AutoCAD 2011 Designers Can Use NVIDIA Quadro Certified Graphics

By DE Editors

NVIDIA has announced that NVIDIA Quadro graphics processing units (GPUs) have been certified for AutoCAD 2011.

Autodesk and NVIDIA collectively spend more than 2,000 engineering hours annually certifying Quadro GPUs for AutoCAD, according to NVIDIA. In addition, NVIDIA has invested more than 10 years in application specific optimizations.

“Autodesk certifies and recommends NVIDIA Quadro for use with AutoCAD 2011,” says Guri Stark, Autodesk vice president, AutoCAD and Platform Products. “By upgrading to a Quadro, millions of AutoCAD users worldwide can take full advantage of the application’s newest 3D features, experience superior image quality, and realize true interactive performance.”

Designers running AutoCAD 2011 on Quadro professional GPUs can also realize significant performance increases, according to NVIDIA. AutoCAD benchmarks show Quadro delivering:

• Up to 6x higher performance in ‘3D Hidden’ visual style
• Up to 3x faster interactive manipulation of models in ‘Conceptual’ visual style
• Up to 2x gains in speed with the ‘Realistic’ and new ‘Shades of Gray’ visual styles

In addition, Quadro users will be able to experience higher image quality using the “Smooth Lines” option (enabled by hardware anti-aliasing) in all of the visual styles in AutoCAD 2011. When zooming, panning, and spinning, Quadro GPUs maintain interactivity and deliver a visually accurate model.

For more information, visit NVIDIA.