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video woes continued see S&J3D below


jnr

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Andrew:

I'm writing regarding your posting of a reply to a message from S&J3D on the message board. You responded:

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Originally posted by jnr:

I fixed it myself by turning down the hardware acceleration until it stopped crashing (my computer-properties-performance-graphics).

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If that fixes a problem, then the fundamental problem is with the graphics card driver. Check their website for updated drivers, that's much more likely to fix the problem than anything NNA does.

Dell, win98se, 600mhz, 256mb ram, 32mb video card, 21" monitor.

I use other programs such as Photoshop 6.0, Quark 4.1, which I suspect use the capabilities of the graphics driver. These programs do not have video problems. I have a 3d labs Oxygen GVX1 which is designed specifically for CAD applications (w/ current driver). Why would an application such as Vectorworks be the only program which fails? It is very frustrating that one cannot optimize the performance of an expensive card for an application for which it is designed to use. Clearly, judging from the volume of traffic on the message board for both Mac and PC, it appears that it is not a card specific problem.

In addition I had consistent video problems with 8.5.2 as well. Again I was forced to drop hardware acceleration to prevent all the radio buttons in the application from turning black. This forced a closure of the file and reopened to eradicate the problem. (16mb ati card at the time). I am suspicious since vectorworks 9.01 is now failing in a different part of the program than 8.5.2. Why would this be a video driver issue?

It is also disappointing to discover that 9.01 is not optimized to take advantage of advances in graphics card technologies (see the message board) and the ram available on the card. Most frustrating of all is the fact that NNA will not recommend a specific card or cards tested and known to work with the program. This appears to be a double standard as NNA is quite willing to incorporate specific window manufacturers (Marvin and Anderson) into the program. In light of recent judgments against Microsoft I wonder what other window manufacturers might have to say. It appears CSI already has since ConDoc has been removed from 9.

The bottom line here is that we as users want to spend our time designing buildings etc, and not diagnosing software/hardware problems. The ultimate end of what we as users do is to create and design objects. The software is supposed to be TRANSPARENT,the means, not the end in itself. One of my princple reasons for switching to this program is because I worked in an office where everyone talked about CAD commands and program function and not about Architecture. It drove me nuts. Other CAD vendors recognize hardware manufacturers (i.e.,Bentley, Catia, Autodesk) which are compatible with their software, why does NNA not do this?

Any response would be appreciated. I will copy this to the message board.

-J

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JNR,

I have worked at fixing many of the graphics problems. I think if I use one as an illustration you will understand how an application can show a bug that others don't.

The bug I will use showed up when drawing a one pixel wide line in XOR mode. In XOR mode you can draw a line once to show it and draw it again to erase it. Under certain conditions when this line was XOR'd off, it would not disappear and you would see a trail of trash on the screen. I checked all the settings of the graphics device as Windows sees it and they were perfect. When I increased the width of the line to two pixels the problem went away. The width of the line was the only thing I changed.

This happened on only one card and it happened only when the drawing was in a certain orientation and when the mouse was in a certain location. This is an example of the type of video card problems we run into which may seem to be in VectorWorks but truly are problems with the video card software. Other software will not necessarily manifest the same bugs because of the complex actions required to see a bug. I am not talking about user actions here, but rather actions on the part of the software. There are many variables (pen size, transfer mode, clip region, bit depth, foreground color, background color, various font settings... etc) and these variables have to pass through a specific sequence of states to manifest a particular bug. Given the vast number of state sequences you could have and the possiblity that only a few will show a particular bug it is easy to see how one application could show a bug that others don't.

I hope this helps,

------------------

Robert McBride

Software Engineer

Nemetschek N.A. Inc

mcbride@nemetschek.net

[This message has been edited by McBrideNNA (edited 09-07-2001).]

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Mr. McBride:

Thank you for your response. I think I understand your analysis of the problem. Given the difficulty and magnitiude of the task at hand to coordinate drivers + cards with stability, why would NNA not certify compatibiltiy with one or more graphic card manufacturers? As noted the company seems quite willing to get in bed with architectural product manufacturers, why not hardware vendors? If you are unable to comment on this would you be able to pass this message along to someone in the food chain who could respond? As users we are simply asking for a product which is stable, functional, and fast. We really hate to spend time diagnosing problems. It cost us too much money.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I know I?m not Robert McBride and there may be a better answer from someone higher up on the food chain here at NNA, but normally we have focused on supporting the hardware that is readily available to the majority of our customers.

Right now, the 3D graphics card market is being dominated by the smallest number of companies ever. In fact I would think that 90% of our VectorWorks 9 customer have either a nVidia or ATI based graphics card. As such, we will likely focus our support in these areas.

Matthew Giampapa

Technical Support

quote:

Originally posted by jnr:

Mr. McBride:

Thank you for your response. I think I understand your analysis of the problem. Given the difficulty and magnitiude of the task at hand to coordinate drivers + cards with stability, why would NNA not certify compatibiltiy with one or more graphic card manufacturers? As noted the company seems quite willing to get in bed with architectural product manufacturers, why not hardware vendors? If you are unable to comment on this would you be able to pass this message along to someone in the food chain who could respond? As users we are simply asking for a product which is stable, functional, and fast. We really hate to spend time diagnosing problems. It cost us too much money.

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