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Softquadro4 out NOW !!!

10 REPLIES 10
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Message 1 of 11
jorgen
341 Views, 10 Replies

Softquadro4 out NOW !!!

Now you can finally hack your GeForce into a beautiful cad card: Quadro 4 !!!!
Copied from : http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner/ :

Yes it's finally here. You can force the professional Quadro4 family on your normal GeForce4 without soldering on the PCB to force the Device_ID, all that with a little software patch and a little help from some anonymous friends that is.

The ingredients: you'll need this patch-script and the latest version of RivaTuner, any of the Detonator drivers 27.xx – 41.03 and a Graphics adapter GeForce4 Ti4x00 based on NV25 GPU. What you need to do is this:

Unpack SoftQuadro4 Script Pack in the same folder, where RivaTuner is
Unpack Detonator driver distributive package in separate folder.
Make preparations to manually install unpacked driver. This step

is necessary only when you are using Detonator 30.82 or higher under Windows 2000/XP. Starting from this version, nVidia compresses every file from the driver package, what makes impossible manual driver installation by using *.inf data. To prepare driver to the installation procedure which uses info file, copy UnpackDriver.bat file from SoftQuadro4 Script Pack in the driver folder and start it, or just execute the following commands, when you are in the driver folder:
expand -r *.??_
ren *.cf *.cfg
ren *.cp *.cpl
ren *.dl *.dll
ren *.ex *.exe
ren *.hl *.hlp
ren *.sy *.sys
ren *.tv *.tvp
Start NVStrap antiprotection script from RivaTuner package
(NVStrap antiprotection w9x.rts file for Windows 9x/ME or NVStrap antiprotection w2k.rts for Windows 2000/XP). You can do this by clicking needed file icon in Windows Explorer (scripts located in PatchScriptsNVIDIANVStrap subfolder of RivaTuner’s folder) or by pressing Open patch script button under PowerUser tab of RivaTuner.
After you’ve started the script, press the Continue button and
browse for location of the folder, where unpacked driver is. Application will automatically open and patch the needed file.
Start SoftQuadro4 script intended for your OS (it is located in
PatchScriptsNVIDIASoftQuadro4 subfolder of RivaTuner's folder) and repeat previous step.
Install NVStrap driver from RivaTuner package and activate its
PCI DeviceID reprogramming function. To do this under Windows 9x you will need to include NVStrap.com DOS driver file (it is located in ToolsNVStrap subfolder of RivaTuner’s folder) in the autoexec.bat file like this:

C:RivaTunerToolsNVStrapNVStrap.com G+
If you are using Windows 2000/XP you can install and configure
NVStrap through the driver configuration panel of RivaTuner.
10 REPLIES 10
Message 2 of 11
jmartzig
in reply to: jorgen

jorgen, reading a last weeks post: http://www.cgchannel.com/news/showfeature.jsp?newsid=289 - even though this 'says' the card is quadro, will it perform like one? -Joe
Message 3 of 11
jorgen
in reply to: jorgen

Yes, this is the real thing.

The hardware hack you are referring to has been floating around for a while, but do not really do anything.
If you do the hardware hack, and check diagnostics in IV, you should see the GeForce driver running.

The Softquadro 4, on the other hand, modifies the driver, allowing IV to use the Quadro driver. IV will report Quadro in hardware diagnostics.

This script was only released this weekend, and I have only had the chanse to test it lightly (not many windows), but it sure looks promising.

If you have a GF4, and have some trouble with it, then try, and report back here the result. The hack is purely done in hardware, and you will void NO guarantee on the card.

Happy hacking, Jorgen
Message 4 of 11
loop29
in reply to: jorgen

First of all this is not a hack, it is just a modification on driver level. If GF4 and Quadro4 were not identical in most features this couldn´t be done. What the scripts are doing is blocking check calls regarding the original information of the PCI deviceID of graphics adapter. After the introduction of nvstrap driver, nvidia reacted with a reread of the PCI deviceID within the driver of version 30.82 and up. The patch scripts removes the controll call of the driver and uses mapped PCI deviceID of nvstrap driver. Performancewise the softquadroed GF4 is not on par with a Quadro 4, cause antialiased lines and two sided lightning is performing not like a real Quadro4 on GF4. For detailed informations on performance I suggest to read this documentation from the developer of SQ4 :
http://nvworld.ru/docs/sq4e.html

regards
Message 5 of 11
Anonymous
in reply to: jorgen

Any clues if this will do anything for a GeForce 4
GO laptop card?  I'm an idiot when it comes to this vid card hacking
stuff.


--
Sean Dotson, PE

href="http://www.sdotson.com">http://www.sdotson.com

...sleep is for the
weak..
-----------------------------------------


style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
First
of all this is not a hack, it is just a modification on driver level. If GF4
and Quadro4 were not identical in most features this couldn´t be done. What
the scripts are doing is blocking check calls regarding the original
information of the PCI deviceID of graphics adapter. After the introduction of
nvstrap driver, nvidia reacted with a reread of the PCI deviceID within the
driver of version 30.82 and up. The patch scripts removes the controll call of
the driver and uses mapped PCI deviceID of nvstrap driver. Performancewise the
softquadroed GF4 is not on par with a Quadro 4, cause antialiased lines and
two sided lightning is performing not like a real Quadro4 on GF4. For detailed
informations on performance I suggest to read this documentation from the
developer of SQ4 :

href="http://nvworld.ru/docs/sq4e.html">http://nvworld.ru/docs/sq4e.html

regards

Message 6 of 11
jmartzig
in reply to: jorgen

go for it sean. since it's only a sofware hack, you could always return to your old driver. -Joe
Message 7 of 11
loop29
in reply to: jorgen

Yes, you should give it a try, GF4 MX was not tested in the article I mentioned but jmartzig is right. If it will not work you can easilly reinstall the driver for GF4. The first thing you will have to do is setup the nvstrap driver with Rivatuner and enable quadro features, after this it should come up with new grafics hardware found. Now you should unpack the nvidia driver (maybe 40.71) to a temp folder and run the Unpackdriver.bat, after unpacking you patch the unpacked driver with antiprotection script and Softquadro4 script, install the patched driver and see what happens. If you face any problems you can uninstall the nvstrap driver through Rivatuner and the correct deviceID will be up again.

regards
Message 8 of 11
jorgen
in reply to: jorgen

But it WILL allow an unlimited number of open graphic windows in IV, wont it?
If so, I'm real happy..

Jorgen
Message 9 of 11
jorgen
in reply to: jorgen

Falk, Thanks for linking to this very interesting and illuminating document.
And thanks for doing some good beta-testing and benchmarking on SQ4 😉

By the way, have you tested GF4 vs SQ4 with Inventor?
As far as you know, are antialiased lines and two sided lightning used in Inventor, making Q4 faster?, or will the SQ4 ferform just as fast/stable in Inventor?

Thanks, Jorgen
Message 10 of 11
loop29
in reply to: jorgen

I can´t tell you exactly if those features are used by Inventor, what I noticed is that it helps viewport performance in Inventor when working with big assemblies and cutting planes in assemblies. Performance gain is about 30%-20% between GF4 and Quadro 4. Inventor uses wireframes when editing parts in an assembly as you can tell, I didn´t noticed differences in that specific task between GF and Quadro 4. Most of the time I´m working in shaded mode, so it doesn´t has too much effect on my work. But I think the more interesting part is that SQ4 uses the proper OpenGL extensions for professional applications, which means that you will gain more stability when working with Inventor, I noticed that my colleagues have two times more crashes in Inventor than people using softquadroed cards. If you really need wireframe performance you should enable NV1X compatibility mode through rivatuner, than your card will be as fast as a Quadro 2 Pro in wireframes. The fact that softquadroed cards with 40.xx drivers up doesn´t perform well in wireframe mode has nothing to do with hardware implementation, it´s just the fact that nvidia dissabled wireframe support in 40.xx drivers. The bad side is that with enabling NV1X compatibility mode some features of NV25 are not enabled, so it´s not possible to have the best of both worlds. If nvidia will read the documentation of SQ4 they will dissable NV1X compatibilty mode in next driver releases, that´s my personal opinion which would be really a mess.

regards
Message 11 of 11
Anonymous
in reply to: jorgen

When I'm doing this to my GF4 MX420 it appears as a Quadro 200/400NVS.
Is it possible for me to get this to appear as a Quadro 700XGL / 550XGL??

TIA

Ole Christer

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