NTZeek

Thanks, yes, that changed the background. Perhaps there was a hiccup in VW that changed both of those settings for me. Now I am getting frequent crashes on simple things such as changing the class of a dimension. Will keep an eye on it and perhaps reinstall if problem persists. Thanks much!

Thanks much! I had forgotten about the class options. I am in orthogonal view, I tried switching to plan and back. Light green disappears when I am in plan, back in orthogonal. Don't have that one figured out yet.

As noted in the subject, I have a light green background & only active class is selectable. If I attempt to select anything that is not the active class nothing happens. I checked everything I could think of. My active layer is fine and I even tried working on a different layer, same results. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Using VW 2013 latest sp

Ahh, thank you Haich. The tech at VW tells me they have a known incompatibility issue with the MS 2013 preview. I will uninstall and try again. I actually really like the 2013 preview. Thanks much

I am having the same problem on both 2011 and 2013. I have: -uninstall and reinstalled -Yes it is in the x86 programs folder -removed quicktime and reinstalled (Correct version that came with VW) -Checked for 3ivx or whatever that codec pack was that was causing issues. -Updated to most recent 306.97 NVidea drivers. -Clean re-install of Nvidea drivers -open program as admin. 2011 was working fine until recently. No newly installed program seemed to cause it other than perhaps a background installed update. Machine is Win 7 64 bit i5 processor with nvidea gtx460 8 gig ram with OS on Kingston HyperX SSD and no other problems.

I am glad to see the topic continue to be requested. The response I received from NAG was that it was a very time consuming process planned to be developed over time. I understand that such a project requires significant resources and that NAG may feel that the current product works, so, gradual modernization seems like an appropriate approach to them. VW has a somewhat unique placement with its 3D capability/price point and flexibility across many disciplines. However, the package is plagued with a much less professional presentation than competitors. Many bugs, and lack of multi-processor support are the two most revolting stains on the product, and they are both symptoms of the same issue: insufficient software development. Certainly VW is behind in multi core support. In my job if an employee is behind and tells me the job is hard I listen, then ascertain ability and effort level of the employee. Many employees at NAG have a very high effort level and are great. The effort level and dedication to speedy rectification of the issue at higher levels is lacking. "It's hard, it takes a long time." BAaaGh! Horse feathers. get your act together and make a quality product. Others are doing it, don't give me excuses, give me results. There is a difference between quality and functionality. Quality is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfill requirements. VW has more functionality than it has quality. Other products of the same grade(level of functionality) fulfill the user requirements of stability, reliability and speed much better. VW may have a few functions that appear to be better than competitors, which may may bring short term sales, but the long term development of a dominant position in the market comes from quality. Multi-processor computing is now ubiquitous. One aspect of quality is conformance with accepted standards, therefore, multi-core support is both a function and a quality issue. When I look at my VW purchase I believe that VW could be the best value if management can set a higher quality requirement and apportion appropriate resources, however, additional user time required due to bugs, lack of multi core support, insufficient documentation and lack of choices on training materials-knock VW off of the upper echelons of the "top value" list. This quality problem is compounded by the fact that choosing to learn VW rather than AutoCAD is a sacrifice because of AutoCAD's market penetration. If I am not going to use an AutoDesk product the alternative must be high quality. Amen I waited for another software package to develop for 6 years. finally stopped waiting and switched to VW. The next 2 releases will determine if I stay.

I don't know, but I have had the same problem. I'd love to make more realistic 3D renderings with great Xfrog plants, but I tried and it simply doesn't work with 3ds files. If any one has a solution I'd love to know. Getting any 3D symbols for plants other than those included seems to be challenging.

I have been able to resolve my issue on my rig 2. I did a re-install of win7 over itself and vectorworks now works fine. The re-install is done by inserting the instal disk, choose upgrade, and wait, and wait. All programs are preserved. It appears that I somehow got a windows component corrupted that affected vectorworks performance. I would still like to see a bug tracking database that users can see and comment on and more dual core support. PS changing quick time versions did not resolve this issue.

Pat Stanford: Thank you for your post. You make some helpful observations. I agree that a tone of venting frustration does not represent all users and usually is not helpful. I hope to make my post as accurate and helpful as possible. My rig 2 listed below is unworkably slow in a file of any substantial size (a landscape design of even .2 acre with grading, irrigation, planting etc.) I can send files to tech support, but my issue is not file specific, it is computer specific. The performance on rig2 seems to scale corresponding to hardware when I compare rig 1 and rig2. Both rigs run quality components with industrial grade hard drives in RAID 5 with a dedicated raid controller. I am not requesting tech support for rig2. All other programs run normally and the health of the machine is good. I used to work in the tech support industry and am very familiar with computer performance issues. I am also not suggesting that VW decrease 3D support or decrease file sizes. I believe this is a necessary part of progress and I value the 3D features of VW. I am stating that were VW to support multithread processing that the severity of this issue would be significantly decreased for every user, even those not posting on the forums. Multithread support is prevalent in the industry. Processing per clock cycle has not increased significantly in the last five years, but the number of processors has, and that seems to be the trend in the future. Also, I have not seen any data that shows a professional VCard will resolve my issues. The little data available seems to suggest otherwise. Additional data on how to optimize performance would also be helpful as would information on when/if VW will support multithread computing. What percentage of VW users have a computer like my rig2? (about 3 years old) I don?t know. I do know that mot systems in use are not cutting edge systems and that customers value the added lifecycle for hardware that results from multithread processing support. I agree that some threats and predictions are overblown; however, hardware requirements, multiprocessor support, bug resolution and stability will certainly influence purchasing for my organization as well as my recommendations for others. For the most part I agree. With regard to #1: I think that as users, we would have better motivation to catalog bug issues if there were a list of known bugs that we could see worked on and updated. When I first started using VW2011 I experienced 2 or more crashes a day. Now I experience maybe 1 week. Most of the time I learn a work around rather than posting. I would, however, be interested in making an effort to document and replicate crashes if I felt it did some good. I think this would also result in an improved user experience. I completely agree. I hope that this feedback is helpful to them.

It certainly took me some adjustment time to get used to 2011 and its quirks, however, I can use it, at least on rig1, rig 2 is slow and annoying. Large file sizes don't turn me off too much, such is life in 3D. What causes me concern is the method of NVW handling the current state of their product. The product has bugs and does not support current gen. hardware (multicore procs.). The increase in 3D capabilities require increased processing power. I haven't seen any replies from NVW that address the concerns expressed. A bug list that is tracked and updated would be nice. I have determined to reduce my reliance on VW because I am unsure about the future. If development continues in the same direction I will need to be able to use another platform. I don't know what percentage of the userbase I represent, however, both those I interact with on the forum and in person seem to hold similar concerns.

Wow. What method do they use internally to track bugs? Do they do it all? A bit disconcerting.

I recently upgraded from a Radeon 3870 (similar to 8800) to a GTX460. I saw a small improvement, maybe 15% in 2D and 3D draws and refreshes. I too am very disappointed in the lack of multi core support. You may want to post in this thread: http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=152843#Post152843 Below is a link to single thread CPU benchmarks. They probably do not directly correlate to VW, but might give an indication of what to expect. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-2010/Cinebench-11.5-Single-threaded,2406.html

The library of available free resources is a valuable casualty to the current situation, however, marginal backward compatibility would be a reasonable trade off if we received a product that was stable, did what it is supposed to do, and supported current hardware. When sacrifices are made and the basics not put right, then the product starts to look like a poor value. Agreed. I can't think of a more attractive reason to upgrade.

Bump. I use a separate program to do this now. I would pay a reasonable sum to be able to do irrigation nin VW. Raincad and others are a good suggestion. Feedback from VW please?

Careful with that upgrade to 2011 taoist. My rig 2 is very slow with VW2011, while it ran 2009 fine. I do think that the added 3D capability is worth it, however, the sooner VW comes into the modern age with multithread processing the better.

Cheer Cheer! Don't forget the multi thread (processor core)support.

Multiple processor core support must be something that the decision makers would like to implement. With the resource usage of 2011 it appears this issue has become more important. I have a Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU @ 3 Ghz with 8 gig of ram and a current generation VCard, but still have some significant wait times and computing resource issues. While the i7 does improve performance per cycle slightly the only way for me to significantly improve processing power appears to be to increase the # of processor cores, however, currently VW doesn't use those additional cores. Any information on the status of consideration for multiple core support would be appreciated.

Same problem here. Very slow. I came here looking for anyone who had advice on hardware upgrades. I upgraded my Vcard and it made a bit of difference, not much though. I am now wondering if 4 cores will make any difference. From what I see probably not. My rig 2 is terribly slow. It's my home rig so am going to have to do something. I wonder if anyone has advice on the most cost efficient upgrade. I am thinking move to DDR3 and a new processor. I have learned to avoid most of the crashes, but I have had them too.