Q:

Quicksilver Hardware Renderer

Is it possible to use the Quicksilver GPU accelerated rendering plugin on other Autodesk applications besides 3ds max, preferably AutoCAD 2012?
http://area.autodesk.com/renderingr/quicksilver

A:

There currently is no official support of the Quicksilver Hardware Renderer for Autodesk products other than 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design.
However, AutoCAD uses a built-in OpenGL renderer which is more beneficial when using Nvidia Quadro or ATI FireGL GPU's over consumer graphics cards; but only accelerates certain tasks such as vertex coordinates and mental images: iray, most of the main rendering is done on the CPU.
Many users often install 3ds Max in combination with other Autodesk or 3D modelling software strictly for final rendering due to its superior rendering tools.
I have decided to switch from AutoCAD to 3ds Max despite the user interface, but due to the support of V-Ray, Shaderlight, finalRender, iray and most importantly Quicksilver. There may be other third-party renderers that I have missed or to come in future releases, but 3ds Max is always Autodesk's first foot forward and despite the learning curve will always have more advantages including GPU accelerated final rendering.

