Run SolidWorks on a Mac: Soft-Mod Your GeForce into a Quadro

by Josh on July 17, 2008 · Comments

run solidworks on macWay back, in a recent post that showed all you Mac-ophiles how to use SolidWorks on a Mac a commenter named Peter Privitera was having graphics issues with his MacBook Pro when using .

His MacBook Pro uses a NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT video card, a low-end 512MB card that runs around $130 and up. He did a simple soft-mod (modify in software) to turn it into a beefy NVidia Quadro crankin’ beast and now has the graphics performance you would expect on a Mac.


Simple three step process and…
Peter came across the Tech ARP that shows you how to apply the soft-mod the Nvidia GeForce Card to a Quadro.

Quadro drivers allow the Quadro to be used to accelerate the rendering operations of such professional 3D applications while GeForce drivers do not.

He was able to apply the mod easily, but he still ran into an issue with the installed driver that required some further research.

A month later…
After a month of hunting for solutions, he came across the ForceWare X 174.93 drivers with a modded INF that will allow the installation of this driver for the soft-modded GeForce Card. Yep, that’s all it was.

So…
1) Apply the soft-mod
2) Update thedriver

Not just for Mac
Even if you’re not using a Mac, but have GeForce in your PC, this will enable acceleration for your 3D CAD models and add RealView capabilities to your models.

Have you ever modified your GPU to get more out of it?

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Tagged as: hardware, mac, solidworks

  • Cad_guy
    I've soft-modded my 8800 GTS 640MB to a Quadro 4700. I found it on another SW forum post (note the post date Nov 28, 2007). Real-view works now and no more artifacts on screen. Realview works on both SW 07 & 08.
  • Ivan
    Has anyone soft-moded an ATI card? I haven't researched it yet... just curious if someone has...
  • Ivan, there's one I've come across that will allow you to go from a Radeon to FireGL. I haven't tried this though, so I would read through the forum this is under. Let us know what kind of card you have and if you are able to softmod your card successfully. Thanks!

    ATI Radeon to FireGL soft-mod
  • Ivan Loewen
    It's a Radeon X1600 on my MBP... I'm not to familiar with ATI, usually work with nVidia. (thinking)... sit on computer soft-modding vs. good game of tennis in awesome summer weather vs. going out on a date with my wife.... where are the long winter hours when you need them
  • ascoldasice
    i've got them working ( radeon into firegl). it's really not that hard. it's possible for winxp 32 and 64, so far not for vista.

    just check the first 2 forums on this site:
    http://forum.guru3d.com/forumdisplay.php?f=3
  • In vista all you need to do is download the Firegl driver (the equal of your Radeon) and install the inf from the "Have Disk" menu. No modding needed. In XP I had to piece together a driver but when I updated to Vista I just pointed it to the FireGL dirve and I was in business. RealView and all!
  • Neil
    No I am sorry you cant mod a 8800 into a quadro or any other nvidia card since some 6800.
    SW will enable the Realview ability after recognising the cards altered identity but the performance is not changed. Typically there is a 50% performance difference between a quadro specifically tuned for CAD and a GeForce for games.
  • Cad_guy
    So? Subjectively it runs better as a psuedo-Quadro than a GeForce. It doesn't crash and there are no more screen artifacts. It converts a unqualified video card into one that SW likes. Even if it's not a true Quadro it is an inexpensive stable card with all the bells and whistles for on the cheap.
  • I am curious what this post was responding to. After reading some of the above articles i am looking to upgrade my graphics card (GeForce 8800 GT).

    I run solidworks thru bootcamp on my Dual Quadcore 2.8 with 8 gigs ram. Im not much of a PC guy and didnt realize i need to be running on a 64 bit OS to access more than the 1.9 gigs of ram that XP can find. I wonder what else i need to know to optimize my mac hardware when using Solidworks. But back to my question:

    I'm looking at the graphics card comparison chart it doesn't seem to have a Quadro equivalent for the 8800. I'm guessing that's what your post is talking about. If so, what are the best options for someone with an 8800? Buy a new card?
  • Warren, Hi. I'll try to find out what the equivalent would be. This post is discussing installing a driver to get a GeForce card to run like a Quadro. You may be able to do this with your 8800 and mod it to a Quadro 4700. You may also want to take a look at this Guide to Update your driver from Lou Gallo.
  • Thanks Josh,
    Im thinking an 8800 can not be modified. First i tried the steps above for downloading the nvidia GForce/Quadro lists to see what my 8800 compared to. I couldnt find anything in the list that was similar. Now trying this RivaTUner, i cant get past step 3. When i click on "customize" all i am able to do is modify my fan speed. Do you know if the 8800 can run like a quadro?
  • Dave Moore
    You should be able to softmod any of the the 8000 series. An 8800 is equivalent to Quadro 4600.

    See here: http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=539
  • Dave,
    Are you positive an 8800GT is equivalent to a Quadro 4600?

    Following the instructions in that link- Step 1- comparing data from my card to find the matching Quadro there are a lot of differences. I have no idea what they mean but for example the architecture for my card is G92(D8P) while the quadro is G80GL, Fabrication Process is 65nm vs 90 on the Quadro, Transistor count is 754 million vs 681 on the Quadro, ect.
    I do see that Vertex shaders, Vertex version, ROPs, Textures/clock, Pixel shaders and version are all the same. Perhaps this is what counts?

    I had a hard time finding a match to my 8800GT
  • Dave Moore
    My bad. The G92 should run as a QuadroFX3700.
  • Patrick
    Hi Warren,
    I have pretty much the same system, albeit with 10 gigs of RAM. I run Vista 64 bit ( I recommend the Ultimate Edition, as there are some 'gotcha's' with the cheaper editions), and have tried all the recommended soft mods. They don't work for our card. It does seem that SW is in bed with nVidia, but what do I know? At any rate, don't waste your time trying.
  • I had Realview running on my MBP running and ATI X1600 back in late 2006 and in Vista in Late 2007. I have since updated my MBP to the new one which is now an nVidia 8600M GT I have not had the time to mod it for Vista yet. I have read a ton about it not being possible since the 6800 series but the article here seems to be for XP only. I will keep you posted when I do get it working but unlike my X1600, this card performs fine except it is missing RealView. Still the fastest system I have used thus far.
  • Neil
    In the long run you arent doing anyone any favours by blabbing about modding on your blog.
    I also wonder if any of the companies concerned would be happy to have this publicised through this channel which is now also being picked up by CadDigest..
    Both Nvidia and ATI have changed their drivers and the hardware internally as reqd to kill this type of substitution off and you cant blame them for that.
    Sure CAD cards are overly expensive but they arent going to sit there and loose a lot of money from loophole 'piracy'.
    It wouldnt surprise me if SW get told by Nvidia and ATI to do something about Realview.
    and it wouldnt surprise me if SolidSmack gets a solid smack form higher up the food chain
  • TheDave
    Hi folks, this is a great trick. I've done this to my geforce 8600M GT (128mb) in my 15" MBP. WHAT a difference. I use Pro/E, Solidworks, Rhino, and Maya on the windows (xp) side, and it works much better with 3D. Its not my primary system for this stuff, but its good that i can take it on the road.
    Anyway, all is great, except for two glitches: it stays at max brightness (not too big a deal), and the display will not turn on coming out of sleep. The computer wakes up, but i get no display... have to restart to get it back. This is a deal-breaker, i'm ready to go back to geforce drivers. So far i've tried 174.93, 171.16, and 175.80 from laptopvideo2go. Anyone else experience this? thanks.
  • TheDude
    I have the same problem with MBP display never waking up from sleep. There must be some way around this. Even if there was some sort of utility to restart the display drivers. The improvement from the soft-mod is so huge that I can't imagine going back.
  • danielronge
    that's a hardware problem with some MBPs ... my display wouldn't power up at all anymore at one point.
    I had my Motherboard replaced (applecare) and no problems since ...
  • MacDaddy
    Thanks for figuring this out. This tip has single-handedly increased my firm's productivity 1000%. Way to go!
  • eca
    I was happy to run into this info since I'm looking at getting SW to run at least some of the time on a MBP. Questions I have are: do the card mods affect the screen performance of any other apps (ie. photoshop running on the OSX side)? and are the mods made under the XP side or OSX side? Thanks very much.
  • Peter
    As far as I can tell the firmware mod does not have an effect on any applications running under OSX. The mods are made under the XP side in bootcamp. Good luck.
  • ivanka
    Hey guys, I applied the soft mod to my NVDIA 8600M GT of my MBP into (040E NVDIA Quadro FX 570) then I downloaded the driver 174.93 with the modded information. However, when I try to update the driver at the end, the device manager wizard displays a note that says:

    "Cannot install this hardware. There was a problem installing this hardware
    VIDEO CONTROLLER (VGA compatible)
    The driver selected for this device does not support Windows XP"

    Even, I 've tried to install several times using Rivaturner even providing other options from the menu like (040c Unknown device) but in the end I get the same result.
    Can anyone help me letting me know what step or procedure I'm avoiding or doing wrong?
    Thanks
  • ivanka
    I got it finally
    this driver works very weel in MBP
    Thanks
  • Hi Ivanka, sorry for not getting back to you sooner. Did you have to do a different setting in Rivatuner? or did you have to dwonload the driver again? glad you got it working .
  • Radicalgel
    Ya I have the same problem as TheDave. When my macbook Pro goes into standby the the screen doesnt come back on. :( Does anyone know how to solve this issue. Please help. I use a lot of 3D apps and I badly need this softmod to work properly.
  • Tim
    Question: Does applying these software mods affect how the card is recognized when booting up in MacOSX?
  • Rob
    No. It's only the windows side.
  • Rob
    Thanks for this post! I followed your directions and discover the 7600GT in my 24" iMac is equatable to a Quadro 560. Did the rivatuner thing followed by those drivers, and viola! It definitely took me an hour of screwing around but it was worth it, real view is pretty nice! :)
  • Will
    I'm using the SDK version of solid works (the 150 day time locked version of the educational edition that comes with many solidworks manuals) and while my computer recognized my 8600m gt as a quadro fx570m, realview was still greyed out.

    I'm thinking that perhaps, the SDK version does not support realview but I can't find anything about it and since there's no support for it, dassault isn't too helpful on the matter.

    Does anyone know if the SDK supports realview?
  • I run a soft-modded 8800 GTS. It works great!
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