A new display driver from nVidia's Quadro graphics boards allows AutoCAD's hidden-line visual style to access the CUDA GPU, resulting in a 5x faster display. Conceptual and realistic visual styles are also said to be faster, but no numbers were given by the press release.
The company's cheapest Quadra board is just $99. The updated drivers are available free from the nVidia Web site.
In the months/years to come, I expect we can see more of AutoCAD's functions handled by the Quadro board and its CUDA processor.
How critical is "5x faster display", anyway? Apart from from trying to use CAD over a remote connection, who has an issue with the current display / render rate?
We have been getting the hard sell treatment lately from AMD, using the same claims, only for AMD it's a "10x faster display". Hey AMD and nVidia - you wany my Purchase Orders? Make the drivers more stable, and make sure they're certified for use with our CAD tools.
Posted by: MK | Jul 17, 2009 at 05:05 AM
Sir:
Thanks for that tip, it's very good news. We have been hoping that nVidia (or someone) can write some sort of CUDA-based plug-in that will shift much more of the refresh duties to our Quadro cards. On larger files built with AutoCAD ABS/MEP(and increasingly with Revit), we find between 10% and 20% of our time is spent waiting for screen regeneration. These new drivers should help with our existing software.
Thanks again
Posted by: P Lawton | Jul 22, 2009 at 09:58 AM