System Freezes and Screen Goes Black momentarily when running Vectorworks 2024 Designer Suite

[High_Viz]

Hi All, hoping someone out here can lend me a hand!?? 

 

System Freezes and Screen Goes Black momentarily when running Vectorworks 2024 Designer Suite

 

I was running Vectorworks 2024 Designer Suite on my machine, but with 12GB RAM and 2 x Nvidia Quadro 2000 Cards , each 1GB VRAM.

The screen kept going black at random points as i was drawing and modelling a small residential project.

Sometimes the system would freeze for a few seconds then come back to life, other times it would crash.

I deduced that the times the system was crashing seemed to coincide with an auto save attempt [more often than not]

I can seemingly reproduce the blackscreen at will by clicking 'save', when the screen will go black for a few seconds...

So I moved my auto save location from my one drive account, to my NAS where I save my project work

I also replaced the network card with a PCIE card as I know that the onboard network card had issues with connection dropping out, and wondered if it was having a lag moment when connecting to the internet or network, but the problem is still there with both a PCIE network connection and a USB 2 adaptor to RJ45 network cable

Still the problem persists...

 

I had tried to solve the problem after reading recommended hardware requirements, by adding ram [now 48GB] and by adopting a slightly more powerful graphics card Nvidia Quadro 4200 [4GB VRAM] but it really didn't help at all.

 

I have installed the latest graphics driver for my card as well, I have uninstalled the driver and reinstalled the driver... still the issue persists...

I searched the knowledge database for "black screen" but didn't find very much apart from advice to reinstall the graphics drivers whilst Vectorworks was not running... that's not helped so far....

 

Thank you for checking this out  - it would be great to know if anyone has solved similar or got any ideas that I can try?

Edited February 3 by High_Viz

[jcogdell]

Even after your upgrade, you are well below the minimum basic systems for running 2024. I'm sorry to say but your system is simply to old to be upgraded to the recommended minimum system specs.

[High_Viz]

oh that's a shame @jcogdell id reviewed the minimum spec, and surpassed those quite easily in terms of machine performance - the machine is OLD yes, granted, but still a powerful machine, I had thought its still powerful enough to run Vectorworks comfortably according to the published hardware requirements guide... unless of course, am I missing something?

 

Is there something not in the specification sheet that I've not considered? just be useful to know when replacing my machine and I'd value your opinion as to why my machine won't run Vectorworks [besides its old!].

 

The following is the specification taken from the installation page of Vectorworks 2024, and my admittedly old machine does meet all the requirements for a lesser level, and even meets the Mid level profile - Unless I'm missing something here?

 

I don't think the machine spec is the issue here, perhaps... I spoke to Technical Support today whom confirmed that my machine will run Vectorworks 2024 for type of medium and small residential projects I frequently tend to be working on...

 

Mid-level Profile:

For medium-sized projects, complex models/drawings with a medium level of details (such as small commercial projects, mid-size entertainment venues, and residential site modeling)

 

Processor:

2.0+ GHz Intel Core i7 or AMD Ryzen 7 with six cores or better

Meets requirements: HP Z600 Has 2.93 GHz XEON eight cores

 

RAM:

16GB or more

Meets requirements: HPZ600 has 48GB of RAM

 

Graphics Card:
Windows: DirectX 11 compatible, 4GB VRAM or more

Meets requirements: Nvidia Quadro K4200 Direct X 12 compatible, 4GB VRAM onboard

 

Display Resolution:

1920 x 1080 or higher

Meets requirements: Display at  1920 x 1080

 

Hard Disk:

10GB of free disk space is required for the installation. 30GB or more is required for a full installation with all libraries.

Case-sensitive file system volumes are not supported.

Installing Vectorworks on flash storage (SSD) is recommended.

Meets requirements: 900GB SSD Installed

 

I'd welcome the clarification on the above if you can tell why you think my machine might not be compatible?

Edited February 5 by High_Viz

[Ross Harris]

It might have the speed on paper, but it's the architecture of the components. A system from in 2009 is practically prehistoric compared to systems in the last 3-4 years. Bus speeds, memory bandwidth, memory type (DDR3 in your rig vs. DDR5), PCIe lanes are considerably faster on current cpus, which the software (windows, directx, drivers, vw) in 2024 is written to leverage.

I had the same issue years ago with my old 2008 cheese grater Mac Pro - great machine, but the architecture just let it down and was put out to pasture in 2015.

When looking at minimum system specs, you might need to consider the other things you'll be using, like chrome running lots of tabs, pdfs open in acrobat, outlook - known resource hogs. System specs only consider the software they represent, not real world use cases of a computer with multiple programs running - which they can't - no vendor can account for individuals computing workflows/habits.

[High_Viz]

Looks like I need to find an (affordable) new machine!!

[jcogdell]

@Ross Harris
Thanks for clearly explaining, Iwas having trouble working out how to explain the differences since I'm not a hardware expert

[High_Viz]

I've been hunting for a suitable new machine, I'm adapting an off the shelf gaming rig [good balance of performance and cost] - and have sorted a new graphics card as part of that new build - I will try the new card in the Z600 to see if it sorts any of the errors before installing in the new rig - I've got nothing to lose... and its a bit of a relief that a replacement machine is now in hand.