Zooming while screen refreshes = frequent crashes in VW 2008

[rDesign]

I've been having frequent crashes (5-10 times per day, or more) in VW 2008 that happen when I have something selected, the screen is refreshing, and I try to zoom in/out with my mouse wheel. I get the spinning beach ball, and then it crashes. 6 times and counting this morning already...

I have repaired my permissions, reset my PRAM, reset the SMU and I have already completely reinstalled VW 2008 once (because Leopard broke my VW Help files).

These crashes happen on different files, but it's fairly consistent: if I try to zoom while the screen refreshes, which takes longer on larger files (10mb), there's a good chance VW will crash.

At first I was running VW2008 on an old G5 under 10.4.11, now on a new MBP under 10.5.2, and for me, VW2008 is crashing much more frequently than version 12.5 ever did.

I have already emailed this into bugsubmit, I wanted to see if anyone else is suffering crashes as often as I am.

Tim

[RonMan]

I have seen this problem, to varying degrees, since version 12.0. If there is a solution I don't know of it.

I just don't zoom during a redraw. It can also happen if you zoom during a Final Renderworks rendering, but not as often.

[rDesign]

Thanks RonMan.

Sad to hear this problem has been around since version 12- I never ran into it back then, or at least not as often as I am in VW2008.

If VW didn't have to redraw the entire screen after every operation, then I wouldn't be bothered quite as much. Other CAD programs I've used have a separate command to 'redraw' the screen- which I have to say makes for a much more fluid drafting experience because you determine when you want to redraw the screen.

Having to pause after every thing I do, just so I don't crash is a real problem. And it's not like you or I have older generation hardware for which we should have to be waiting for screen redraws.

This reminded me of Sean Flaherty's interview over at Architosh: Features > Chatside with Sean Flaherty, CEO of Nemetschek North America when he was asked about how NNA dealt with speed items in VW2008:

(SF): Generally in this release we have made a big push to keep the same kind of feeling overall, because people get into a VectorWorks rhythm as they draw and they like things to happen at this certain kind of lag. It is comparable to 12.5.

I gotta say I'm not too crazy about the 'lag', especially when it makes me constantly crash.

Tim

[Greg_at_ils]

People actually like the lag? That's one of my biggest gripes and one of the reasons I switched to AutoCad at one point back during version 7.

[RonMan]

Tim,

I want to add one thing to my comments, since I got my new MacPro in January, I have had this problem exactly twice. Prior to that it happened at least once a week if I was in a hurry (often). I suspect the cause has to do the the graphics card or the fast CPU, but I have no proof.

RonMan

[JHEarcht]

In VW12 I experienced frequent crashes at the worst possible time, when I "got into a rhythm which included lots of quick zooming and panning. Needless to say, having to re-re-restart VW really interrupts your rhythm, and your deadline push.

I haven't run into that particular problem with VW13, but then I quickly found it to be unstable in many other ways, so I had to quit and go back to VW12 in order to get some work done. I did put in a new graphics card which didn't help VW13, but I'm crossing my fingers that it has fixed the zooming and panning glitch in VW12. However, judging from the first post in this thread, I'm not so sure about VW13.