As part of a series of releases and announcements earlier this week, graphics hardware vendor NVIDIA made available two software drivers designed for use with the combination of either 3DS Max 9 or AutoCAD 2007 and the NVIDIA line of Quadro FX graphics boards. NVIDIA claims the new drivers will increase performance by up to 100% for the two Autodesk products, compared to running on the same hardware without the new driver software.
MAXtreme 9 is the software driver for 3DS Max 9. It offers the ability to control the 3DS Max 9 viewport display quality and real-time rendering speed. POWERdraft 2007, the driver for AutoCAD 2007, provides 3D hardware acceleration, replacing the existing driver.
NVIDIA says recent benchmark testing show MAXtreme 9 drivers increased performance up to 100% when coupled with the NVIDIA Quadro FX 5500 graphics solution, while POWERdraft 2007 running on Quadro FX 5500 graphics improved AutoCAD 2007 performance by as much as 73%.
NVIDIA says recent benchmark testing of the new MAXtreme 9 driver using the SPECapc particle test for 3DS Max showed a 14X performance increase, while the Scene Creation subcategory showed a performance improvement of more than 100%. Overall, NVIDIA says the 3DS Max graphics composite delivered a performance improvement of more than 16%.
NVIDIA says POWERdraft 2007 tests using the CADALYST06 benchmarks running on NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 and 3500 graphics solutions yielded substantial performance improvements of more than 73% in the 3D Gouraud Index and a performance increase of 61% in the 3D Wireframe Index. The total CADALYST06 benchmark Index using POWERdraft 2007 reveals a 22% performance improvement over preloaded application drivers.
The NVIDIA MAXtreme 9 and POWERdraft 2007 performance drivers are currently available as free downloads at the NVIDIA web site http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp.
--RSN