How are Quadro and Geforce different?

[Iamghey]

ASDF

[Arkaine23]

Quadro has advanced cpu instructions, which optimize the card's openGL performance. Quadro's are also overclocked slightly over their geforce counterparts. Really great for professional graphics apps.

2 ways to turn a Geforce into a Quadro...

hack the drivers aka SoftQuadro

move some resistors on the back of the card

Geforces and Quadros use the same gpu. The idea is to trick it into recognizing the card as a Quadro and using the advanced features of the gpu.

I've hacked several detonators with rivatuner in order to convert my card to Quadro, but it hasn't really made a difference in my opengl benchmark score, and newer drivers don't work. I'm thinking the resistor swap is the better way to go...

[Iamghey]

So the performance boost is only in OpenGL apps? Will turning a GeForce into a Quadro lower its Direct3D performance?

[Iamghey]

What aboout performance in games?

[Yodums]

Some notice performance boost in games some don't.

[Arkaine23]

I've seen no change with the softquadro mod in direct3d performance. In fact my 3dmark2001 score has gone up slightly, but I attribute that to changing drivers and a higher overclock on my gpu with a modified gpu cooler. Some ppl say that it improves image quality or stops tearing in a few games... ones that use openGL such as Q3A.

From what I've read, it generally causes a slight performance hit, say 1%. Not very much. But can give an variable OpenGL performance boost. Some ppl claim 60% or more improvement in a benchmark called GLXcess.

Really, Quadro is only for grins unless you have the graphics programs that will benefit the most from it. Or unless more games start using openGL...

[JAWS]

If you like playing games a lot don't do it. I soldered two resistors to my 3D Prophet II, and got a Quadro2 MXR/MX. I wish I'd had never modded the card. I guess that's what you get by not reading the fine print.

I noticed a drop in game performance!

[Arkaine23]

Yeah, I think my softquadro isn't giving a boost because my card started as a GF2 titanium, but the corresponding Quadro model is the Q2 Pro. If I had a GF2 GTS or Pro maybe I would have seen some performance gains.