I finally found a fool-proof solution for all the people who have the selection issues and slow flat-shade modes.
There’s a little bit of fumbling around involved, but it’s well worth it.
What you have to do is this:
.) The thing is that this problem only affects newer Nvidia GPUs, I think it starts at the G71 chipset. And it only happens with the 9x.xx drivers and newer. So what we have to do is to change the 8x.xx driver, so that the driver is actually compatible with the newer GeForce GPUs as well. DO NOT try to let Windows just use the .inf files - your screen will go all funky and it’ll do you no good. My instructions:
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Download a 9x.xx driver from the Nvidia Homepage - I used 91.36. Also download the 84.26 driver from the Driver archive - or whatever 8x.xx driver you want, it should work with all of them. EXTRACT both of the .exe files to your Desktop. That’s important.
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Now I looked closer into WHY the 8x.xx drivers don’t work for my card. What Nvidia did was to create 2 files which specify Vendor and Device IDs for the GPUs - so the installer scans through the files and checks your card. If your card has one of the Vendor and Device IDs that those files specify, you’ll be able to install the driver. If not, it’ll pop up an incompatibility error.
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Open up the Modes.txt. I’m pretty sure that you don’t have to configure this one, but I did it nonetheless. Scroll down to the
[nv_SoftwareDeviceSettings]
part. Now, add the line for your card. You find the line for your card in the modes.txt of the extracted 9x.xx archive. For me, it was:
// 029C - NVIDIA Quadro FX 5500
Now, there are 2 brackets in front of the line, so it probably doesn’t matter whether you change this file or not, but I did it and everything works fine, so try it as well.
Here’s the important part:
a) Open up the NV4_DISP.inf file.
Scroll down to the [NVIDIA.Mfg] section.
There, again, you have to add a line for your card. For me, it was:
%NVIDIA_G71.DEV_029C.1% = nv4_WSApps_NV3x_DOEB, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_029C
You find the corresponding line for your card in the NV4_DISP.inf file of the extracted 9x.xx archive.
b) Scroll down again to ‘; Localizable Strings’ (without the quotes)
Add the name for your card. Mine was:
NVIDIA_G71.DEV_029C.1 = “NVIDIA Quadro FX 5500”
SAVE THE FILE.
Now, go ahead and install the 84.26 driver. It’ll scan the file and find the matching vendor and device IDs, so it won’t interrupt the installation because of incompatibility issues. The driver works fine, so don’t worry.
After that’s done, just reboot your machine and you’re all set:
Maya will work in Dual View Mode, Flat Shade is super-fast again and there are no selection issues, no lags, the artisan Brush is drawn the way it should and everything works just fine.
Granted, it’s a little painful at first, but it’s not as bad as it looks here. It’s just a long text, but it’s really easy to do. Nice!