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Video card woes


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When I put a brand new, expensive Radeon Mac Edition 32 MB video card in

my Mac G3 I thought I was going to be in rendering heaven.

Unfortunately, there seems to be some incompatibility problems. Namely,

1)object handles are invisible (unless the object is locked), and 2)the

rules are grayed and show only the major divisions. The problems go away

and return during a work session (I'm unable to determine what action it

takes to cause the reversals). As you can guess, it is impossible to

work without handles.

Any guess as to the reason and how to fix this problem?

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I have the same problem with my new 533MHz G4 with NVIDIA GeForce" MX video-card!!! Reducing the colors to 256 solves the problems with VW but is not really a acceptable. According to a message on Apple Support Discussions replacing the NVIDIA drivers with the ATI drivers willhelp too!! ?????

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I have the same problem with my new 533MHz G4 with NVIDIA GeForce" MX video-card!!! Reducing the colors to 256 solves the problems with VW but is not really a acceptable. According to a message on Apple Support Discussions replacing the NVIDIA drivers with the ATI drivers willhelp too!! ?????

How knows more about this topic?

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hello -

We are getting ready to purchase a new G4, and I just posted a question (in this forum) about whether or not to upgrade our order with a higher priced graphics card. Are others with the newest G4's and faster (32MB) graphics cards experiencing these problems?

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d. s h a f f e r

a r c h i t e c t

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The corrupted video problem has been around since VW8.5 and maybe earlier. I have seen various video corruptions on a Mac 6100 with G3 card, a Beige G3 and a new Powerbook. Everyone points the finger at everyone else. I think it is a VW problem. It occurs across many different video cards, and did not exist before VW 8.0.

[This message has been edited by cosmiccosmic (edited 01-29-2001).]

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I recently posted this repsonse to a question about hardware configurations, and am posting it again here in response to this thread because it seems relevant:

I'm pretty sure that VW/RW isn't currently designed to make use of today's blazingly fast and wonderfully designed graphics accelerators and their respective GPU's. You'll have to ask NNA why.

Check the approved application specs on most mid to high end cards (Elsa, 3DLabs, Hercules {which actually is Guillemot}, etc.) and you won't see VW mentioned anywhere.

That being said, for the current release of VW/RW you should focus on CPU and RAM. Get the fastest and most you can, respectively.

JF

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My office set me up with a new 533MHz G4 with NVIDIA GeForce" MX video-card. I have called Nemetschek tech support and Apple tech support with out any success. I replaced the drivers with the Radeon drivers and all seems to be ok but I have not seen any big increase in speed in fact I ran the Vector Test file and it is the same speed as an G3 500.

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quote:

Originally posted by rjtiedeman:

My office set me up with a new 533MHz G4 with NVIDIA GeForce" MX video-card. I have called Nemetschek tech support and Apple tech support with out any success. I replaced the drivers with the Radeon drivers and all seems to be ok but I have not seen any big increase in speed in fact I ran the Vector Test file and it is the same speed as an G3 500.

I haved a new G4/466 with the nvidia card. Same problem no handles. Also when drawing lines or creating objects, the object is invisible during creation. My other computer with OS8.51 and an older video card has no such problem. I'll post more when I learn more.

Donald Wardlaw

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NNA - PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS POSTING. THANK YOU.

I just received my new G4 with ATI Radeon card... I have not selection handles in VW and the rulers are screwed up (numbers are visible, but no 'tick' marks.) When I switch to 256 colors, the problem IS NOT solved. What can I do to solve this problem.

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d. s h a f f e r

a r c h i t e c t

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Try disabling the ATI Resource Manager extension. Gerrit Vanoppen on the VectorWorks mailing list commented just today that this solved a similar problem on his machine.

Caleb Strockbine

caleb@nemetschek.net

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quote:

Originally posted by Caleb Strockbine:

Try disabling the ATI Resource Manager extension. Gerrit Vanoppen on the VectorWorks mailing list commented just today that this solved a similar problem on his machine.

Caleb Strockbine

caleb@nemetschek.net

Hello Caleb -

Thanks for the tip. I tried disabling the ATI Reesources Manager extension, and my Ruler and Selection Handle problems were solved. However, with this extension not working, there is a serious degradation of graphics performance. Even when doing as simple as moving an open window on the desktop (with no applications open), an obvious 'regeneration' of the window occurs. Also, QD3D rendered Vectorworks models do not retain any rendering when rotated. (with the ATI Resource Manager extension enabled, rendering is retained beautifully)

thanks for your help so far. I need to get this worked out ASAP.

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d. s h a f f e r

a r c h i t e c t

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quote:

Originally posted by Steve Frushour:

When I put a brand new, expensive Radeon Mac Edition 32 MB video card in

my Mac G3 I thought I was going to be in rendering heaven.

Unfortunately, there seems to be some incompatibility problems. Namely,

1)object handles are invisible (unless the object is locked), and 2)the

rules are grayed and show only the major divisions. The problems go away

and return during a work session (I'm unable to determine what action it

takes to cause the reversals). As you can guess, it is impossible to

work without handles.

Any guess as to the reason and how to fix this problem?

GET OFF THE MAC PLATFORM!


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I use VW on both the Mac and PC platform and over all the display on the mac is superior. I have a Rage 128 pro card in the mac with 16 MB and no problems.

On the PC I've been haveing problems with text and PIO's not displaying after being inserted without forcing a screen regen by panning or zooming. I think it has a Nvida G-force card with 32 MB.

Any way its not the platform

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Hello -

I wanted to update this list with the latest on the ATI Radeon card

issue. I was able to isolate the problem to one particular extension

called 'ATI Graphics Accellerator', v. 5.3.4. The Extensions manager

describes this extension as follows: Provides 2D Graphics

Accelleration.

Disabling this extension fixes the problems with the rulers and

selection handles. It also allows for a QD3D model to retain it's

rendering when rotated. HOWEVER, all basic operations, like moving

an open window, scrolling, or clicking the 'favorites' tab in Internet

Explorer are annoyingly slow.

Do anyone have any thoughts about what steps I should take next?

Should I try an older version of this extension?

thanks again -

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d. s h a f f e r

a r c h i t e c t

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Regarding the ATI Graphics Accellerator. My 466 came with v. 5.3.2. I'm running two monitors with a Rage Pro and nVidia cards. Currently one monitor is in shop, so just running off the nvidia. In case the ati extension, since it was loaded, was interfering, I disabled it, but it had no effect on the workings of the nvidia card, i.e. it did not rectify the handles problem. Color depth setting is still the workaround here.

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quote:

Originally posted by doug shaffer:

hello -

I called Nemetschek Tech Support last week and was told that they were receiving an enormous number of calls reporting the problem with broken rulers and missing selection handles. The tech support person I spoke with said that at a MINIMUM, he had recieved 50 calls regarding the issue. I realize that these problem may be due confilcts between OS9.1 and the graphics drivers included with the video cards. However, because they seem only to be showing up in Vectorworks, I don't expect to get much help from Apple. I have called them several times and they claim to never have heard of the problem.

I hope that Nemetschek can use its muscle with Apple to come up with a solution to this problem SOON. We are wasting too much time trying to solve it, and feel that we may be exhausting our possibilities for a solution. Disabling extensions that render the graphics card useless is a reasonable short term (one week?) solution, but we must have a long term solution soon.

This is not a rant against Nemetschek. I just want some official response from them to assure us that Nemetschek is working hard on the problem.

thanks -


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hello -

I called Nemetschek Tech Support last week and was told that they were receiving an enormous number of calls reporting the problem with broken rulers and missing selection handles. The tech support person I spoke with said that at a MINIMUM, he had recieved 50 calls regarding the issue. I realize that these problem may be due confilcts between OS9.1 and the graphics drivers included with the video cards. However, because they seem only to be showing up in Vectorworks, I don't expect to get much help from Apple. I have called them several times and they claim to never have heard of the problem.

I hope that Nemetschek can use its muscle with Apple to come up with a solution to this problem SOON. We are wasting too much time trying to solve it, and feel that we may be exhausting our possibilities for a solution. Disabling extensions that render the graphics card useless is a reasonable short term (one week?) solution, but we must have a long term solution soon.

This is not a rant against Nemetschek. I just want some official response from them to assure us that Nemetschek is working hard on the problem.

thanks -

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d. s h a f f e r

a r c h i t e c t

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Howdy -

Here's the latest...

I continue to have the problem discussed under the topic entitled 'Video Card Woes'. After much inquiry, and finger pointing between Apple and Nemetschek, I received this email from the Nemetschek Tech Support Manager. I called him and was assured that it IS indeed a Vectorworks issue, and that the 'engineering' department was working on it. He also told me that an interim solution (downloadable software fix) may be posted on the site soon, and that V9 (due 'shortly') will solve the 'Video Card Woes' problem.

I hope this helps.

d. s h a f f e r

a r c h i t e c t

Dear Nemetschek North America Customer:

Thank you for your inquiry. We have been getting a number of customers

having the same situation. Our Engineering dept is being made aware of this

problem and I will be contacting you shortly with a possible solution to the

problem.

If you have any other questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free

to contact us at (410) 290-5114 (tel) or (410) 290-8050 (fax) or

tech@nemetschek.net (e-mail).

Respectfully,

Mike S.

Technical Support Manager

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Well it's good that nemetshek is adressing the issue, it's a shame that Apple seems not to be.

Other buletin boards and newsgroups apart from vectorworks (e.g. Flash) are alive with video card/ driver issues associated with the Mac OS.

These forums suggest that updating Open GL extensions and turning off game sprockets might yield some results ???

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Well I doubt it is an OpenGL prob as VW does not support OGL yet smile.gif Thats for OSX support coming soon.

I used to have problems with a Voodoo3 PCI card but these were sorted with the Voodoo5 from 3DFX and latest drivers. Unfortunately 3DFX have now been swallowed by Nvidia...

But I think many of these issues will be history once teh VW fir OSX is released with decent OGL support...then it will fly...Although it is a shame VW will not support multi-processors it will be Altivec enhanced.

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This becomes a very frightening topic for those of us shopping for a new monitor!

I just happen to be thinking about a new monitor and a new video card. I'm shocked to read about all this misery with missing handles in VW! Hopefully the next release of VW will have it solved?

FYI, there's a web resource that compares graphic accelerators (on the Mac). It's at Macspeedzone.

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Kenneth

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