuseful.