Inventor 2012 Card certification

[HenkdeSwardt6236]

Why is it that Autodesk only certifies Quadro cards?

See:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/cert?siteID=123112&id=16391880&results=1&product_group=12&suite...

You are crazy if you purchase a Quadro card.

The GeForce cards has overtaken the performance of the Quadro cards by leaps and bounds!!!!

Or is it to keep the use of these "workstation cards" exclusive for CAD??? 

[TravisNave]

Autodesk certifies cards that meet hardware recommendations and are supplied with WHQL certified drivers.  QuadroFX cards out perform GeForce cards.  They are meant to be workstation class cards rather than video came class.  You can use GeForce cards that meet requirements and use WHQL certification and have a pleasant experience wtih Inventor, but you'll get better results from a better card.  I always say, why run $5000 software on a $500 computer?  Ultimately you get what you pay for. 

[HenkdeSwardt6236]

Thank you for the reply.

So, if a card is WHQL certified, Autodesk will support it?

I have two NVidia GTX 275 cards running in SLI.

The NVidia driver IS WHQL and supports msot GTX cards, yet NONE of them are listed? 

http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvista-64bit-275.33-whql-driver.html 

Looks to me that the issue is related to OpenGL vs. Direct X? Almost like Mac vs. Windows used to be, until Apple started to support PC hardware - then they again started to gain market share.

Years ago I had a "fast" pc with a Quadro 380 card that cost me a lot of money. The performance was nto that great. A year later I bought an entry level gaming card and the performance was much better.

Comparing a Geforce GTX 560 1GB DDR5,Dual 2*DVI and a NVIDIA Quadro 600 1.0GB Graphics, both for around $ 300, the GTX's specs appear to be miles ahead of the Quadro.

[sam_m]

it's all back to OpenGL v DirectX...  Inventor moved to DX about 6 years ago and since then workstation graphics cards and certified drivers aren't really needed.

Certification was needed for OpenGL as there was no official testing procedure of any drivers so Autodesk needed to do it in-house.  Once they had tested and checked each driver with each software they would then "certify" it as usable (or not).  DirectX drivers are all checked by Mircosoft (WHQL) and thus moves this work-load from Autodesk, as long as they themselves work to DirectX standards.  Because of all this there's no need for workstation graphics cards as they are tweaked for OpenGL and excel in that environment.

If you're interested in history here's a pdf created back at the time of the transition with explanation from an Inventor programmer:

http://www.dereksdontrun.com/cad/inventor_dx_evolution.zip

bottom line, Workstation (Quadro) cards are ideal (and recommended) for anything using OpenGL but anything using DirectX (as Inventor does now) then a gaming gpu will be fine.  Too many of us using gaming cards without problems to suggest the ROI of a workstation card is justifiable.

Other cad SW still use OpenGL so they really need the more expensive workstation cards, but a workstation vendor shouldn't be ignoring gaming cards for use with Inventor (as long as the customer doesn't use any other OpenGL programs) - it's a great advantage of Inventor over other cad software which is rarely touted.

But... looking at your system, I don't think you'll see much improvement from the SLI setup.  You'll have access to the extra memory of the 2nd gpu but I dont think Inventor is programmed to take advantage of the gpu processing power of the 2nd card.  If you're getting any graphics problems it might be a possible thing to consider, whether dropping down to 1 gpu works any better...

p.s. why are Inventor graphic card questions now being moved to hardware?  sure, it's hardware, but the OpenGL/DirectX and recommended graphics have been explained many times on the Inventor forum that it makes sense to keep everything there.

[scottmoyse]

I can't believe this Cad card Vs Gaming card discussion has happened again. Once again Sam-M you have provided a great description. One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is that most high end gaming cards (which are still a 3rd or more the cost of a CAD card) support various versions of OpenGL anyway. As a result they are still more than capable when it comes to running some of the open gl based software in the new suites.

At the end of the day good luck to the people who want to waste their money on CAD cards for Inventor alone! silly people!

[Sinc]

I've tried a number of cards over the last few years, and I've pretty consistently noticed that I get the same performance from a GeForce as I get from a Quadro that costs about twice as much.

[sam_m]

---

@scottmoyse wrote:

I can't believe this Cad card Vs Gaming card discussion has happened again. Once again Sam-M you have provided a great description. One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is that most high end gaming cards (which are still a 3rd or more the cost of a CAD card) support various versions of OpenGL anyway. As a result they are still more than capable when it comes to running some of the open gl based software in the new suites.

At the end of the day good luck to the people who want to waste their money on CAD cards for Inventor alone! silly people!

---

I can't believe Inventor questions are now being spread out across these forums by Autodesk mods.  Sure it's hardware, but users will surely check and ask in the Inventor section before looking here, especially as these forums are pretty awful to navigate and search.

I can remember back in the days of nntp, a few Inventor hardware questions in this hardware section getting loads of rubbish replies about autocad only, completely ignoring the questions were related to Inventor.

a LOT of users seem incapable to post their software version (or helpful hardware information), let alone what software they're using, so what's the betting we'll now get generic questions for autocad, mudbox, inventor etc here with users replying completely unaware of what software anyone is talking about... nightmare...  (*moans about the good old days with separate forums for each Inventor release year*)

[HenkdeSwardt6236]

Why the question on Graphics cards? you ask.

Because IV 2012 gives us endless troubles - freezing and crashing 20+ times per day.

Help from Autodesk is ... well.... nothing....

Standard reply - "Yes, its because you use a gaming card and not a qorkstation card" or "You card is not certified to work with Inventor, because it does not have WHQL drivers".

In frustration I was trying to see if I cannot SOMEWHERE find the odd WHQL driver to try and solve our IV2012 problems.

To my amazement, the standard NVidia drivers ARE WHQL!!!!

That's when I smelt a RAT!

It seems soooo easy for Autodesk to blame the hardware or drivers in stead of admitting that they have released a BETA version?

But thank you for all the excellent feedback. Next time Autodesk gives me their standard answer I will know where to point them to.... 

[Sinc]

We had one computer (running Civil 3D) that was having lots of trouble that seemed like it might be related to the graphics card, but nothing would fix it.  I even tried a Quadro FX580 in it after the GeForce and HD Radeon cards both had trouble, with no change.

Eventually I tried upgrading the motherboard BIOS, and it fixed the problems.  These days, with so much being built-in to the MOBOs, you can run into weird problems that seem like application or device driver problems, but are actually caused by the MOBO BIOS.  It might not help - there ARE lots of problems in the software - but it's something to keep in mind.