Turn your game card into a high end CAD card...for free!

[HellBent]

Can't quite justify spending $1500+ on a graphics card?...me neither! I knew the card manufacturers were doinking us but I didn't know it was this bad. I was benchmarking some video drivers and came across this software mod that unlocks the "pro" capabilities of Geforce 6800's (it works on ATI models too). Here it is in a nutshell....the high end game cards have a lot more capability than the manufacturers let you use. They use the same chip as many of the high end graphics cards...the manufacturers just "disable" the professional capabilities of the card.

Here's what you need:

1. Download Specviewperf 8.1 here:

http://www.spec.org/gpc/downloadindex.html

If the d/l is going really slow try the "mirror" link on that page. This is the "standard" CAD benchmarking program...you'll see it's result numbers used by a lot of manufacturers.

2. Download RivaTuner here:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163

You'll have to register to d/l.

3. Download the drivers for whatever card you're "hacking" yours into.... Quadro 4000 for example if you're starting with a Geforce 6800....get the drivers right from Nvidia.


Onto the install.
Before you do anything with the card...run the Specviewperf program so you know the results of your current setup. That program takes about 30 minutes to run...you may want to disable your screensaver..not sure if that will mess it up or not. When it's done the results will pop up in notepad...save them.

Once that's complete you're ready to perform the software install. Start by removing your current video drivers via the control panel add/remove. You don't need to reboot now but you can if you want to. Now goto this thread and follow the instruction posted by "Reaversword" (it's the 3rd post in the thread):

http://forums.guru3d.com//showthread.php?t=159891

You've already run the initial Specviewperf and d/l'd your driver so skip to item 3 in his list. His instructions are good until item 16. He says the vsync is in the OpenGL display settings area of your Nvidia control panel but it's not...it's under the OpenGL section of Forceware customization in Rivatuner....so set it to off by default there.

And there you have it...run Specviewperf again and see what the results look like. If it goes as good as mine did you'll increase the performance of your card by up to 8x!!! Here's my before and afters...check out the UG score...it went up 8x!!



Before: (6800 GT with 81.95 Forceware drivers from Nvidia)

Run All Summary

---------- SUM_RESULTS\3DSMAX\SUMMARY.TXT
3dsmax-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 13.66

---------- SUM_RESULTS\CATIA\SUMMARY.TXT
catia-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 9.083

---------- SUM_RESULTS\ENSIGHT\SUMMARY.TXT
ensight-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 10.15

---------- SUM_RESULTS\LIGHT\SUMMARY.TXT
light-07 Weighted Geometric Mean = 8.202

---------- SUM_RESULTS\MAYA\SUMMARY.TXT
maya-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 15.62

---------- SUM_RESULTS\PROE\SUMMARY.TXT
proe-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 12.05

---------- SUM_RESULTS\SW\SUMMARY.TXT
sw-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 11.11

---------- SUM_RESULTS\UGS\SUMMARY.TXT
ugs-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 4.253




After: (card is now recognized as a Quadro 4000, 81.67 Forceware drivers)

Run All Summary

---------- SUM_RESULTS\3DSMAX\SUMMARY.TXT
3dsmax-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 24.31

---------- SUM_RESULTS\CATIA\SUMMARY.TXT
catia-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 19.73

---------- SUM_RESULTS\ENSIGHT\SUMMARY.TXT
ensight-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 24.51

---------- SUM_RESULTS\LIGHT\SUMMARY.TXT
light-07 Weighted Geometric Mean = 17.42

---------- SUM_RESULTS\MAYA\SUMMARY.TXT
maya-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 32.40

---------- SUM_RESULTS\PROE\SUMMARY.TXT
proe-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 37.50

---------- SUM_RESULTS\SW\SUMMARY.TXT
sw-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 24.14

---------- SUM_RESULTS\UGS\SUMMARY.TXT
ugs-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 37.92



BOOM! Now that's an improvement! And this is all just a software mod....all it does is tweak the registry settings and trick the operating system into thinking you paid a lot more for your card! Uninstalling the Rivatuner program will remove all of the changes and put everything back to normal so you don't need to worry about messing up your card or anything. So there you have it...you can go out and get yourself a $200 6800 and end up with a $1,500 Quadro 4000. You can of course send me as much money as you want to...lol. If you're trying it with a different card than the 6800 you may want to visit those links I posted...specifically the Rivatuner forum...and learn some more about what other cards this will work with.

Take care....

 

[cbrn]

Hi,
all you said sounds quite interesting, BUT...
You might have forgotten that most of the "tuning" or "unlocker" programs do know how the benchmarks are made and do nothing else but force the card to do exactly what the benchmark is expecting from the card. You will never have a Quadro from a GeForce since some differences in hardware do exist, simply because what is needed in gaming is completely different from what is needed in CAD.
If you run your "tuned" card with gaming benchmarks, and you get anyway much higher results than with the "original - untuned" configuration, you should become VERY suspicious, because it has been demonstrated several times that "Pro" cards are not exactly the best for gaming. If, instead, you get equal or slightly slower results, then the "tuning" could have effectively behaved the way you expected it to.
Anyway, benchmarks apart, did you really get perf improvement (I mean: REAL, NOTICEABLE, improvement) in your everyday work?

Regards

 

[Xwheelguy]

Not only that, but all of the above is uncertified and unsupported, so if you end up with any issues, you're SOL as far as support from UGS is concerned. Nice tidbit, but hardly something I'd try to do on a workstation that I didn't own.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

 

[HellBent]

cbrn...The "differences in hardware" between a 6800GT and a Quadro 4000 is the locked-down pipelines on the 6800....that's about it. Those are the "pro" features of a CAD card. Look at it from a manufacturing standpoint of a chip manufacturer. Is it smarter for them to manufacture 30 different chips or does it make more sense to manufacture 1 chip and disable some of that chip's features on the lower end models? As far as your benchmark statements...what you are implying is that the tweaks are forcing the benchmarks to report false results. For starters...a widely used tweak such as the one discussed here would not be so popular if that were the case. I've been both an avid gamer and a CAD jockey for many years...have used many cards...many tweaks...and many benchmarks...I've never heard of a "tweak" tricking a benchmark. A tweak that did that wouldn't be around for very long. Benchmarks such as these gauge systems by "overloading" the hardware and then calculating it's performance.

Yes..the performance gains are noticeable...as they have been with countless users, many of which have posted in the Rivatuner forums. I haven't had the time to do a "specific" comparison on a CAD procedure but at the time that I applied this tweak I was in the middle of working on a large job that was really starting to bog down my system...that was actually how I stumbled across this...I was to the point where I thought I was gonna have to cough up the cash for a Quadro. This tweak took care of it. It has a small glitch where it will occasionally throw some garbage off the part and out into space (I saw this same glitch on a Quadro FX4400 at a former employer) that I think either another driver or some tweaks would eliminate but I haven't had the time to mess with it.

Rivatuner FAQ:

http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatunerfaq

Rivatuner forums:

http://forums.guru3d.com//forumdisplay.php?forumid=18

As far as being uncertified or unsupported goes...if that means more to you than saving a significant amount of cash then this tweak isn't for you. But if you're currently using a game card you're uncertified anyways.

I'm a partner in a small tool shop. We don't have $100k+/year budgets for hardware/software. It's hard enough for us to justify the cost of using UG let alone the cost of a high end graphics card....especially when you realize you can attain nearly identical performace for about 80% less cost.

Take care...