Can windows 7 do a quadro and a geforce?

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ptaylor999

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Hi all. First post here but with all the great info I've found on these forums I figured this was the best spot. Hope I'm posting in the right place.

I'm getting ready to build a workstation/gaming rig but am unsure of the multiple video card potential of Windows 7. I do my professional work in Maya, Photoshop, ZBrush, and use Avid occasionally for video editing, but I also love to play games liek Crysis 1 & 2, COD! etc. I'll have a dual monitor setup with multiple DVI inputs on each monitor.

My goal, if it's possible, is to have a Quadro FX card to do my Maya work, and a GTX 580 for gaming. I'd like to know if it's possible to install both these cards and their respective drivers and have them coexist happily in my Windows 7 environment. I'd like to able to switch from the Quadro to the 580 on the fly, using just the monitor input buttons on the monitors.

Has anyone out there done this?

Is this possible - or am I high?


thanks!
 
Short answer: No. You cannot install two different nvidia display drivers at the same time.

Long answer: Kinda. There are hacks out there to make the driver think that the Quadro is a Geforce or vice versa, but that kind of makes me nervous given that a workstation usually has to be 110% stable at all times. You can mod bioses too, but you can also brick your card. Both these techniques are incredibly time consuming.

You might be able to dual-boot Windows, one install with the quadro disabled and one install with the geforce disabled. For that trouble, though, I'd save up to build a second PC.
 
As mentioned before it's not really worth the trouble. Just dual boot and save yourself the headache.
 
Why don't you just use GTX card instead of Quadro. I was in the same situation as you. Quadro was really good performer in maya viewport acceleration . but after maya 2012 viewport 2.0 is available, GTX perform really well. I had quadro 4000 and gtx 560ti and I compared them. In default quality rendering mode, quadro (28fps)was faster than gtx (6fps) but when I changed to viewprot 2.0 mode GTX was much faster than quadro. After I decide to viewport 2.0 in maya . I sold quadro. I have been using quadro for 3years. and I don't think I am going back to quadro again.
 
My experience is that quadro cards can game as well.
 
Instead of Quadro + GTX, though, you could try Quadro + Radeon. You can install two display drivers from different vendors on Win 7 just fine.

SonDa5 said:
My experience is that quadro cards can game as well.
Click to expand...

Generally the Quadro/Firegl are quite a bit slower than their gaming equivalents, but they can still play a game. You need to have one of the really high end and expensive Quadros to have a decent GPU in it, though. The more midrange ones are not going to be good at gaming, or rather quite terrible if he is looking at a GTX 580 to game with, lol.
 
Thanks so much for all the feedback and advice. Very much appeciated. I've decided to go for the the GTX 580 to begin, see how Maya runs with it, and then go from there. I'm a creature/character rigger by profession, so the demands on Maya aren't that great and I'm sure the 580 will keep up just fine. It's when I get into simulations, high poly matte work with textures, etc, that the Quadro may be helpful.

And also, to llose, a dual boot system is an option but I have no idea how that would be set up. Would I have to install 2 separate OS's? On different drives/partitions? While I don't mind having to do a reboot to havenuse of kne card or the other, I'd prefer not to have to install 2 OS's. Isnthere a way I can set up my bios to boot into one graphics card or the other?

Anyway, thanks again and, I'm off to the races.
 
ptaylor999 said:
And also, to llose, a dual boot system is an option but I have no idea how that would be set up. Would I have to install 2 separate OS's? On different drives/partitions? While I don't mind having to do a reboot to havenuse of kne card or the other, I'd prefer not to have to install 2 OS's. Isnthere a way I can set up my bios to boot into one graphics card or the other?
Click to expand...

No, because the BIOS isn't the issue. You actually need 2 OS installs as you want to install two sets of essentially conflicting drivers. Two disks is easiest, but it could be two partitions as well.

Then again, you *might* be able to install both the GeForce and Quadro drivers side by side, or perhaps the Quadro drivers will run the 580 decently well. I don't think many people really have experience with what you are trying to do, unfortunately, so you'll have to be the one to tell us what worked and what didn't :)
 
ordovician said:
Short answer: No. You cannot install two different nvidia display drivers at the same time.

Long answer: Kinda. There are hacks out there to make the driver think that the Quadro is a Geforce or vice versa, but that kind of makes me nervous given that a workstation usually has to be 110% stable at all times. You can mod bioses too, but you can also brick your card. Both these techniques are incredibly time consuming.

You might be able to dual-boot Windows, one install with the quadro disabled and one install with the geforce disabled. For that trouble, though, I'd save up to build a second PC.
Click to expand...

I have been told by Nvida you can. I have two vid cards that do not match in my system right now.
 
Elf_Boy said:
I have been told by Nvida you can. I have two vid cards that do not match in my system right now.
Click to expand...

They are probably two geforce cards, though, right? All the geforce stuff uses the same driver set. The quadro series actually appears to be a completely different driver set, thus the uncertainty of whether or not it will work.
 
Wow. Lots of food for thought here. Thanks, everyone. But here's the worst part. I have to add a whole new dimension to this problem. I totally forgot I need to hook up my Cintiq as well, and that makes it a 3 monitor set-up. This rules out a single Nvidia card unless I go for the 590, which I'm considering. Unless, that is, if anyone can recommend some sort of reliable DVI switching setup.

A bit off topic, but, as for the whole Maya-on-a-non-Quadro-card question, i've been doing a lot of research on this and
opinions seems to be all over the map. For instance, I keep reading that Nvidia has crippled Open GL support for GTX cards in order to force the sale of their more expensive Quadro cards, but I also hear that that may or may not be a driver issue, and the newer drivers may or may not have solved that problem. Of course all of this seems to be related to viewport 2.0. Like I said, lots of different experiences and opinions out there and more I read the more confused I become.

To alsdudria - you mentioned above that "after Maya 2012 viewport 2.0 will be available." What exactly does that mean? Does it mean that the problems current GTX cards are having with Viewport 2.0 will go away with the NEXT release of Maya (Maya 2013)? Or have such issues with Nvidia GTX cards and Maya Viewport 2.0 been aliviated in Maya 2012? I'm currently using Maya 2011 with a Nvidia 260m and things are working pretty well, for rigging.
 
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