NVIDIA GeForce To Quadro Soft-Mod Guide

The NVIDIA Quadro family of professional graphics cards are very, very expensive. They are generally 2-5X more expensive than their gaming counterparts, the NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards. But everyone knows that Quadro and GeForce graphics cards are virtually identical in hardware.

Yes, you read that right. Even with the unbelievable price tag, the NVIDIA Quadro is really no different from their desktop GeForce counterparts. So why is NVIDIA charging you so much for a Quadro?

It all revolves around the driver support for professional 3D applications like 3ds Max or Maya. Quadro drivers allow the Quadro to be used to accelerate the rendering operations of such professional 3D applications while GeForce drivers do not. This is the basis for the premium prices NVIDIA (and ATI) charge for their professional-grade graphics cards.

Obviously, you cannot just use Quadro drivers with your GeForce graphics cards. After all, it represents the thin red line between a really, really fat profit margin and just a "normal" profit margin. NVIDIA Quadro drivers are designed to detect the presence of an NVIDIA Quadro graphics card. It will not install if a GeForce card is detected instead.

However, there is an easy way to soft-mod (modify in software) a NVIDIA GeForce desktop graphics card into a NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics card. We will show you just how to do it in this guide.

Some Caveats

Before we start, you need to understand that soft-modding your GeForce card into a Quadro will not improve your graphics card's gaming performance in any way. All it does is enable hardware acceleration of professional 3D applications like 3ds Max.

In addition, the soft-mod is not perfect. Some applications do not support it, thus deriving no benefit from the soft-mod. We will examine what works and what won't work at the end of the article.

There have also been some reports that modded GeForce cards may suffer some drop in gaming performance. It is not unknown if this is a problem that affects all Quadro cards, or just modded GeForce cards. It is also not known if the reported problems are really due to the use of older drivers.

To summarize , unless you really need the Quadro's ability to accelerate the rendering process in a professional 3D application, you should not soft-mod your GeForce graphics card into a Quadro. Otherwise, read on!

Support Tech ARP!

If you like our work, you can help support out work by visiting our sponsors, participate in the Tech ARP Forums, or even donate to our fund. Any help you can render is greatly appreciated!