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Video card tweaks

Video card tweaks

Video card tweaks

(OP)
On my "home" system I have an ATI All in Wonder 9600 video card. I know it is not approved by SW (2007SP5) but seems to work well enough to practice on.. for the most part.

Except for an annoying problem while working on a drawing. The lines will alternate between solid (normal) and then change to dashed, and on occasion different views. This seems to be a random thing and will occasionally change during a mouse over event, or zooming in / out, moving screen.... <GGRRRR>

 
I am blaming my video card...which I can not easily change.. but perhaps this is indicative of something else...perhaps a setting. On a very bland notebook this issue (same drawing parts etc.) does not occur.

Anyone with any thoughts.. or perhaps a link to some "tweak your card to work in SW" places

RE: Video card tweaks

Try enabling software OpenGL.  That tells SW not to use your video card.

-handleman, CSWP (The new, easy test)

RE: Video card tweaks

Two possible solutions for you:

1) an easy one:
This advice improved performance for me, although I use a NVidia card:
"Just make sure that the Anti-Aliasing and Anthroscopic filtering are set to "application controled" or you will get some weird graphical anomalies in SW."

2) a more difficult, but possibly more rewarding one:
You could also try to softmod your card to a FireGL X2 card. It's just a trick to let your system think it is using a FireGL X2, which is possible because the hardware on the card is similar.
My search for and experiences with softmodding my 8800gts learned me that you need luck. I still experience the occasional glitch, but overall it gave me a great improvement. Other users had less luck than I, little had perfect performance.
Start your quest here: http://www.rage3d.com/board/archive/index.php?t-33740344.html OR here http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-227800.html

good luck 2u

RE: Video card tweaks

(OP)
Thanks.. Tried Handleman advice yesterday.. unfortunately there is no "one" enable do not enable setting in my Catalyst Control Center.. I enabled a Direct 3D setting "Enable geometric instancing" and in a brief test my drawing in SW stayed stable. My choices in OpenGL were enable triple buffering and Force 24 bit Z buffer depth. Selecting either of those made no difference to my drawing / line problem.

On your (Pietje) suggestion. The Anti-Aliasing was checked as was the Anisotropic filter  (defaults ?)  the Adaptive Anti-Aliasing was not so I checked it. Now will spend some time in the SW drawing mode to see the effect.. then remove the changes made yesterday and see if the change today helps narrow this down.

Will look into the link on tricking my card and see what it involves..
 

RE: Video card tweaks

"Use Software OpenGL" is a setting in SW, not your graphics card.

In SolidWorks:
Tools> Options> System Options> Performance (towards the bottom).

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: Video card tweaks

(OP)
<OOPS>
But... on my system it is grayed out and not selectable..and thus easy to overlook.. anyway that will have to be my excuse..
Thanks

RE: Video card tweaks

(OP)
Thanks... "little" things like that would be really hard to figure out by yourself..

To all those that freely share their knowledge in this group Thanks again for helping me with my endeavor to get a working knowledge of this program.

RE: Video card tweaks

I don't know if this still applies, but there was a post some time ago on the UG NX forum (thread561-141387: Turn your game card into a high end CAD card...for free!) about a bit of software called RivaTuner that "unlocked" gaming cards to provide some of the functionality and performance of "profesional" cards.
Might be worth a look.

bc.
2.4GHz Core2 Quad, 4GB RAM,
Quadro FX4600.

RE: Video card tweaks

bc's tip is the same as I suggested. Again, no success garanteed.
Also do not underestimate that with the software opengl function turned on, overall performance will go south.
My suggestion on the settings for anti-aliasing and anistropic filtering are applicable in NVIDIA Control Panel. I do not know if these settings are identical in Catalyst (Ati)... I do know that in the past I swapped my ATI card for a Nvidia one, because I had much difficulty to get it to work in SW. Other users had no problems at all, so again, you need some luck.
good luck

RE: Video card tweaks

(OP)
For the time being... AnnaWood's explanation on how to turn on  the software OpenGL seems to have done the trick.. at least for the first hour of playing in a drawing. The idea of tinkering with my ATI card has some appeal but this seems like a good winter project..  

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