10 ms·

You should see what Nvidia does for CAD software...They used to force you to use Quadro cards only (which is maybe 2X-3X price of their consumer version) even t

You should see what Nvidia does for CAD software...They used to force you to use Quadro cards only (which is maybe 2X-3X price of their consumer version) even though the GT/X series worked just as good. People figured out how to change the registry setting to make it work until they finally caved and supported it "somewhat" (where if it breaks it breaks and this was maybe 5 years after the registry hacking). Nvidia has always been notorious for making people use the "good stuff" (expensive) even though it's not really required.

fock 6y ago
or for running their GPUs in VMs...
- LeSaucy 6y ago
  Is that not a thing now?
  - moojd 6y ago
    It looks like they are still disabling it: https://youtu.be/AG_ZHi3tuyk?t=627 https://youtu.be/AG_ZHi3tuyk?t=627
    - fock 6y ago
      which ist completely user hostile, as the original idea (back with certified Z800s, RHEL5 and FX3800s) of a dual-OS-workstations has not panned out. Today it's basically nagging developers and technical users, who don't want to run proprietary software unsandboxed (but want CUDA...) and have a hassle-free experience into buying quadros. I can't think of any business-case for that, because cracking down at the shady ML-cloud-vendors works out okish right now for them and at unis people won't notice at large...
    - mey 6y ago
      With Ryzen's support of ECC, if AMD brought SR-IOV to its non-work station radeon cards, it would be another interesting feather in its cap. They do have product announcements coming up, bought doubt that is an important feature to most users.
jonpalmisc 6y ago
I haven’t heard about this before and I’m curious - what software only allows Quadro cards?
- syntaxing 6y ago
  Almost all CAD software prior to maybe 2016 was like this. If you ever run NX/Solidworks/Inventor, you will notice the GPU usage will be 0% unless there is a Quadro GPU. The main reason is that the graphic acceleration is disabled until you use a "proper" GPU. You are able to force graphic acceleration by turning on the correct registry key.
  - Namidairo 6y ago
    They also quietly disabled the use of their "Capture SDK" on Geforce cards in a driver update, before whitelisting Geforce Experience and presumably anyone else who would cough up the money to license it. Developers without Quadro cards just updated their drivers one day and weren't able to use it anymore. Same goes for their hypervisor checks. Just silently added in a driver update, with the reps only saying why after people started asking why it broke.
TomVDB 6y ago
> Nvidia has always been notorious for making people use the "good stuff" (expensive) even though it's not really required. Do you think that these Quadro features materialized out of thin air, or did they require engineering effort and additional silicon area? If the latter, is it reasonable for Nvidia to expect to be compensated for that additional effort (which is born by, say, 2 orders of magnitude lower volume) ? Additionally, would you be happier if Nvidia simply removed those features so that no home users would complain anymore (at the expense of Quadro users who would lose the ability to use real features.) And, using my standard to-go-to argument, are you similarly upset that software companies are charging different amounts of money for different tiers of a software product (e.g. Microsoft Office Home vs Professional), even though these different tiers are only enabled by a license key? If not, why?
- syntaxing 6y ago
  I personally think there's a pretty big difference between being compensated for their work and using software to limit where the hardware can be used (and Im not saying Nvidia is the only company that does this, like Tektronix who is even worse for it). This differs than a purely software product like you mentioned between home vs professional usage. When I buy a GPU, I expect to be able to use it as a....GPU regardless of the software it connects to. Sure, I get it, there is some additional software work such as CUDA and driver stuff depending on the package but at a basis with something like DirectX, this should be more or less software agnostic. Unfortunately our market is heading towards that direction (e.g Tesla and John Deere) where even "unlocking" the features via hardware means is a violation of DMCA.
  - shard 6y ago
    The other choice would be to actually manufacture different product lines with different hardware, which would 1. increase costs, and 2. prevent the user from being able to upgrade via software, and have to buy completely new hardware. From a business, consumer, and environmental point of view, unlocking via software seems the superior solution.
  - babypuncher 6y ago
thewindowmovie3 6y ago
Sorry, complete noob here. How did nvdia control if CAD uses the gpu or not. Did the gpu know the type of application acting it?
- lmm 6y ago
  The NVidia drivers are aware of which application is running and apply different profiles for popular applications. But I think in this case it was more that the drivers locked out particular APIs (e.g. overlay-related) that were used primarily by CAD applications rather than outright locking out those applications.
buryat 6y ago
as a Nvidia shareholder I totally support this, you're free not to buy their hardware
- speedgoose 6y ago
  I'm happy to hear that software locks make more rich.

fock 6y ago

or for running their GPUs in VMs...

LeSaucy 6y ago
Is that not a thing now?
- moojd 6y ago
  It looks like they are still disabling it: https://youtu.be/AG_ZHi3tuyk?t=627 https://youtu.be/AG_ZHi3tuyk?t=627
  - fock 6y ago
    which ist completely user hostile, as the original idea (back with certified Z800s, RHEL5 and FX3800s) of a dual-OS-workstations has not panned out. Today it's basically nagging developers and technical users, who don't want to run proprietary software unsandboxed (but want CUDA...) and have a hassle-free experience into buying quadros. I can't think of any business-case for that, because cracking down at the shady ML-cloud-vendors works out okish right now for them and at unis people won't notice at large...
  - mey 6y ago
    With Ryzen's support of ECC, if AMD brought SR-IOV to its non-work station radeon cards, it would be another interesting feather in its cap. They do have product announcements coming up, bought doubt that is an important feature to most users.

jonpalmisc 6y ago

I haven’t heard about this before and I’m curious - what software only allows Quadro cards?

syntaxing 6y ago
Almost all CAD software prior to maybe 2016 was like this. If you ever run NX/Solidworks/Inventor, you will notice the GPU usage will be 0% unless there is a Quadro GPU. The main reason is that the graphic acceleration is disabled until you use a "proper" GPU. You are able to force graphic acceleration by turning on the correct registry key.
- Namidairo 6y ago
  They also quietly disabled the use of their "Capture SDK" on Geforce cards in a driver update, before whitelisting Geforce Experience and presumably anyone else who would cough up the money to license it. Developers without Quadro cards just updated their drivers one day and weren't able to use it anymore. Same goes for their hypervisor checks. Just silently added in a driver update, with the reps only saying why after people started asking why it broke.

TomVDB 6y ago

> Nvidia has always been notorious for making people use the "good stuff" (expensive) even though it's not really required. Do you think that these Quadro features materialized out of thin air, or did they require engineering effort and additional silicon area? If the latter, is it reasonable for Nvidia to expect to be compensated for that additional effort (which is born by, say, 2 orders of magnitude lower volume) ? Additionally, would you be happier if Nvidia simply removed those features so that no home users would complain anymore (at the expense of Quadro users who would lose the ability to use real features.) And, using my standard to-go-to argument, are you similarly upset that software companies are charging different amounts of money for different tiers of a software product (e.g. Microsoft Office Home vs Professional), even though these different tiers are only enabled by a license key? If not, why?

syntaxing 6y ago
I personally think there's a pretty big difference between being compensated for their work and using software to limit where the hardware can be used (and Im not saying Nvidia is the only company that does this, like Tektronix who is even worse for it). This differs than a purely software product like you mentioned between home vs professional usage. When I buy a GPU, I expect to be able to use it as a....GPU regardless of the software it connects to. Sure, I get it, there is some additional software work such as CUDA and driver stuff depending on the package but at a basis with something like DirectX, this should be more or less software agnostic. Unfortunately our market is heading towards that direction (e.g Tesla and John Deere) where even "unlocking" the features via hardware means is a violation of DMCA.
- shard 6y ago
  The other choice would be to actually manufacture different product lines with different hardware, which would 1. increase costs, and 2. prevent the user from being able to upgrade via software, and have to buy completely new hardware. From a business, consumer, and environmental point of view, unlocking via software seems the superior solution.
- babypuncher 6y ago

thewindowmovie3 6y ago

Sorry, complete noob here. How did nvdia control if CAD uses the gpu or not. Did the gpu know the type of application acting it?

lmm 6y ago
The NVidia drivers are aware of which application is running and apply different profiles for popular applications. But I think in this case it was more that the drivers locked out particular APIs (e.g. overlay-related) that were used primarily by CAD applications rather than outright locking out those applications.

buryat 6y ago

as a Nvidia shareholder I totally support this, you're free not to buy their hardware

speedgoose 6y ago
I'm happy to hear that software locks make more rich.