V-Ray RT on a GPU - SIGGRAPH 2009 Demo

[lllab]

geforce and quaddro cards are identical hardware.

only quaddro cards have other drivers and firmware, the geforce card is artificial "limited" by software.

cheers
stefan

[Metin_7]

That's what I also believed for years, but several extensive independent tests I've read state that the Quadro does have a difference in hardware performance.

After all, it would be a bad case of deception if NVidia would sell identical hardware for a much higher price. That couldn't go on if there really wasn't any hardware difference.

I guess the rumour of identical hardware is maintained by people who can't afford a Quadro.

[instinct]

The pcb is usually identical but there are usually hardware differences.

But it's a matter of what you're using it for. With Max and the performance increasements for Direct3D mode over the recent releases GeForces perform pretty damn well in max. That's a different story for openGL only apps (like maya for example).

Regards,
Thorsten

[devin]

Actually Jeff Mottle over at CGA is in the process of doing some real world video card reviews for Nvidia and others, one of the things he's testing is how they compare to each other.

[Donald2B]

I have been currently doing a LOT of testing of the differences between video cards especially the Quadro vs. GeForce.

Even with all of the performance enhancements with Direct3D, the hardware acceleration of wireframe objects on the Quadro is still a major advantage. Especially when dealing with lots of proxy objects. I was really hoping to save some money on the next round of workstations by just putting in GTX295 or something similar. I guess I am just used to the snappy response of the Quadro and when working with a couple of larger scenes with my gtx285 hasn't been the best experience yet, especially when I know a 3yr old quadro card runs it flawlessly.

I am definitely looking forward to see what Jeff finds out over @ CGArchitect and his tests.

[instinct]

Is this also valid for Edged Faces mode ? as that is pretty much exactly as fast as Shaded on my gtx here. Agreed on the wiremode tho. But that has gotten a lot better too.

Regards,
Thorsten

[Donald2B]

In my testing the performance varies. There is a much more noticeable difference when there are more polys in the scene than with a simple interior.

The biggest change I have had to make over the past couple of years was to make sure that Backface culling was turned off from the beginning. Apparently the video cards now can handle the polys more efficiently than the cpu can handle turning them off. So when I go into older scenes, I pretty much select all geom and turn off backface culling to get a nice speed increase. (That applies to both cards)

My really interest now lies in how the ATi cards compare to the nVidia equivalents. I don't have any decent ATi cards lying around to test with. Don't really have the budget right now to throw down a couple hundred bucks on a card that I may only used for a month or two.

[werticus]

Most people on this forum do not need quatro video cards, and would be much better off in terms of view port performance with the high end gaming cards than a similarly priced quatro video card. Unless your paying for the very best quatro's the gaming cards will give better performance than the lower teir and more expensive quatro cards.

There is not much difference between the quatro and the geforce, I dont know about the latest models but in the past its been a resistor or two that you could re solder and suddenly you have a new quatro. (i've done this and it works)

Maybe we need a view port benchmark to test with. I'm sure there are enough people here with a massive range of cards that we could get a decent set of results and see where the bang for the buck lies. My money is on the ati 5850 right now

Its my opinion that recently ATi has over taken nvidia in performance.... I had the nvidia 8800gt and the ati 4850 and after testing both sold the 8800gt... before that generation the nvidia were better.

[Neilg]

What about the 1.8gb geforce 295's?

I was under the impression they wiped the floor with anything ati had out.

[dellis]

I've got two 8800GT's running in SLI mode on my machine....i'm quite happy, may pick up a third too!

[devin]

I'll offer up my FX3800 for testing, I'd like to resolve this issue once and for all.

[Bpositive]

This is awesome development GPU rendering will surely change the workflow of 3D Viz.


I'm very interested in buying Vray RT, but the big question is - do I have to pay an upgrade fee or even buy a new product to get GPU support, when that is finally released?

Not sure how fast the CPU Vray RT will work for me on two quad core machines? Or if I should wait for GPU RT!



BTW. For those in search of some RT videos, take a look at these:
http://www.trinity3d.com/media/chaos...RTmovies.shtml

[werticus]

What about the 1.8gb geforce 295's?

I was under the impression they wiped the floor with anything ati had out.

I dont know if its changed with max2010 but previously max has NOT supported SLI / xfire mode at all which is what the 295 is... the 285 would be better in max.

[dlparisi]

I dont know if its changed with max2010 but previously max has NOT supported SLI / xfire mode at all which is what the 295 is... the 285 would be better in max.

I've asked about this before but never got a real answer... I'm aware that max doesn't support sli/xfire but since this and other cards have two gpu's on a single board has anyone ever stated for sure if it doesn't use the other gpu for max?? Anyone seen any benchmarks on a dual gpu board like that?