Per-Arne Almeflo

Is there some known issue that IC2009 in win7-64 does not handle shaded rendering in the drawings at all well? I got a brand new work station laptop with i7 processor, 8GB and Quadro and 64bit windows 7. And when I apply shaded rendering to a drawing wiew, the thing almost dies. It's really unmanageble with shaded rendering applied. I can only use it when printing, to zoom is almost impossible. I even get "not responding" error messages when trying to zoom. The 5 year old computer with XP-32 does it much better. What is happening? Is there a DLL fix, or is is ok in 2011? Edit: I have during the day found that most drawings do not suffer from this, but in the ones that does, it's definitely the application of shaded rendering which invokes the problem.

Now, does IC 9.0 take advantage of any extended OpenGL functions in pro cards like the Nvidia Quadro series? We learned from Steven Velez, that IC up to 7.0 did not, and you Kevin confirmed that IC8 had the same graphics system as 7.0. Edit: Well Cary beat me while writing this, thanks. Will this mean that Pro CAD cards will be more useful, or does it mean that gaming cards will be all we need in the future?

I had a Raptor HDD on my previous computer, and I must say I miss it. It felt much faster and more responsive than my present HDD. I would go for one again if I had the possibility. If you need more storage memory, you can put the system and programs on the Raptor disk and store the working files on a second, larger drive.

Hi, I'm searching for a new pair of shoes or boots in a manley size. Any tips where to get them? In 3D that is.

Have you noticed serious performance loss when using Logitech mouse drivers and Logitech Desktop Messenger?

Does anyone use curved stock? Is it really possible to shape all four edges, (not the curve profile), to get a valid unfold representation?

I too experience the same, using IC 8.0, and also other problems with "curved stock". The cut and extend tools are certainly not predictable for radie and circles. Further, I tried to bevel off two sides of a curved stock using hole blocks. One side ended up correct, but the other hole block did not swing into the right position in the unfold position and hence did not cut as axpected. I get a feeling the two sides of the 2d sheet divided by the X- axis, are not connected or cooperating properly. (I think it's the X-, but could be the Y- axis). I then tried to cut with a solid block using "cut sheetmetal part", and that gave a proper unfolded shape, but an unusable edge line on the flat shape in the drawing, that cannot be picked for dimensioning. I also get a tilted display of the unfolded view when the radie crosses the 2d-sheet x-axis. I'm trying to get a curved lexan windshield ready soon, but this is beginning to get very boring. Also, there should be a way to edit the curved stock in the unfolded shape, and project this back to the curved shape, as this is how one cuts it, and a straight edge like it's cut or sawed, is easy enough to model on the unfolded shape, but tricky or impossible for IronCad on the curved shape.

Rumour has it that the IC8 uninstall function does not do it's job good enough, and IC9 finds crap left behind that messes things up. IC9 loaded on a clean hard disk drive may work a whole lot better. A clean sweep tool should be provided.

Well, it's not even possible to save your work during cross sections editing in IC! I'd say he made a intelligent choise of wording, when stating "I hate computers". If all other software were bug free he might have blamed Solid Works specifically.

And how many requests have you seen through the years to get the possibility to open linked files by right clicking in the scene browser? Is it even worth the effort to ask again?

Didn't this description fit nicely: "This forum is to be used as an archive of custom items that you have uploaded for the community to use. Examples of these items could be, custom scene, drawings, catalogs, VB Add Ons, etc"

First make sure you have all the 64 bit drivers you need for printers and other external stuff you want to connect. HP seems to have some drivers for their printers/plotters, but Xerox doesn't. The mouse might have to run with a std driver and so on.

We have two computers with AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ socket 939 since a couple of weeks. Seem to run ok with both Acad and IronCAD. The computers came with WD Raptor hard disks, and they too seem to make a difference in response times, and also speed when shoveling files to and from the server.

To my understanding, the sole reason to try IC on Windows XP64 today, would be to get a larger swap file in order to handle larger file sizes. Which for some, would be reason enough.

Ok, if Chris and Steven ain't there no more, who is? Kevin? Anybody? Who could answer the question: Does IC 8.0 take advantage of any extended OpenGL functions in pro cards like the Nvidia Quadro series? We learned from Steven Velez that IC up to 7.0 did not.

Steven, What's the latest word about this for IC8? It's time for new computers, should I go with some new great gaming cards, or is there any real value for IC8 in the Quadro line at present?

Recent tests by our VAR has shown that using Nvidia 6800 with AMD64 makes wonders with zooming and panning of even the largest models in the scene. No matter how fast one try to spin it around, it never goes into wire frame mode or begins to jerk.

I now have installed IronCAD 7.0 into my AMD 64-3000+ and now things are beginning to make some sense. My $50 FX5200 together with the AMD 64 now gives better screen performance in scenes than the $500 Fire GL 8800 on the job computer. The update all drawing views on the assembly drawing now is ready on merely 2 minutes and 15 secs vs 4 minutes on the P4-2.4GHz. Still not an exact comparison between the two cards alone, but your recommendation of processor power over graphic card power seems to be verified anyway. No need to stop there although. 2 minutes delay is still much too long for any command, and the complexity of machines and production lines are increasing every day. And the turning of these big models on the screen may be manageble, but are certainly not swift or smooth. The Professional Open GL card trix are certainly needed. We need at least tenfold better performance soon enough. Computers will make up for part of that, (the AMD 3000+ is really a budget model) and software must continue to provide its share of performance improvements in the future too.

I'll try to reduce the variables as soon as I have the opportunity. But maybe it's a IC6 vs IC 7 thing. At second attempt I noticed that the AMD 64 with IC6.0 keeps the rendering almost all the time when turning the model, while the 7.0 system goes into wireframe mode much sooner, which may well account for the smoother turning. Is this rendering/wireframe turnover graphic driver related, or is it IronCAD driven?

I just did a simple little unscientifical test yesterday, using quite a large machine model that we have. I loaded the 30 day IC 6.0 on my new home computer, an AMD 64-3000+ 500 MB with a simple Nvidia FX5200-128, and turned it around a little in the scene. It was quite obvious that it did not turn as smoothly at all, as with the ATI Fire GL 8800 that we have at the office, on the Pentium4 2.4MHz 1 GB machines here. This is in contradiction with the "graphical cards doesn't matter any more" and "processors matters more" messages we have got lately. The update all drawing views took 9 minutes on the AMD 64 with IC 6.0. It used to take over 20 minutes on the P4 with IC 6.0, but the 7.0 has improved that to 4 minutes. (And we have larger models still).

From what conclusions I can draw from the answers by mr Velez and mr Lohman, to similar questions, buy the one that gives you the most money left to fully load the RAM slots.

Is Chris getting back, eventually, or not at all?

Please try to answer this one too.

Chris, did they put any serious work on the rendering engine for the 7.0, or not?

Are you saying that the /3GB switch is useful even with only 2 GB of RAM?