Nvidia Driver Settings

[Kbird1]

I did a Forum search out of curiosity to see what settings,if any, people are using for their Nvidia Cards.

Anyone using SLI ? any point?

Not sure we need to do anything these days or if CA sets it automatically and the Nvidia drivers just use the "Application Setting"

[DRAWZILLA]

I turn off everything about software settings and let the hardware do its thing, If you have a newer card it better to let the hardware do it. I also set up Chief in the Nvidia control panel and just use the recomemended settings for the "Manage 3d section. It seems faster to me.

[Kbird1]

thanks perry , just the screen grab i needed could you do me a favour and do another screen grab with the settings scroll bar rolled fully up so I can see what you did after "clamp" thx again .

M.

[DRAWZILLA]

ok here is the rest of it.

[Kbird1]

Thanks Perry appreciate it , I'm sure other Nvidia users can use it as well , I haven't seen these posted before , pity CA hasn't let Nvidia have a profile for this, but maybe it's deep in the manual and I just aint found it?

 

M.

[DRAWZILLA]

No Chief doesn't have any of this probably b/c everyone has a different computer and video card. My setting are just from experimenting with them.

You may find a different setting works better for you. You really can't make a mistake as you can always reset.

Also make sure you turn off "software edge smoothing" in the render DBX, let the card do it if you have a fairly new card.

[CJSpud]

Perry:

 

I don't even have Chief Architect listed in the programs as a program to customize so I guess I am totally operating in default mode.

 

 

I am curious ... do you recall if you were actually able to notice any significant differences in ray trace results when you changed any of your settings?  If you did, do you recall what improvements you were able to achieve when you changed your settings?

 

For number "1. Select a program to customize: ", does your program path end with "Cheif Architect Premier X6.exe"?

 

 

I think it would be helpful if one of Chief's ray trace gurus would provide us with some advice on what Nvidia settings they have tweaked on their VC's and describe what improvements they got with the setting changes they made. 

 

Thanks

 

PS:  I think the new ChiefTalk has a glitch with the selection button you click on [More Reply Options] to enable posting images and attaching files.  I had typed in some text before deciding to add the images above; when I clicked on the button to expand my posting options, it took me back to the home page.  This has happened to me several times and it is very frustrating when it does.  Please, someone look into this as I believe I remember other members complaining about this as well.

[DRAWZILLA]

Perry:

 

I don't even have Chief Architect listed in the programs as a program to customize so I guess I am totally operating in default mode.

You have to hit "ADD"

 

MyNvidiaProgramsList.JPG

 

I am curious ... do you recall if you were actually able to notice any significant differences in ray trace results when you changed any of your settings?  If you did, do you recall what improvements you were able to achieve when you changed your settings?

Yes, I started doing this in X5 where I could spin a house with shadows on ( before they had fast shadows.

 

For number "1. Select a program to customize: ", does your program path end with "Cheif Architect Premier X6.exe"?

Yes that's the executable main chief program file.

 

PerryProgramPathQ.JPG

 

I think it would be helpful if one of Chief's ray trace gurus would provide us with some advice on what Nvidia settings they have tweaked on their VC's and describe what improvements they got with the setting changes they made. 

Yes but that might be hard to do as there are many different cards in play.

 

Thanks

 

PS:  I think the new ChiefTalk has a glitch with the selection button you click on [More Reply Options] to enable posting images and attaching files.  I had typed in some text before deciding to add the images above; when I clicked on the button to expand my posting options, it took me back to the home page.  This has happened to me several times and it is very frustrating when it does.  Please, someone look into this as I believe I remember other members complaining about this as well.

[glennw]

 

PS:  I think the new ChiefTalk has a glitch with the selection button you click on [More Reply Options] to enable posting images and attaching files.  I had typed in some text before deciding to add the images above; when I clicked on the button to expand my posting options, it took me back to the home page.  This has happened to me several times and it is very frustrating when it does.  Please, someone look into this as I believe I remember other members complaining about this as well.

 

Curt,

 

I have also had that happen on more than 1 occasion.

I wish they would fix it.

I I am posting a long or complicated reply, I now copy it to the clipboard before going to More Reply Options - just in case I loose everything.

[Kbird1]

Thx Perry would never have occurred to me to turn of the software rendering option in the  renderer dbx since Hardware texturing is enabled, I assumed that Software setting was referring to anitaliasing or something else so had turned them both up somewhat   unsurprisingly my 3D views seem to load faster now   .Was wondering why my 470 GTX was slow in CA but just fine in games etc, which is why i asked in the 1st place....Shadows are a killer though so maybe I'll need SLI after all for Final views. 

[CJSpud]

Perry:

 

I appreciate your providing your spec's for us to review.  I figured out that I would need to add Chief to the list ...  Ijust wanted to confirm I would be using the right path.  Your right ... lots of video cards on the market but generally, they function similarily.  I thought that "maybe" some of the folks working at Chief would like to share some of their insights as to how they tweaked their video card settings to get improvements in using the ray trace engine.  I am pretty sure that Chief programmers are using a wide variety of equipment for their work, including video cards.  There has got to be a lot of information that could be shared with us users if someone at Chief would just do it.  I think they may have given this subject a wee bit of attention in a video or two but most of the topics covered in the videos specifically address using Chief's ray tracer and how to change settings in the RT to get good results.

 

Kbird1:

 

I have read a little on SLI in the past but don't remember a thing about it.  What would SLI do to improve final views?  Thanks.

[DRAWZILLA]

Thx Perry would never have occurred to me to turn of the software rendering option in the  renderer dbx since Hardware texturing is enabled, I assumed that Software setting was referring to anitaliasing or something else so had turned them both up somewhat   unsurprisingly my 3D views seem to load faster now   .Was wondering why my 470 GTX was slow in CA but just fine in games etc, which is why i asked in the 1st place....Shadows are a killer though so maybe I'll need SLI after all for Final views.

I don't think that Chief uses SLI ,so make sure before you buy. Also remember that renders use the video card and ray traces use the CPU.

[dshall]

I don't think that Chief uses SLI ,so make sure before you buy. Also remember that renders use the video card and ray traces use the CPU.

Yes,  last time I checked CA does not use SLI.

[Kbird1]

Hi CJ --- SLI is where you run 2 identical Nvidia Cards linked , (but your motherboard needs to support it), you usually end up with about a 60-80% increase in throughput but I am unsure if the RayTracer Engine can benefit from it , someone would need to talk to their Tech Support about it.

 

Just noticed you Hardware Specs CJ  ...... nice Rig  , that MBoard can actually do Quad SLI (4 cards) .....

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8P67_PRO/

 

While Chief may not do SLI ,Nvidia does give you the option now of "activate all cards", on multiple monitors or you can set it to maximise 3D ,where it uses both cards to drive the one monitor the fastest it can which is the usual setting for gaming. I haven't done any testing yet with it . Although SLI works with OpenGL it may not work with the Ray Tracing Engine seems a bit strange since CA recommends using Gaming video cards for CA and not the CAD workstation cards like the Quadro you can get ....if you have deep pockets.

 

 

I'm not sure CJ, if you are asking about the final image quality? or if you are asking if SLI would get you faster to the Final View? if the RayTracer is using the CPU not  the GPU(s)   (Graphics Processing Unit) , then going SLI may not help unless the setting above helps , if you are running multiple monitors like I do you can set them to use 1 card each which many help to increase draw speed etc on standard camera views. Once again I am not sure why CA isn't  leveraging the abilities of todays GPU's especially for rendering if the aren't... other than they may need to write a whole new 3D engine for that to happen.

 

M.

[CJSpud]

Kbird:

 

Thanks for your response.  Not being a very techy user, I was more interested in finding out what performance improvements (image quality, speed, other) one can realize by tweaking the OTB Nvidia defaults, and which settings can tweaked to get such performance improvements.

 

I appreciate the SLI info ... in 2011 I did some research on computer hardware before I had Puget Systems build my computer but I have forgotten most of the details of what I learned at that time.  I probably won't be adding another VC to my setup anytime soon.  If I did anything, I would probably move up to a better/faster VC.  My more important need is to up my SSD.  I am pretty tight on space, but there's even more to that story so when I get time to dive into some issues with my setup, maybe I can survive for awhile with the 80GB one I have now.

 

I would still like to hear what some of the Chief programmers have discovered regarding the settings of their Nvidia cards when they've been testing/using the Chief ray tracer.

[Joe_Carrick]

I like my Driver Setting to be 240 yards with a slight draw. ;)

[Kbird1]

JC.... i'd be happy with that

 

CJ ...  your MB does Raid so it wont be a problem to add another 80GB SSD to the existing one so C:\ will look like 160GB to Windows, any good Tech will be able to do it, they have come down in price lately so you can also add a new 240GB or whatever size and Clone the 80 to the new drive and use the 80GB for backups and such as D:\ or E:\. ,just make sure to deactivate CA BEFORE cloning as it may lock you out as I learnt when i cloned a 60GB to a 120GB a while back. You maybe able to get a 2nd 550 Ti pretty cheaply now and the performance is gonna be pretty compareable to one of the latest but maybe not greatest cards which always cost an arm and a leg to get the last 10% performace out of them which is why i usually have a card 1 generation behind ...well 2 or more nowdays which is why i went SLI.... but I build/Upgrade my own machines .....so PM me if you want more advice , happy to help if I can.