![]() You may have already read horror stories about Vista performance, but these are largely based on testing using early or prerelease drivers, and your mileage may vary.Įxpect things to improve as time goes on. ![]() In the short term, at least, you can expect many 3D applications to perform badly on Vista. Despite the extensive prerelease testing period, graphics card manufacturers and application writers generally aren't well prepared to cope with this change. What does this mean for those of you who shelled out large amounts for graphics cards with good OpenGL support during the AutoCAD 2007 cycle? It all depends on how well the manufacturer writes Vista drivers for your particular card. In particular, Microsoft has dropped direct support for the OpenGL standard in favor of its own proprietary system, Direct3D. The Vista graphics system is completely different. Windows Vista has arrived, bringing with it a whole new world of 3D graphics issues. If you thought the year 2006 was an "interesting" time for 3D graphics, then 2007 promises to give you more of the same and then some. Test carefully first and be prepared to restore a safe copy of the original as a fallback. Obviously, you must take great care before doing so. If you're feeling really adventurous, you could distribute your own modified version of the XML file so AutoCAD doesn't automatically disable hardware acceleration. If you have hundreds of users to support, you probably don't feel like doing this on each PC. This list will tend to lag behind the latest drivers, so you may need to adjust the settings in the 3dconfig command to get the best use out of your system. If in doubt, do some research first.Īlso, make sure you keep your Autodesk Certified Hardware XML Database up to date. I've killed a system stone dead more than once by installing updated drivers that the manufacturer's Web site claimed were appropriate for the system. Although I'm no fan of an automatic update-to-the-latest mindset, it appears to be the best thing to do in most cases as far as graphics drivers go. The graphics card manufacturers are constantly updating their drivers, fixing lots of bugs you didn't know existed and improving performance too in many cases. When something doesn't render properly in a CAD application, it can negate the whole point of your expensively constructed model. When something doesn't render properly in a game, it's not that important (unless you're very obsessive about games, in which case you probably don't have time to read this). Sometimes it doesn't do the job properly. The hardware and software combination that puts those pretty pictures on the screen is a complex beast doing a complex job. Of course, buying a card approved by Autodesk doesn't guarantee a bug-free 3D experience - far from it. There's no way you or I could hope to reproduce Autodesk's testing efforts, so take advantage of Autodesk's work and read carefully before taking the plunge into what is a very significant portion of a system's expense. This list is the result of Autodesk doing a great deal of tedious testing of various card and driver combinations. People thinking of buying cards for 3D use should first consult AutoCAD's Graphics Hardware List. Autodesk shifted the burden of 3D graphics calculations from AutoCAD to the graphics card and driver, so picking the right card became very important. Lots of people bought new hardware for AutoCAD 2007, especially graphics cards. Last year, AutoCAD 2007's new 3D graphics engine introduced a range of new issues to be considered by users, managers and IT departments. ![]() What To Do About 3D Graphics Problems (Bug Watch AutoCAD Tutorial) 9 Apr, 2007 By: Steve Johnson Interesting times lie ahead for 3D graphics users.
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