Jump to content

Welcome to eMastercam

Register now to participate in the forums, access the download area, buy Mastercam training materials, post processors and more. This message will be removed once you have signed in.

Use your display name or email address to sign in:

Which Quadro Driver?


Rotary Ninja
 Share

Recommended Posts

We just got our Quadro 2000 cards and noticed there are different drivers available for these cards. Which driver will work best for Mastercam? Here are the drivers we are looking at...

 

◦Quadro Graphics Driver - Official release driver for Quadro and ISV certification support to all ISVs, OEMs and End Users.

◦Quadro Performance Driver - The driver released ahead of "Quadro Graphics Driver" from each major release to support the need of Press performance evaluation on Quadro.

◦Quadro Partner Certified Driver - All drivers certified by our ISVs partners.

◦AutoCAD Performance Driver – NVIDIA Powerdraft performance driver for Autodesk's AutoCAD software. Developed in close collaboration with Autodesk, POWERdraft is a free, downloadable software driver capable of delivering dramatic performance improvements when coupled with NVIDIA Quadro FX professional graphics solutions.

◦3ds Max Performance Driver – NVIDIA Maxtremeperformance driver for Autodesk's 3ds max software. Developed in close collaboration with Autodesk, MAXtreme is a free, downloadable software driver capable of delivering dramatic performance improvements when coupled with NVIDIA Quadro FX professional graphics solutions.

 

Or is there another driver available we should use?

 

Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 3 months later...

I was problems with Verify crashing and found out that the driver version 296.70 was causing mastercam memory to ramp up to over 3GB in less than a min then it would crash (HP Z400 with a Quadro 2000). Updated the driver to 296.88 and it works fine now.

 

I just got a new laptop M6600 with a 3000M and tried the 296.88 driver and it caused a bunch of flickering when placing dimensions or circles. Anyone using a 3000M and find a good driver?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Check out your video settings on that Dell laptop

 

The new Dell portable workstations actually have 2 video cards, the high dollar Nvida card

and an Intel graphics card ...

They do this to save power. The Nvida card is a battery killer so they added the Intel graphics

to save battery power .

On the M4600 refurb I bought, the Intel graphics was on by default.

You can set it to switch to the Nvidia card when it runs apps that require it but I could never get

it to switch over properly so I set it to run Nvidia all the time..

 

If you're having graphics issues with that laptop, I'll be you're running the Intel card.

I'll look in my laptop this evening and see if I can remember how I did it..

I do recall it was a PIA :rolleyes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just spent an hour with dell online chat and remote and they say there isnt 2 cards...Funny how the Device manager shows 2 cards???? They disabled the Intel from the device manager and my screen went black, they rebooted and tried to insatll Nvidia drivers but it wouldnt install without the intel running. Ended reinstalling the intel drivers then Quadro driver to get me back to where I was. Now I gota find a driver that works well with Mastercam.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You don't do it through the Device manager

The machine has a program that controls which video card is being used

 

form the Dell website

 

NVIDIA® Optimus™ technology intelligently provides graphics performance when you need it and can help extend battery life when you don’t.

 

Look for a program called Optimus

 

I don't remember if it's in the Control Panel, the Program list or both

Link to comment
Share on other sites
I seen Optimus in the Bios. If I disable Optimus will I loose my HDMI port? Verify is realy slow!

 

You should not, no.

 

 

The Optimus stuff is supposed streamline how the card works and pass off certain functions to the on-board stuff, disabling should allow the Nvidia card run based on the hardware and driver.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I disabled Optimus but the Verify is still runnig slow...My VPN throught the neigbors router is faster than Verify (wife canceled services cause were moving next week)!!! I also disabled Hyperthreading because the processor percentage was only at 13%.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

from a google search.

 

 

 

 

You may want a bit more control and wish to manually decide what GPU to use. I am including the method that you can go into the Nvidia Control Panel to manually select the Nvidia GPU globally to become the default GPU.

 

Selecting a Preferred Graphics Processor

 

Open the NVIDIA Control Panel

 

* Select Manage 3D Settings

 

* Under the Global Settings tab, select High-performance NVIDIA processor

 

* Click Apply

 

 

 

You don't have to select the Nvidia GPU as the default GPU, you can also assign it for your individual games or programs that you feel require the extra power.

 

Assigning an application or program to the Graphics Processor

 

Open the NVIDIA Control Panel

 

* Select Manage 3D Settings

 

* Click on the Program Settings tab

 

* In 1: Select a program to customize, click on Add

 

* Browse to the application/game and open the executable file by clicking Open

 

* In 2: Select the preferred graphics processor for this program, click on the tab and select High Performance NVIDIA processor

 

* Click on Apply and the settings will be saved.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That helped alot...Thanks gcode! :thumbsup:

 

I changed the folowing - Optimus diasbled (bios), OpenGL rendering GPU set to "Quadro 3000M", and Power management mode to "Prefer maximum performance". I will have to compare times with my old workstation to see how much of an improvement I have.

 

I'm pissed that the Dell tech spent an hour messing with my system and he didn't even know what he was doing! :realmad: :realmad: :realmad:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's surprising.. I was reading comments on the Dell website by people who had purchased M4600's.

They were ranting and raving that there was no Quadro card in their laptop and they'd been ripped off.

You'd think someone from Dell would chime in to set them straight.

You obviously had a low end service tech, but to be fair, there is no way he could remotely

edit your BIOS.

As soon as he reboots he'll loose his remote connection, but this guy didn't even know enough to tell you about it.

 

The whole idea is to give you a low power video card for good battery life and a heavy duty graphics card for work or play.

In practice, I don't think it's working.

I'll bet half the people who buy an Omptimus equipped laptop think it's a piece of junk cause they don't know how to use it.

 

BTW.. did this fix the graphics issues?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dont know if it fixed the "rubber banding" I have when placing dimensions or entites yet. I'll know more Monday when I get back into it full bore.

 

The tech should have refered me to another person instead of wasting my time. I told him that I thought it was something in the bios but he ignored me. I also asked if they had instructions to get full power from the Quadro and he ignored that and asked to take control of the PC...it was like he was folowing a script or something. I think I'm going to call Monday and ask for someone that knows what their diong and complain about the time wasted Friday.

 

For $3500 you would think they would make it clear and easy for a customer to get full performance out of the PC! :rant: :rant: :rant:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here’s what I found so far with verify.

 

Benchmark - HP Z400/W3550/2000

Verify time 9:09

 

Dell M6600/2760QM/3000M

Verify time 14:56 - Optimus on (bios) set for max performance, HT off

Verify time 8:30 - Optimus off set for max performance, HT on

Verify time 8:15 - Optimus off set for max performance, HT off

 

Looks like the Optimus feature needs to be off to give full control to the Quadro. My CPU usage during Verify shows 26% with HT off and 13% with it on but with Optimus on and HT off it was only 13%???

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

Join us!

eMastercam - your online source for all things Mastercam.

Together, we are the strongest Mastercam community on the web with over 56,000 members, and our online store offers a wide selection of training materials for all applications and skill levels.

Follow us

×
×
  • Create New...