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Graphics Card Problems and Recommendations

Graphics Card Recommendations:

LTI Optics' software products utilize OpenGL graphics libraries. Different graphics cards and graphics drivers work with these libraries to various levels of success. When the graphics driver settings are incompatible with the manner in which our software needs to communicate with the graphics card, various types of problems can result, including:

  1. Slow graphics responsiveness.
  2. Poor graphics display via incorrect polygon depth sorting or no screen refreshes.
  3. General program crashes whether related to a graphics function or other general program interface interaction.

These types of problems are generally solved by one of the following:

  1. Updating the graphics driver to the latest version produced by the card manufacturer. Graphics drivers can be obtained from the card manufacturer's website.
  2. Running the card at the highest possible color setting. Problems are more frequent at lower color settings because the driver has to do more work to convert desired colors to the limited range available.
  3. Turning down or off driver optimization (acceleration) settings. These settings are generally accessed via the Advanced button described in the graphics display settings dialog. There is usually a tab labeled Troubleshooting (a label curiously indicating the settings can lead to trouble).
  4. If the card has a specific driver version and driver settings that are shown to be compatible with SolidWorks™, then try that version and the recommended settings. This has proved successful in configuring some cards to work with Photopia and allowing their optimization settings to be turned back to “full.”

In many cases, all of our graphics functionality works as it should with the card optimizations set to full when the graphics driver is up to date and the color setting is set to the highest level. But this is not the case for all types of graphics cards and can even vary for different card models within the same product family.

Graphics cards and drivers are in a constant state of change, which makes it impossible for us to guaranty full compatibility with any particular product. Given the current state of affairs in the graphics industry, the best recommendations we can offer are to choose the most common cards available since these will be the cards we are most likely to orient our software towards. At this time, the nVIDIA GeForce product line is quite common and in use on many of the computers at LTI Optics. Note however, that even within this product line the same software behaves differently on different card/driver combinations. Nonetheless, this is still a product line that we consider safe to work within since we have good success with many of the products within it. The nVIDIA Quadro cards are a higher end card set for which we have seen more difficulties. Without the proper driver settings, our software will generally crash as soon as a CAD view is used. See the FAQ for this particular card for instructions on how it should be configured.

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Overlapping in Dialog Boxes:

In some cases the graphics window in the Import Luminaire Wizard and the Reflector Design View screens are offset so that they overlap with other parts of the dialogs. In the Reflector Design View this prevents entering values in some of the grid cells.

This problem is seen on some graphics cards when the font size setting in Windows is set to Large or Extra Large. If this is a problem on your graphics card, then you need to reset your font size back to Normal. To do this, right click your mouse on your desktop and choose Properties for the pop-up menu. Then go to the Appearance tab and set the Font size to Normal as shown in the image below.

windows font size dialog

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nVIDIA Quadro graphics card recommendations:

There are 2 possible configuration options that allow this card to work with Photopia. If the card is not configured with one of these options, then Photopia is likely to crash as soon as anything is done in a CAD view.

  1. The first option is the preferred method. This involves setting the card's Custom OpenGL settings to be compatible with SolidWorks™. Even if you are using a different CAD program, this setting seems to be compatible with most other CAD software as well as Photopia. To do this, follow these steps: Start menu > Settings > Control Panel > Display Properties > Settings tab > Advanced button > Quadro tab. An additional window should pop up to the left of the dialog. Select the “Additional OpenGL Settings” link. Now at the bottom of the main dialog with the Quadro tab, you should see an option labeled Custom OpenGL Application Settings. Select SolidWorks™ from the drop down list. If you do not see the “Additional OpenGL Settings” link on the pop up window, then you have a newer driver version with a different interface. In this case, select for the “Performance & Quality Settings” link. Then select SolidWorks™ from the Active Profile drop down list in the Quadro tab of the main dialog. In regards to the driver version, in general most customers have found that changing the settings is all that is required, however some customers have reported that their problems are only solved with a particular driver version. For the best information about choosing a driver version that works, see the www.solidworks.com website and follow the link on their main page to information about graphics cards. You will then be taken to a screen where you can choose your card manufacturer (nVIDIA), a version of SolidWorks (choose all), and your operating system. We have had some customers with the Quadro FX Go 1400 card recommend driver versions 76.50, 03-24-2005 and 84.26, 06-12-2006, with which they have had success.
  2. The second option is to turn off all card optimizations. This is not ideal however, since it could have a negative impact on other applications. To do this, follow these steps: Start menu > Settings > Control Panel > Display Properties > Settings tab > Advanced button > Troubleshoot tab. Slide the slider bar all the way to the left, so the optimization settings are set to None.

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