OT: Geforce 400 and 500-series issues

[Jens Lindgren]

First, I would like to warn you that this is a long post and I'm really pissed off so bare with me, OK ;)

 

About a week ago I wrote to the list about performance issues in Softimage with my new workstation. Here are the specs:

 

Dell Precision T5500

Dual Intel Xeon X5650 (2x 6-cores with HT = 24 threads)

12gb ram

Nvidia Geforce GTX 590

 

I thought I had solved the performance issues as I got much better performance in ICE when I disabled C State in Bios, but I still got stuttering and micro-lag when working in Softimage, so today I spent some time Googling to find out what the problem can be.

I must say that I was chocked of what I found.

It seems that Nvidia has deliberately put some bottlenecks in the Geforce 400 and 500-series to make them more or less useless in professional applications. My guess is they want people to buy Quadros.

It's even affecting some games using OpenGL and I think this will become a larger problem as more and more games is using OpenGL for cross platforming.

 

There are a lot of threads out there on Nvidia, cgtalk and blender forums that talks about these issues.

Here is some info from wikipedia with some links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_400#OpenGL_Problems

 

The bottle neck is a OpenGL command (glReadPixels()) and the workaround described on wikipedia can be found on the last page in this thread: http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=292025

 

The threads on cgtalk is mostly about Maya, 3ds Max and blender and there seems like Maya 2012 with Viewport 2.0 doesn't suffer from this anymore.

People using 3ds Max mostly run it in Direct3D and not OpenGL so they shouldn't be affected. But with 3ds Max 2012 and Nitrous I don't know if there are issues with these cards or not.

 

Now I would like to know what Autodesk has to say about Softimage and this problem?

Will this get fixed, and if so, by Autodesk or Nvidia?

If this isn't going to be fixed, I think Autodesk should clearly state that we can not use Geforce cards with this software, so that we don't go out and buy graphic cards that we can't use.

 

I know that officially Autodesk only supports professional cards like Quadro but you can't ignore the fact that alot of people are using the consumer cards with Autodesk products.

 

 

Quadro vs Geforce IMHO

I would love to use a Quadro instead of a Geforce but the truth is that Geforce has a lot more power than Quadros and costs just a fraction of it.

At our studio we use a lot of GPGPU enabled applications like Adobe Premiere, Eyeon Fusion, V-ray RT and we can't buy Quadros for $5000 just to use the applications to their potential.

The only advantage I saw in buying a Quadro was the opengl stereo capabilities that I could use in Fusion.

But last year Eyeon put a full screen Direct3D viewport in Fusion just so people could use Stereo 3D on Geforce and boom there goes my only reason to buy a Quadro.

 

It doesn't help Nvidia much that Chaosgroup have three Geforce cards working nicely together to render some stuff in their V-Ray RT demo videos.

Also Nvidia has their own Iray renderer that uses GPU. Here are some timings of a scene rendered with Iray that I just found on youtube:

Quadro 4000 - 14 m 19 s

2x Quadro 4000 - 9 m 50 s

Geforce GTX 570 - 7 m 04 s

 

I can only guess what timings my GTX 590 (dual GTX 580) would have but I bet that I would need around four or five Quadro 4000 to match up.

Now, can someone please explain to me why I should by five $750 Quadro 4000 when I can just buy one $600 Geforce GTX 590 and get the same GPGPU performance?

 

Me, and many other on the forums, are starting to think that AMD is the way to go, and to you guys that was worried about the performance in Softimage with the new MacBook Pros, all I can say is go for it! It can't possibly be worse performance than with Nvidia.

Maybe this is the reason that Apple went for AMD in the new MBP, because Apple found out that OpenGL is broken on these new Geforce cards.

 

Also, how does all the game studios work with this? I bet they need to use Geforce for their game engine but then they need a Quadro for their 3D application.

So when they make any changes on their models and want to watch them in the engine, they switch computer or what? It doesn't make sense to me.

 

 

/Jens

--

 

 

Jens Lindgren

--------------------------

3D Generalist / TD

Magoo 3D Studios

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

Sounds like tech hypocondria.  There is no readback from buffers or glReadPixels during playback, or ICE.

> Magoo 3D Studios <http://www.magoo.se/>

[Jens Lindgren]

Ok.

But do you know if there is any performance hits with these new cards in softimage?

Have you tested them?

I don't have a Quadro or Amd card that's relatively new and powerful enough to compare it to the GTX 590.

All I know is what I have read on those forums.

I still think that the bad performance I got is from these new cards and it would be nice to have it confirmed.

I will see if I can test with a GTX 285 and I will get back to you.

/Jens

Sent from my iPhone

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

Can you repeat which performance problems you are seeing? The
previous post you made was a CPU usage issue not related really to the
GPU. There are lags and hangs that happened sometime in every
software; each may have different causes. Or you may have a
motherboard with a problem. There are tons of things that can go
wrong in a PC, unfortunately

On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 8:24 PM, Jens Lindgren

[Jens Lindgren]

Hi Luc,
I think the issues are related. It seems like the low CPU usage is because of the computer is waiting for the GPU to do it's stuff.
This happens on really simple scenes as well as heavy scenes.
I'm doing some cloth simulations and had a look at the Syflex ICE Shirt demo scene.
It should run in realtime and it does that for like ten frames, then lags a bit and then it runs fast for ten frames again and so on. It's very random.
The older workstations bought last year with GTX 285 runs this much better and without stuttering.
I need to do more testing and research about where the issues are coming from.
Do you know how to debug GPU performance in Softimage?
Also do you know if there are some application settings for softimage in the nvidia control panel that would help?

I'm very busy at work right know so I won't be able to dig very deep into this issue until the project is finished in about three weeks.

/Jens

Sent from my iPhone

[Stefan Andersson]

I'll take a look at it when I get into the office. We use gtx470 card,
but we are on Linux. I doubt it has to do with gpu though.

Regards
Stefan

--
Stefan Andersson
Creative Director

Mad Crew
Roddargatan 8
116 20 Stockholm
SWEDEN

reel: http://vimeo.com/21972066
mail: ste...@madcrew.se
phone: +46 (0)8 668 27 13
cell: +46 (0)73 626 8850
web: http://www.madcrew.se

[Tim Leydecker]

On win xp64, using various Geforce/Quadro cards, I had difficulties
in viewports, from redraw to refresh to stutter when I missed installing
the latest direct x version off the microsoft homepage.

Here´s what I ended up manually installing:

graphics driver (from nvidia.com) - the whql version usually isn´t that bad
direct x (from microsoft.com) - hadn´t been updated automatically
PhysX (from nvidia.com) - had been missed during driver install

It´s been a while, my latest win7 install runs smooth. Haven´t pushed it yet, thought.

Personally, after lot´s of grief with geforce DRIVERS cutting off performance in Maya,
I went the Quadro route and invested in a FX4800 (for Mac) am using the "Autodesk Maya"
preset as the Global Settings usually and am fine with it. Mostly because the MacPro
is so sturdy and almost completely silent, too.

Given that, the new Quadro 2000 seems to be not that bad? The pricetag is o.k.

I know, it feels unfair to have to pay so much more because nvidia willingly forces
one to go quadro instead of being able to max performance/geforce - but that´s life.

Try to play a flash file on iPad...

Same B.S. Not worth the grief.

I´d opt for a Quadro 2000, and to shrugg it off. Life´s too short.

Cheers

tim

P.S: Officially supporting the Geforce would be marvelous, if dreams are allowed...

[Jens Lindgren]

I have read a litle bit more on the web and I have found an interesting thread:

http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=296463&page=1

 

The symptoms seems similar to mine with regards to the computer falling back to software rendering and that's what makes most of the stuttering.

We also run Eyeon Fusion and when I close Fusion it crashes with a "Error in nvoglv64.DLL at 0x7eccf4" message.

In the above link they say that they have fixed these issues in the latest driver released last week but maybe the issue is still there on the GTX 590.

I also renamed nvoglv64.dll to force Softimage to software OpenGL and the performance was not so different from running on hardware so there's definitely something wrong. Or these dual 6-cores is amazingly fast :)

Maybe I just have to wait and see if Nvidia will fix this issue.

We are about to order a couple of Quadro 4000 for grading stations and I will test with them so we can rule out any other part of the system.

 

/Jens

--

 

 

Jens Lindgren

--------------------------

Lead Technical Director

Magoo 3D Studios

[Tim Leydecker]

Hey Jens,

after glancing through the info on your link, I remembered two settings
I forgot to mention in my setups:

*I prefer a classic windows scheme, AERO is off here, regardless what OS version
*Maximum pre-rendered frames (NvidiaControlPanel>Manage3 D Settings>Program Settings)
*Thread Optimization

Description:

Maximum pre-rendered frames limits the number of frames the CPU can prepare
before the frames are processed by the GPU. Increasing this value can result
in smoother gameplay at lower framerates.

I had an occasion where I had to play with the number of threads an pre-rendered
frames on a single socket quadcore on xp64 - made unnerving stutter go away.
I upped the number of pre-rendered frames, and forced 4 threads instead of 2.
(Had shitloads of RAM and 3 mostly idle cores sitting there). That was 3-5 yrs ago.

I don´t want to suggest you try that, thought. It´s hard to keep track of and
might make things worse. An updated driver may be easier and more reliable.

Another thing is AERO, I think Luc-Eric stated that XSI is tested with AERO on,
turning it off may just open another can of worms.

I turn it off anyway - but I also fancy having the ControlPanel as a link on my (blue) desktop.

I´m getting old, I guess. No need for splash, pop, whizz, bang but bamm.done.

Cheers

tim

[Jens Lindgren]

Hi Luc,

 

We just got our new Quadro 4000 today and now Softimage runs much smoother and everything is good :)

I also tried to enable C State in bios again but that made Softimage stutter like crazy again so I will leave that disabled.

 

The bottom line, Quadro and C State disabled = winner combination on Dell Precision T5500 with X5650 CPUs and A8 bios.

I will definitely not buy a Geforce for my workstation again and I can only recommend other people to do the same.

 

/Jens

 

On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:33 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau <luce...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Matt Lind]

Didn't see this thread until today:

We've been trying to use GeForce 400x series and have had nothing but problems. In most cases Softimage crashes doing seemingly mundane things - adjust FCurve in Fcurve editor, switch shade modes, etc... We tried using the latest drivers from Nvidia, but no luck. Just redistributes where the crashes occur. We're using Softimage 7.5 BTW.

When crashing, Softimage throws up a dialog saying there's an Nvidia driver problem, but doesn't specify the nature of the problem.

Our IT department has removed all GeForce 400x cards from our computers until this is resolved.

Matt

[Len Krenzler]

That's really strange. I've been using a EVGA GTX 470 for several
months now with no issues at all. I just use the latest drivers,
nothing special and no special settings. I'm on Win7 64bit. Not sure
if there's a difference but we started on 2011 and now on 2012. Are you
on 32bit by any chance?

As for performance, I don't really have anything to compare it to and my
scenes aren't usually really heavy.

--
_________________________________________________

Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions

Phone: 780.463.3126

www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca

[Matt Lind]

We are using 32-bit version of Softimage 7.5 on a 64-bit operating system (Vista, windows 7).

[Len Krenzler]

I'm not sure if that would effect it but on the Nvidia forum I had one
of the devs say that the 32bit driver for XP had some issues with memory
management but that was quite a while ago. If you're on a 64bit OS I
don't think that would be an issue. Any chance it's a hardware issue?

[Matt Lind]

The card came with the computer. The computer(s) are new.

If it was a single computer I'd agree that maybe it's hardware, but we've tried the 400 series on at least 10 computers now, same result in each. The card is very fast, but crashes way too much.

[Mohammad Abdulfatah]

Does anyone know if AMD's consumer-grade cards are any better?I'm planning to replace my current computer and was eying the GeForce 580. But what I'm reading here isn't very encouraging.

- Mohammad

[Joe Laffey]

On Mon, 2 May 2011, Matt Lind wrote:

> The card came with the computer. The computer(s) are new.
>
> If it was a single computer I'd agree that maybe it's hardware, but
> we've tried the 400 series on at least 10 computers now, same result in
> each. The card is very fast, but crashes way too much.

Hmm. No crashes here with 480 or 580 cards. My latop 480M crashes, though.

Of course this is all pure 64 bit. Not 32 bit apps.

--
Joe Laffey | Visual Effects for Film and Video
LAFFEY Computer Imaging | -------------------------------------
St. Louis, MO | Show Reel http://LAFFEY.tv/?e22893
USA | -------------------------------------
. Since 1991 | -*- Digital Fusion Plugins -*-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Len Krenzler]

It must be an issue with SI 7.5 then I would think. I assume there's a
reason you're using the 32bit version? Maybe try the 64bit just to test.

[phil]

other queries still unanswered.

[Jens Lindgren]

Yeah the new Geforce cards are very fast!

The Quadro 4000 I have now doesn't handle as much polygons as the GTX 590 but it runs Softimage very smooth without stuttering and that is more important to me.

And the 30-bit color output from Quadros is also nice as I do lots of grading from time to time.

 

/Jens

[Sam Bowling]

Are all 10 computers running an outdated 32 bit version of softimage under a
64 bit OS? Could be a problem running SI 7.5 under a 64 bit OS or a bug that
was fixed long ago in SI.

Also, are all 10 computers new (from the same place)? Did you wipe the
drives and reinstall the OS clean, without all the Crapware that comes with
new computers? Have you tried running a clan install of SI under a clean
install of windows?

That some people are having the problem and some aren't would make me think
it's not the card, but maybe a conflict between the card/drivers and other
software.

[Daniel H]

Jens,

Looks like you resolved your issues with a pro card, but I'll still post my notes as it may help others in the cosmic quandary of workstation vs. consumer cards.

Contrary to mangled Web myth... there are hardware, driver, and performance differences between workstation vs. consumer cards. Consumer gaming cards are not thoroughly tested to work reliably with CAD and 3D software like workstation cards are. Using FirePro/FireGL as an example, take a quick look at some of the recent driver release notes and you will see how they surgically focus on resolving issues for professional software: Maya 2011, Softimage 2011, AutoCAD 2011, etc. https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/firepro/workstation8.773.1.pdf  (It's also known that consumer cards can create problems, fits, and weirdness in viewports).

I exclusively use FirePro and FireGL cards in my 3D workstations and have used them for years now in SI versions 7.5, 2010, 2011, 2011.5 and now SI 2012 without issue on both Win 7 64bit and Vista 64bit. Tom's Hardware workstation charts show that, for example, a FirePro V8700  will often beat or equal a Quadro FX 4800 in the majority of benchmarks and the FirePro is almost half the price. It seems that Nvidia and Gucci share a similar avarice.

Here's a recent video that helps to explain the differences and lastly demonstrates a consumer card failing under 3D stress: "The real difference between consumer and professional graphics" http://www.youtube.com/user/fireuser3d#p/a/u/0/74UOyCLp8l4

Best,

-Daniel

[Matt Lind]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_400#OpenGL_Problems

The computers are brand new from same vendor, virgin drives and OS, SI installed from scratch, etc...