Problems with Non-Certified Graphic Card 3

[cinnamongirl]

I recently did a gig with a client who had a workstation that was basically a gaming PC running SolidWorks. It had an NVIDIA GT240 gaming video card which seemed to give me all sorts of trouble. Not sure if this was because of the graphic card but I experienced problems that went beyond refreshing the screen, such as assembly parts that would shift out of place even though they were fully mated and sheet views with the wrong components and/or exploded lines. Is this due to the graphics cards, or could it be because of some other reason? Can the wrong graphic card affect more than just how quickly a screen refreshes?

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Speed of screen refresh is probably one of the more minor problems.

A non-approved card can cause all sorts of problems. Most times it is simple graphics glitches, but can be as severe as not allowing SW to boot ... although I haven't read of that problem for a long time.

 

[SBaugh]

A non supported card can cause all sort of problems, but it can't move parts in an assembly. However if the graphic is not updating, then that would probably be considered a card problem. One way to determine that is if you opened a file and it was fine, made some changes and it was not. Closed it saved it and reopened it and it was where it should be then its a graphics card. But it will not cause random things to fly around the screen, that would probably be something else.

Graphic issues usually result in bad display or serious crashing\lock ups.

My home box right before the power supply went out has been a Game box since the day I bought it back 6-7years ago. It ran SW 2010 pretty good and it had a Geforce card it with a Gaming driver. If it crashed I kind of knew it was the card, but I rarely had any crashes with my box. My work machine crashed more often than my home machine.

I am the first to harp on Graphics card, but some times if properly maintained and nutured, you might be surprised...

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
Berry Plastics
Cad Admin\Design Engineer

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[cinnamongirl]

Thank you for the replies. Yes, the problem I had wasn't that parts were shifting, they just looked that way and I several times I had to switch between display states/exploded views and then go back until things looked right. In one particular assembly, a screw had a concentric mate but one certain view showed it off to the side of the hole. Other cases involved the drawing document, some views would appear empty (even though you could see the "box" around it) or show incomplete assemblies.

Anyway, I spent hours trying to fix something that apparently didn't need fixing, just a SolidWorks-certified graphics card. I didn't think that the wrong card could mess up so much more than the screen refresh.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

I'm assuming you already know of this site ... but just in case;

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

 

[cinnamongirl]

Yes, I've looked at that page several times, many people I know have suggested that. If only my last boss had looked at it before building my workstation. But like I said, I didn't think that the wrong card would have so many consequences.

 

[jxc0yjp]

That graphics card should be able to run solid works fine you may have a driver issue with the card I would start with up dating the software

 

[GRF]

Have you tried to set OPENGL to software instead of hardware? Under options\performance check off "Use software OpenGL".

It could also be a OS issue. When SW2009 came out I could run it on a home computer running XP. Only real issue was rotating an assembly would look like rotating blocks instead of the real shapes. Once I formated and installed Vista it would no longer run. Did not have your funky graphics issue but it would radomly crash in 1-10 minute intervals.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

GRF ... The nVidia GT240 does not support OpenGL, so the Use Software OpenGL option will be automatically selected and greyed out.

 

[KevinDeSmet]

Solidworks does appear to be very sensititve when it comes to graphics, I understand its hard to make it foolproof with so many cards out there, but there's got to be something they can do to make it less able to break.

Gamers cards giving beef... maybe.

But I have seen workstation class cards give beef too and then it points to a driver issue but that's the point where I gotta say the graphics are to fragile!!

Certified SolidWorks Professional

 

[ScottHeiden]

It's not the graphics card - I have the same problem with one of my assemblies whenever I insert it in a drawing.

The assembly was useable for about a month in SW2011 (original assembly was built in SW2009) but suddenly began to act weird like your assembly. It works fine when you just open the assembly but screws itself up when it is placed in a drawing.

Once it resolves in the drawing some parts fly off into space (ignoring their mates),suppressed parts are visible although they are still listed as being suppressed and other parts disappear from sight. When I switch back to look at the original assembly it is also messed up but in a different way than the view in the drawing. If I delete the drawing then CTRL-Q the assembly everything pops back into place. The same thing happened when my VAR used the assembly on his computer.

Solidworks has the assembly and will hopefully fix whatever is causing this behavior.

 

[ScottHeiden]

Your problem was caused by Large Assembly Mode (lightweight). Turn it off under Tools-Options-System Options-Assembly so parts will always be fully resolved rather than opening in Lightweight Mode and your problems are gone - my assembly works perfectly now.

Solidworks has assigned an SPR to the bug and will hopefully fix it with the next service pack.

 

[cinnamongirl]

Was the graphics card also the reason I got errors when switching among different configurations of an assembly? I couldn't find anything wrong with the file so I assume it was graphics cars.

 

[JMirisola]

What sort of errors do you get?

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog

 

[cinnamongirl]

Don't recall exactly what the errors were. A lot of them were on the model tree but still allowed me to continue on with the assembly. It was just very annoying.

 

[cinnamongirl]

I do recall some of the errors now, most of them were mates that shouldn't have been affected by switching configurations. The parts corresponding to the mates were left untouched yet I kept getting error messages.

 

[JMirisola]

Often times mate errors will occur while switching configurations because a mate that should be suppressed in a particular configuration isn't. It could be, too, that you just need to hit 'Ctrl+Q' to do a force rebuild. Sometimes, when switching configurations, not everything rebuilds from the get-go.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog

 

[cinnamongirl]

Just curious to all you posters. What if the workstation at your new job lacked a SolidWorks certified graphics cards, would you demand one as a condition? Again I was provided a non-certified system (i.e. gaming card) for a short gig I just did. And again I ran into problems, this time program crashes, slowness, and memory problems (I know, I know, it's the system's memory, but I wondered if the wrong graphics card could've caused this).

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

When running SolidWorks, an incompatible graphics card can cause all of the problems you listed above.

If it's a desktop computer, a simple switch of the graphics card with an approved card, will offer proof.

 

[gwubs]

It may not be possible to demand a certified card, but if you can get the person in charge to sit down long enough to understand that stability can be severely compromised by non certified card and drivers combinations, you are more than half way there. Many times the people in charge of workstation procurement think they are just specing a machine for the typical employee to do some Word and Excel, and Solitaire, with some surfing at break time. We just recently got upgraded to 8 gigs of RAM, but the reaction before that was "You have 4 gigs - that should be lots". It wasn't however, and with RAM prices where they are, it just doesn't make sense not to get your hardware up to snuff. Some employers just don't understand how much frequent glitches and crashes set you back in the course of a day. They mean well, but they can't relate because it doesn't happen to them.