Potential gaming card issues with 2014 (or is it just laptops)?

[sam_m]

I was just flicking through the released 2014 text files and spotted a few phrases that raised eyebrows and made me concerned whether there's some fun and games for some gaming cards and/or laptop users...

http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/autodesk_inventor_2014_readme_enu.htm

^ 2014 readme (covering installation info, notes and info on some potentially common-ish bugs in the released build)

1) ATI cards:

For machines with certain ATI/AMD graphics cards, to avoid issues in the graphics window, use the Performance or Compatibility graphics setting instead of the Quality setting.

What ATI cards?  Are they ATI gaming cards, workstation, all cards or what?  or is it a vague get out of jail that ATI cards may not perform as well as Nvidia cards as a whole?

2) Optimus laptops:

For laptop computers with both an NVidia GeForce GPU and an Intel integrated GPU, change graphics from discrete GPU to Intel HD integrated graphics to ensure that Inventor 2014 works properly.

If all Iv2014 Nvidia laptop users are required to use the integrated gpu and not the Nvidia card they've paid for, then I'm guessing there will be a considerable number of complaints and concerns...

For a few years now, Nividia have been using "Optimus" technology to all auto switching between the i5/i7 integrated graphics chip and the laptop's Nvidia card (to maximise battery life when no 3d graphics are being processed).  Now... the comment in the readme suggest there's now suddenly an issue with 2014 and the GeForce Optimus technology...  If it's Optimus then aren't the newer Quadros also potentially effected too, as I think they're now Optimus too...  Or, is it a GeForce, or driver, issue and thus is there a potential that issues may arrise with desktop GeForce cards/drivers?

Would love some explanation and further details for those comments in the readme...  And, also thought I'd bring these comments to the attention of others, for any hardware considerations.

[NorbertGraphics]

DX11 offers some important benfits over DX10 such as Geometry Tessellation capabilities.

The summary point this year for Inventor is that we do not use capabilities that are not in some way supported on DX10.  For example, multithreaded access to the GPU is supported on DX10 via GPU drivers for DX10 level GPU HW which are being driven from the DX11 API.  While there may be some limits to the extent of multithreading on DX10 level GPUs, it is not significant for the present conversation.

The main difference is with DX9 which does not support multithreading and many of the new capabilities which arrived with DX10.0 level GPU HW.

[zevc]

Hi im new here, my name is Ron.

At my work we use assembly's over 11000 parts. So i test the graphic quality with 2 diffrent laptops.

Hp zbook 17 with quadro k3100m, i7 4700mq with 4600p intel graphics.

Msi gaming laptop with geforce gtx 780m, i7 4700mq with 6000 intel graphics.

inventor and videocard settings are on quality.

Inventor's graphic quality is the best with the msi gaming laptop, when it use the nvidia card.

Panning,zoom and orbit is very smooth.

But with the zbook 17 i have to set the graphics on intel internal graphics for the best quality view.

When i turn on the quadro card, quality is bad real bad. When orbit or zoom half of the model goes away.

How is it possible that geforce cards are better then quadro cards? and even intel graphics are better then the quadro card.

laptop prices

hp zbook 17 costs 3100 euro

msi gaming laptop costs 2200 euro

with kind regards

Ron

sorry for the bad english.

[SMGordon]

Gaming cards and computer games were designed to use DirectX.

Workstation cards and software was designed to use OpenGL.

Inventor just switched from OpenGL to DirectX so now "gaming" cards perform better. Check out this benchmark Toms Hardware did comparing gaming and workstation cards with Inventor and other software:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-workstation-graphics-card,3493-7.html

[sam_m]

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@ninjajedisaiyan wrote:

Inventor just switched from OpenGL to DirectX

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the "recent" change was with Inventor 11 back in 2006...

[SMGordon]

Oh I'm sorry I thought it was just in 2014. If that's the case why have the Quadro cards been recommended all this time?

[NorbertGraphics]

First of all, the issue with the Quadro card may be due to the Optimus issue.  The Optimus capability is supposed to use your Intel GPU for lightweight graphics work and bring in the nVidia GPU for 3D or intensive graphics.  There have been issues with this and we have worked with nVidia to find a solution.  I believe your experience will be much better if you have nVidia GPU driver version 320.49 or later installed.

Regarding Quadro versus GeForce, when you use DirectX, the experience should be similar since both need to pass Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Lab (WHQL) certification for DirectX functionality.  That said, it is true that nVidia (and other GPU vendors) will focus more testing for "professional" applications on "workstation" GPU HW (e.g. Quadro) than "consumer" GPU HW (e.g. GeForce).

There is also the manufacturing process to consider.  The workstation GPU HW is completely manufactured by the GPU vendor.  For example, even if you do not purchase your Quadro GPU directly from nVidia, it is completely manufactured by nVidia and delivered to an OEM or a reseller.  Consumer GPUs are different in that while the "chip" is directly from the GPU vendor, the "board" is manufactured by various third party vendors which is why it is possible to obtain a given GeForce model with different amounts of video RAM, significantly different prices, etc..

If you have the luxury of not being on a constrained budget, the workstation GPU should be a better option; however, there is no reason that the consumer GPU should not work for you.  The challenge with the consumer GPUs is that there may be as many as ten different "flavors" of a given GPU model because of the third party manufacturing involved whereas with the workstation GPUs, there should always only be a single "flavor" of a given GPU model, which is manufactured completely by the GPU vendor.

I hope this helps with some general background into the questions.

Norbert