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Third Party Driver Support?

Question asked by Aleks Dugonjic on Dec 29, 2019
Latest reply on Jan 2, 2020 by Frederick Law

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Like everyone else that uses solidworks and starts musing over options for graphics cards I quickly notice how little support there is from solidworks as far as "certified drivers" are concerned. I'm just curious if there are any companies offering "third party support". I am by no means an expert, but is it possible for another business to write/sell drivers that will make some of the more popular graphics card options out there work? If so, is there anywhere I can purchase/download a driver that will take full advantage of GeForce chipsets which according to specs are just as good if not better than some of the options that are certified?

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Jeremy RIEDEL Dec 31, 2019 11:06 AM
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Aleks Dugonjic

Welcome to the Forum.

Could you expand on what you mean by "how little support there is from solidworks as far as certified drivers are concerned"? Your VAR should be providing support for SOLIDWORKS which includes assisting in downloading and installing the correct drivers. If they need additional resources, they can go to SOLIDWORKS Support which has full backing of SOLIDWORKS R&D and Partners (AMD/NVIDIA).

Which graphics cards options are you referring to that do not work now for SOLIDWORKS?

GeForce chipsets have great support from NVIDIA as they post driver updates very frequently for these cards. Many SOLIDWORKS users also use GeForce cards and simply ignore the features that are not included with these cards/drivers, such as RealView.

Looking forward to learning more.

JR
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- Jeremy RIEDEL @ Jeremy RIEDEL on Dec 31, 2019 11:06 AM
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  Worth a read. Hardware Certification
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- Aleks Dugonjic @ Jeremy RIEDEL on Dec 31, 2019 11:34 AM
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  Thanks for the reply!
  
  What I meant by "little support" is (as far as Nvidia chipsets) there are no certified drivers for anything but what seems like a select few chipset families. I took a few screenshots and this is all I see as far as certified.:
  
  Jeremy RIEDEL wrote:
  
  GeForce chipsets have great support from NVIDIA as they post driver updates very frequently for these cards. Many SOLIDWORKS users also use GeForce cards and simply ignore the features that are not included with these cards/drivers, such as RealView.
  I'm sure they have great support from Nvidia, but not "Dassault" it seems, and that's really my main issue. I'm wondering why there aren't any "certified" drivers for any of the GeForce cards that will enable all features and take full advantage of its physical specs. From my limited research they seem to be a lot cheaper (bang for buck) than the chipsets that are officially supported. I don't understand how programmers working on Solidworks don't make it a priority to have one of the most popular chipsets work properly, is there a physical limitation I'm not considering? I'm by no means an expert, I just know what I see looking and comparing through the spec sheets.
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  - Jeremy RIEDEL @ Aleks Dugonjic on Dec 31, 2019 1:09 PM
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    You will find this to be standard across the industry...I won't post any competitors certifications here.
    
    NVIDIA Quadro --> Professional Graphics (long term support, high level ISV (SOLIDWORKS) bug fixing and QA testing)
    NVIDIA GeForce --> Gaming (short support cycles, frequent updates, no ISV testing)
    
    Imagine trying to maintain a separate quality tested driver for GeForce cards that enterprise and business customers can rely on (IT is not going to update drivers weekly). Then demand that your software (SOLIDWORKS) works well with that card and driver combination. Well, frankly, you end up with a Quadro brand and certified drivers.
    
    To get technical, the Quadro and GeForce cards are the same chipset, so SOLIDWORKS is making sure that we work well on popular chipsets. Example: GeForce 2080 is built on the TU104 chipset and that equivalent in professional graphics is the Quadro RTX4000.
    
    I could go on, but to save you some grief, this is your decision. Purchase the consumer card, GeForce 2080 and assume it will not function as well as the Quadro brand in SOLIDWORKS or other professional applications certified from ISV's or purchase the Quadro RTX4000 and recieve the highest testing and support from NVIDIA and SOLIDWORKS.
    
    Find an issue on GeForce and maybe it gets fixed, find an issue with Quadro and its on the desk of SOLIDWORKS and NVIDIA engineers the next day.
    
    JR
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Frederick Law Dec 31, 2019 11:09 AM
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Good thinking but not gonna happen.
How much will you pay for such "third party" drivers?

For SW to support any driver, SW need to test and certify it.
So no third party could provide SW "certified" driver.
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- Aleks Dugonjic @ Frederick Law on Dec 31, 2019 11:41 AM
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  Frederick Law wrote:
  
  Good thinking but not gonna happen.
  How much will you pay for such "third party" drivers?
  
  Well they would definitely be worth quite a bit to whoever wants to be able to have a top gaming card and be able to run all features on solidworks without any issues. Just compare the difference in prices between the Quadro and the GeForce chips. As mentioned before, far from an expert on GPUs so I must be missing something here? Why is it that SW can't certify anything from the GeForce family?
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  - Frederick Law @ Aleks Dugonjic on Dec 31, 2019 11:52 AM
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    Aleks Dugonjic wrote:
    Why is it that SW can't certify anything from the GeForce family?
    Time and money.
    
    Will you pay $1000 each year so DS can certify every video card and driver?
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    - Aleks Dugonjic @ Frederick Law on Dec 31, 2019 12:09 PM
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      Frederick Law wrote:
      
      Aleks Dugonjic wrote:
      Why is it that SW can't certify anything from the GeForce family?
      Time and money.
      
      Will you pay $1000 each year so DS can certify every video card and driver?
      Well that depends on how you look at it. I think a lot of people would end up putting much more than $1000 in Dassault's pocket if they don't choose another CAD/CAM option because they would rather keep their existing performance line video cards and not deal with all the potential problems they read here on the forums regarding hardware that isn't certified.
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      - Frederick Law @ Aleks Dugonjic on Jan 2, 2020 8:03 AM
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        If you're willing to paid $1000 extra each year, that will pay for the Quadro in a few years.
        Depends on how you look at it.
        
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