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Quadro 120m does not support Pixel Shaders

post #1 of 23
4/18/06 at 11:07pm
Thread Starter 
After looking at the nvidia website I noticed the that Quadro NVS series of graphics cards do not support pixel shading.

Quote:
Programmable pixel and vertex shaders are features found on certain graphics cards which allow users to experience movie-quality effects in next-generation 3d games and applications. Programmable shaders are handled in hardware on the graphics processing unit and therefore, can not be added to a graphics card through a software or driver update. Programmable pixel and vertex shaders are only supported by certain NVIDIA Geforce and Quadro based graphic cards. The following list of NVIDIA based graphic cards do not support Pixel Shaders (all other cards support this feature):

NVIDIA Geforce2 GTS/Pro/Ultra/Ti200
NVIDIA Geforce2 MX/MX100/MX200/MX400
NVIDIA Geforce4 MX/MX4000
NVIDIA Quadro
NVIDIA Quadro2 Pro
NVIDIA Quadro NVS
NVIDIA Quadro4 280XGL/380XGL/550XGL
NVIDIA Geforce2 Go
NVIDIA Geforce4 Go
NVIDIA Quadro2 Go
NVIDIA Quadro4 500 Go
(I edited out some for space reasons)

How is this going to affect gameplay with the graphics chip? I'm looking at getting the Latitude D820 with the nvidia Quadro 120m 512mb, mostly for the security and ruggedness of the system for constant travel to school, but also b/c of the excellent Small Business support and next business day CompleteCare(tm) offering.

I *do* want to play games on this somewhat, however, and I'm concerned with the lack of pixel shading capabilities. I mostly play World of Warcraft, which worked very well on an Inspiron e1505 with the x1400 ATI card, and would like that level of gaming abililty. Nothing too fancy, just to be able to play with most of the eye candy turned on.

Will this be possible?
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post #2 of 23
4/18/06 at 11:26pm
I played Quake 4 on mine and it was fine. I'm sure it can handle WoW just fine since I hear you can handle that on integrated.
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post #3 of 23
4/18/06 at 11:34pm
The Quadro line of cards were not designed for gaming, but that doesn't mean they can't play games at all...
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post #4 of 23
4/19/06 at 12:00am
ill let you know how mine handles age of empires 3 when it comes tomorrow
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post #5 of 23
4/19/06 at 3:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by richfish13
I played Quake 4 on mine and it was fine. I'm sure it can handle WoW just fine since I hear you can handle that on integrated.
I wouldn't run WoW on an integrated video chipset (aka intel 900/950) if you want to play it at native res. or do a lot of raids/grouping. It'll run but it won't be that pretty and probably best at non native res (aka 1024x768 or lower). I didn't have much luck with my intel 855 or whatever is in the 700m.
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post #6 of 23
4/19/06 at 6:31am
They must be talking about desktop NVS's,I saw a review of a D820 and it scored 1800 or so on 3d05,which I wouldn't think it would run if it did'nt support pixel shaders.

Anybody looked at what core/memory speed the NVS120M is [richfish]?,I think the quadro 350M [same chip] is 425 core 700 memory....just interested.

Also interesting that these chips [120M/350M] are scoring higher in 05 than people who have X1400's in their 6400/1505 being as they're not gaming cards and all.The 7300/7400/110m/120m/350m [I've never seen so many variants of the same thing] are supposedly inferior to the ATI X1400,probably just ATI's usual suckass drivers
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post #7 of 23
4/19/06 at 6:36am
Does anyone know which cores these Quadro ones are equivalent to in terms of Geforce cores? The scores quoted by Gerry definitely seem to indicate Pixel Shader support.

John
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post #8 of 23
4/19/06 at 8:53am
Ok this really sucks if it is true. The nvidia site doesnt say anything about pixel shaders for the NVS120m but it does for pretty much every other card including the quadro 350m and 7400go.

I was set on a d820, but now it seems I either have to pay extra for the precision M65 or get a inspiron 9400...
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post #9 of 23
4/19/06 at 9:13am
That's like saying the Radeon x700 doesn't support shaders because the Radeon is listed as not supporting it. The NVS 120 does not equal the NVS. The websites are very specific to model number
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post #10 of 23
4/20/06 at 8:57am
Well, unless someone can show me a link that shows the 120m supports pixel shaders, all I can say is it looks like it does not. Ive looked everywhere possible, not one place does it say it supports pixel shaders.
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post #11 of 23
4/20/06 at 11:05am
I'm pretty sure that that webite only refers to the first generation Quadro NVS - just like it says Quadro. That doesn't mean that all Quadro cards don't support pixel shaders - just the first generation. In the same way, I think it means that only the first generation of Quadro NVS cards do not support pixel shaders. I think every card since the Geforce 2 has supported pixel shaders (except for the Geforce 4 MX and equivalent Quadro4 cards based on the Geforce 2).
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post #12 of 23
4/20/06 at 11:17am
Can anyone with a d820 run one of the demos from this site?

http://www.humus.ca/index.php?page=3D

Some of the later demo's require pixel shader 2.0, so that would tell us if there is PS support

This demo in particular requires PS2.0:
http://www.humus.ca/3D/InfiniteTerrainII.zip
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post #13 of 23
4/22/06 at 12:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by draculr
Can anyone with a d820 run one of the demos from this site?

http://www.humus.ca/index.php?page=3D

Some of the later demo's require pixel shader 2.0, so that would tell us if there is PS support

This demo in particular requires PS2.0:
http://www.humus.ca/3D/InfiniteTerrainII.zip
gerryjoson already pointed out that there are 3DMark05 benchmarks for the Quadro120m. For it to score 1800 marks it'd HAVE to have shaders. 3DMark deducts alot of points for systems that can't run certain tests due to lack of hardware support.
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post #14 of 23
4/22/06 at 12:29am
My D820 with the 120m scores 1844 in 3dmark05. The gpu's speed is 400MHz and the ram speed is 700MHz. I havent wanted to try overclocking as it plays all the games I want it to play with no problem, and i value battery life
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post #15 of 23
4/22/06 at 12:40am
It's not only the chip, but the memory.

7300/7400 have a 64 bit memory bus while the X1300/X1400 has 128 bit bus. So, even if they are clocked at the same frequency, the X1400 will be far better in a real world scenario. That happened when they released the X300: even at higher clock speeds, most X300 were slower than 9600s just because the 9600 has a 128 bit bus.

My theory is that the difference between the NVS 120M and the 350M is that the 350M has a 128 bit memory bus.
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post #16 of 23
4/22/06 at 5:52am
Well, I just rang up dell and they told me the 120m has PS 3.0, so I ordered me a d820
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post #17 of 23
4/22/06 at 2:18pm
What about the NVS 110m?
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post #18 of 23
4/23/06 at 7:02am
According to the nvidia site, the 350 has a 64bit memory bus, not 128
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post #19 of 23
4/23/06 at 9:27am

NVS 120M and D820

I have a D820 in my cart with a T2600, WUXGA, 2GB of 667 and the 256 NVS 120M set to go. Does anyone have any reasonable insight into its performance with Flight Simulator 2004 based on its origins in the Go 7400?

Many thanks in advance.
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post #20 of 23
4/23/06 at 10:09am
It will easily handle flight simulator. I have played it on integrated many times.
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