Video card, Post FX.

[John Rofrano]

The primary difference between the Quadro FX line and GeForce line is that the Quadro FX hardware and drivers are optimized for OpenGL. They have support for additional functions in hardware that the GeForce card doesn’t have. Since Boris BLUE uses OpenGL, it doesn’t surprise me that a Quadro card would beat a GeForce card. This is the workload that the Quadro FX cards were designed to handle.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Jose Ramos]

So If a Quadro card has OpenGl 2.0 would Blue take advantage OpenGL 3.0- 4.0 or is that more for gaming?

[John Rofrano]

I don’t know of many games that use OpenGL but some do. They mostly use DirectX. OpenGL 3.0-4.0 are just more recent versions of the same OpenGL API. Boris BLUE only requires OpenGL 2.0 but it will work with later versions. My NVidia GeForce 9800GT implements OpenGL 3.3 and works fine with Boris BLUE.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Mike Egts]

I am about 5 minutes from eating a bullet.
I just purchased a Dell XPS Laptop with an i7-2720qm processor. 8Gb of Ram and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M 2Gb Video Card.
I have Boris BCC7.
I purposefully purchased this laptop specifically to be able to run Boris BCC7.
I inserted an Empty Event and then added Extruded Text from BCC7.

I just got this:
Hardware Test: Supported
Critical Test: Critical Error: The Card Manufacturer is not supported.
Please tell me that I am just ignorant on what to do about this and that I don’t have to box this thing up and return it because it won’t run BCC7 right.
I don’t know JACK about DirectX and Open GL.
At this point, I simply don’t understand it yet.
I have a kickin little system here.
Could this seriously not be enough to run Boris?
Please respond so that this Newbie can understand it.

Thanks
Mike

Mike (X) Egts

[Jose Ramos]

[John Rofrano] “I don’t know of many games that use OpenGL but some do. They mostly use DirectX. OpenGL 3.0-4.0 are just more recent versions of the same OpenGL API. Boris BLUE only requires OpenGL 2.0 but it will work with later versions. My NVidia GeForce 9800GT implements OpenGL 3.3 and works fine with Boris BLUE.”

ok so do higher versions of OpenGl boost performance?

[John Rofrano]

[jose ramos] “ok so do higher versions of OpenGl boost performance?”

No not really. Not in the way you’re thinking. Higher levels have more functionality. I don’t know the extent to which any one change in the API might increase performance, but it could. But it’s not that black and white. GeForce cards may support some of OpenGL in software while the Quadro supports the same call in hardware. So a Quadro that supports OpenGL 2.0 may perform faster than a GeForce that supports OpenGL 3.0 because the Quadro is doing it in hardware.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

[Mike Egts] “I just purchased a Dell XPS Laptop with an i7-2720qm processor. 8Gb of Ram and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M 2Gb Video Card… I purposefully purchased this laptop specifically to be able to run Boris BCC7.”

If you purposefully purchase this for BCC7 then you should have purchased a laptop with an NVIDIA Quadro FX mobile card. The Lenovo Thinkpad W Series all come with Core i5/i7 and Quadro cards.

Still, the game card in your laptop should work. In reading about this chip on the NVIDIA site I see it supports something called “Optimus” technology which can switch between an on-board Intel graphics and the NVIDIA graphics. See if perhaps your laptop is using the Intel chip by default. Usually you can configure this in the BIOS or it might switch back and forth between battery and AC states..

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Jose Ramos]

So in shopping for a new video card what should I be looking for to help RED/Blue fly? do lots of Stream processors speed things up ?

Also I notice only certain drivers are supported,
https://borisfx.com/blue/requirements.php

for best performance do I go with the latest drivers or one from above?

And last, you said that Quadro’s use parts of OpenGL that Gforce doesn’t ,how about the newer GTX cards vs Quadro FX vs Quadro NVS
which one’s will yield higher performance.

Thank you for you advice I would hate to get a new card only to find out I made the wrong decision, $400+ ..

[John Rofrano]

[jose ramos] “So in shopping for a new video card what should I be looking for to help RED/Blue fly? do lots of Stream processors speed things up ?”

RED/Blue uses OpenGL. Quadro’s have a better implementation of OpenGL so I would go with a Quadro card for use with Boris RED/Blue. The Quadro Fermi series is the latest technology and the Quadro 4000 looks like the best price/performer. That’s what I’m probably going to put in my next build.

[jose ramos] “Also I notice only certain drivers are supported… for best performance do I go with the latest drivers or one from above?”

That list is quite old and from what I hear Boris is about to come out with a new version of RED. I would start with the latest drivers for your card that the card manufacturer has certified. If you have problems with that, then drop back to a recommended driver but the newest drivers for your card should work.

[jose ramos] “And last, you said that Quadro’s use parts of OpenGL that Gforce doesn’t ,how about the newer GTX cards vs Quadro FX vs Quadro NVS which one’s will yield higher performance.”

GTX cards are deigned for good DirectX game performance. An equivalent Quardo card should always outperform a GTX card when using OpenGL and an equivalent GTX card should always outperform a Quadro card in games. While both will work with either, they are each tuned for their specific purpose.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com