Approved Graphics card drivers

[MMike1]

Another debate raging here at work....

The approved drivers on the SWx site. Are the SPECIFIC ones listed on the site the ONLY ones you should use

OR

The specific ones listed or NEWER?

There are some approved drivers, say for nVidia that are not the latest and greatest drivers from the vendor.

I am of the opinion that we should stick with the specific ones listed on the SWx site. There are others here that think it's ok to go with newer ones.

What's the right answer?

 

[NL8]

I believe the standard is the specific ones or OLDER. Newer ones haven't gone through any testing and can't be guaranteed to work with the your system configuration. I've had users denied proper tech support until the were on approved drivers. Until they made that move all the tech support would say is that it must be the non-certified drivers.

Joe Hasik,
CSWP/SMTL/MTLS
SW 09 x64, SP 4.1
Dell T3400
Intel Core2 Quad
Q6700 2.66 GHz
3.93 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

You should use the driver which works best for your system. Most times that is the driver listed at the SW site, but sometimes the latest and greatest from nVidia or ATI work better ... and sometimes an older driver works better than either of those.

The only real way to be sure is to test, starting with the approved ones from SW.

 

[mcgyvr]

I agree 100% with CorBlimey
Plus I'd think by now with the move to directx that SW would allow any driver as long as its WHQL certified. I'm using newer driver than what is "recommended"

 

[MMike1]

Ahhhhh....on my new machine. Dell precision 4400....solidstate hard 8GB ram, HDMI port....quadro FX1700M

Anyway....thanks for the info

We have a couple of guys (still on 2009) where it gets all "blocky" when they rotate. They have drivers newer than recommended. they have FX 1700's too......I thought it was ill-advised to go with newer.

 

[sldwkmin]

I would always start with the approved driver. If you experience issues consult your VAR or do some testing on your own. Be sure the "software open GL" option is not checked under options>system options>performance. This can cause the blockiness along with having incorrect hardware accelleration settings in the general graphics card settings. With any graphically intense file either large assembly or complicated single part you may get blockiness this is intended. It is the system compensating to maintain motion performance when the graphics are unable to keep up. Again I would always start with the approved driver!

Cole M
CSWP, CSWST, CSWI, CPDM
Certified DriveWorks AE
HP XW4300, 3.4g proc, 2.5g RAM, ATI Fire GL 3100
Dell M90, Core 2 Duo, 4g RAM, Nvidia Quadra FX2500M
Equus (custom), P4, 3.4g proc, 3g RAM, Nvidia Quadro FX3400

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

The 'blockiness' can be adjusted via Tools > Options > System Options > Performance > Level of detail

 

[Eltron]

The approved drivers are the ones that SW has tested and certified. It doesn't necessarily mean they are the only ones that work. They do test them daily, and any issues are usually listed as a note next to the driver on the SW site. If you have issues with a card/driver/SP issue you should let the folks at SW know.

Dan

http://www.eltronresearch.com

Dan's Blog

 

[gwubs]

I am not aware of SW "going to Direct X" Is there any news release on this topic?

 

[takedownca]

If they had actually gone to DirectX, I would've bought a GeForce 2 weeks ago instead of a Quadro. Other than the resources it would take SW to change their code for DX, I think they would be reluctant since video card manufacturers probably like being able to charge premium dollar for their workstation OpenGL cards while crippling OGL on their gaming cards. One hand washes the other.

 

[mcgyvr]

WOW.. I'm amazed that SW hasn't gone to directX yet. I just assumed they did with Windows 7/Vista "not really" supporting OpenGL.
+1 for autodesk inventor as they went to directx about 3+ years ago and haven't looked back. So much nicer to go with a gaming card (just got myself an ATI HD5870 for my new CAD rig) instead of being stuck with Nvidia quadro FX price tags.

 

[mjcole]

Often times for people running multiple versions if possible on same machine the 2010 driver and 2009 drivers are different versions. I'd think the later version 2010 for instance should also work with 2009. I'm not going to use 2009 shut down SolidWorks restart or install the 2010 driver then use 2010 and bounce back and forth. Iinstalled the SW driver for the 2009 version but it didn't support newer version capabilities of the new card.

If you use an approved workstation and driver it may be on 2 lists the (Unspecified) select card MFG and the Dell M4400 > ATI/nVidia (FirePro ####/QFX ####) I talked with a vendor at world about this I think ATI because Quadro FX is getting old like Fire GL did for ATI a while back. My next Graphics Card I may want to buy with subscription.

It's a waste of time to classify cards as Gaming or CAD cards can't a person want to do or be able to do both? You can have a gaming card more powerful than a CAD card but would SolidWorks recommend you use it? Look at the specs for the cards you buy because the numbers mean nothing really only 9900 looks better than a 1750 Frames per second, bus speed, and other specs are often shown in performance tests. I was told but have yet to try an ATI program that checks how much your system is using in SolidWorks and what card is needed to display your assemblies smoothly. I'll repost the link when I find it.

Desktop Engineering does Graphics Cards reviews with nice comparison tables that show specs and performance data.
ATI Fire Pro

http://www.deskeng.com/articles/aaasmn.htm

http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/FirePro_Accelerating_SolidWorks.pdf

NVidia

http://www.deskeng.com/Media/PublicationsArticle/newgraphics.pdf

http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_11761.html

While looking into getting a new laptop I started a spreadsheet that shows support for Graphics Cards and change by year. This was before win7 has been fully certified or updated on certifications page.

https://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/videocardtesting.html

Michael