nvidia gimps opengl on all geforce cards above the 200 series

# 1 08-11-2012 , 04:25 AM

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nvidia gimps opengl on all geforce cards above the 200 series

Hi guys,

I just found this out the hard way!

I had a pair of gtx 285 ftw 2gb boards for at least 4 years now and one of them recently failed.

They have a lifetime warranty so I rma'd the dead board and evga sent me a gtx 480 with 1.5gb of mem. I was told that they no longer have any 285 refurbs in stock and that this was an upgrade although I lose 25% memory.

Well I found out it may be an upgrade for game performance but for maya it's really disappointing. I opened a couple medium high poly models and trying to navigate around the scene is just miserable! It lags and rotating the model it jumps in like 30 degree increments!!!

How bad is it? Well I had sent both my 285's back so I put an even older gtx 8800 ultra in my system and I can rotate the same models as fast as I can move the mouse! There is nearly NO lag at all!

After more tinkering I found that one thing that is affecting the performance has to do with two-sided lighting. If I turn two-sided lighting off most of the lag goes away. But two-sided lighting did not affect my 285 in any noticeable way!

I just wanted to report my findings. I am not sure what I am going to do. I cannot afford $3500 for quadro s nor would I waste the money if I could.

evga has offered me two options:

(1) exchange the gtx 480 1.5gb with a gtx 560ti 2GB board but that will not address the driver gimping and although I get back to 2gb of memory I lose gpu cores and gfx performance!

(2) get on a waiting list for a pair of 285 ftw 2gb boards. Which sounds fishy to me. Like they are going to repair some 285's and put me on a list???

So basically I am not sure which way to go. I actually sent them my good 285 just the other day after running a couple 3d benchmarks and opening a couple simple maya models. Turns out the benchmarks are only a gauge of gaming performance and the small models did not reveal the geforce driver gimping.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 08-11-2012 at 04:28 AM.

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# 2 08-11-2012 , 05:20 AM

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On ALL cards above 200? But you said your 285's were fine :/

This seems like quite a statement considering you only tried one other card. Were you mixing two card models? That can cause problems. Are they SLIed? Maya doesn't do well with that.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

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# 3 08-11-2012 , 06:21 AM

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This seems like quite a statement considering you only tried one other card..

Originally Posted by NextDesign

Not really go do a quick Google search for 'nvidia cripples opengl' user added image

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# 4 08-11-2012 , 06:44 AM

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On ALL cards above 200? But you said your 285's were fine :/

This seems like quite a statement considering you only tried one other card. Were you mixing two card models? That can cause problems. Are they SLIed? Maya doesn't do well with that.

Originally Posted by NextDesign

A 285 is a 200 series card! So 400, 500, and 600 are all ABOVE the 200 series and yes ALL of those models have had the opengl support within the geforce drivers throttled.

And I do not make statements based on testing one card! I did quite a bit of research and I also tested my 9800GT and the 285, 8800, and ALL of them out perform the gtx 480.

I also asked Jay to test a model on his 560 and although he said the performance decrease with two-sided lighting on was acceptable it did in fact have an impact. While on my 285, 8800, and 9800 there is no discernible impact of turning on two-sided lighting.

Lastly, I do not SLI and I do know that maya does not take advantage of SLI. Also you cannot SLI different model cards at all. It is not supported. I am a systems engineer and have two bachelors degrees, a masters degree, and a PhD. I was a senior systems engineer for more then 15 years so I know a couple things about computers ND!

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 08-11-2012 at 08:27 AM.

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# 5 08-11-2012 , 07:39 AM

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Uh oh Rick's pissed off (can't say I blame him the higher end gaming cards are pricey). And I was thinking of upgrading, wow what a turd in the punch bowl.

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# 6 08-11-2012 , 07:44 AM

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meh!

The original post was just to inform folks that nvidia has chosen to intentionally throttle opengl performance in geforce drivers for card models above the 200 series.

It takes very little imagination to understand why when one considers the exorbitant profit margins for quadro based cards.

I did spend a good deal of time researching before posting my findings and I just did not appreciate the condescending tone in ND's reply.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 08-11-2012 at 08:29 AM.

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# 7 08-11-2012 , 05:26 PM

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I wasn't being condescending, I was simply making a statement off the information that you presented in the original post. I'm sorry if you were offended by my response, but it was meant in the most genuine manner. I'm not a very suspicious person, so I give Nvidia the benefit of the doubt that they have purposefully gimped their OpenGL support. Whether that makes me naive, is left to everyone elses judgement.

But as I said before, I think hardware manufacturers hate you user added image

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Last edited by NextDesign; 08-11-2012 at 05:31 PM.

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# 8 08-11-2012 , 06:16 PM

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I was planning on buying one but now I'm not so sure. That's pretty concerning; I've heard that the latest AMD cards have pretty dodgy drivers too, so what options does this leave if you want a decent card but can't afford something like a Quadro?

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# 9 08-11-2012 , 06:33 PM

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I was planning on buying one but now I'm not so sure. That's pretty concerning; I've heard that the latest AMD cards have pretty dodgy drivers too, so what options does this leave if you want a decent card but can't afford something like a Quadro?

Originally Posted by elephantinc

You can get a Quadro for $120. The lowest priced one is the 410, but the 600 is only $150, and has double the memory.

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# 10 08-11-2012 , 07:17 PM

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But as I said before, I think hardware manufacturers hate you

Originally Posted by NextDesign

Yes which is a back handed way of saying you feel these things are only happening to me and so I am somehow at fault. Which is also insulting to me!

I have no problems with hardware or software. I have worked with and designed both for over 30 years so I generally know what I am talking about when something is not working properly.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

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# 11 08-11-2012 , 07:20 PM

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You can get a Quadro for $120. The lowest priced one is the 410, but the 600 is only $150, and has double the memory.

Originally Posted by NextDesign

I would not go with one of those but I might consider one of the one sloser to the $600 price point. The $3000 plus ones are just ridiculously priced.

The problem with the quadro approach is you now have a pretty much dedicated CAD machine. Genaral graphics performance ends up like a cheap walmart laptop!

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 08-11-2012 at 07:27 PM.

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# 12 08-11-2012 , 07:26 PM

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Dude, I'm trying to make light of a situation. I. of course, know your qualifications, and am not insulting you in any way. I did not say anywhere that it was only you that was having this problem. Again, I'm sorry if I have offended you, as I did not mean to. If they are crippling their gaming cards, it wouldn't really surprise me, as I've had nothing but bad luck with Nvidia cards and Maya; even with some of their Quadro's.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

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# 13 08-11-2012 , 07:29 PM

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I updated the comment above as the low end quadros are not bad for CAD over all but their general graphics performance even all the way up to their high end cards is terrible!

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

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# 14 08-11-2012 , 07:49 PM

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I've tried Maya on a few different systems, one I tried with a single EVGA 480 was the best I've ever used, even with a high poly count, but our ideas on what makes a high count could vary wildly, since I only have a 250GTS at home, so I'm probably used to much lower than what's considered high these days user added image

I guess you couldn't just return the 480s for a refund and find some 2xx cards elsewhere?

Also, on the 2-sided lighting thing, shouldn't you have that turned off anyways? I always have, makes it a lot easier to go between Maya and rendering apps/3DS.

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# 15 08-11-2012 , 08:01 PM

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Yes Acid I generally model with two-sided lighting off. But the point is with my gtx 285 ftw 2gb card it made no impact at all and also the impact it makes on the 480 is severe. We are talking like 30 times lower frame rate! Also more then just two-sided lighting is affected, it just happens that two-sided lighting is the easiest way to see the problem.

EVGA has offered two options to me:

(1) they'd exchange the 480 1.5gb for a 560ti 2gb board. However, although I get a board with the same amount of memory as the 285 the 560 has fewer cores and less gpu performance over all.

(2) they'd put me on a waiting list to get a refurbed 285 ftw 2gb board. Problem is who knows how long that would be.

Right now I am leaning towards just keeping the 480 and working around the performance problems but it hurts right down to the core realizing that although I have upgraded boards I am getting crappier performance

I'd also like to say that I think very highly of the support and effort that EVGA is making to accommodate me on this matter. The 285 is over four years old and yes it has a lifetime warranty so I am not surprised they had to upgrade the card. It is not EVGA's fault that nvidia has decided to intensionally throttle ogl support on geforce cards to push higher profit margin quadros.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 08-11-2012 at 08:05 PM.

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