Hi Frank,
Thanks for the suggestions. I opened one of the Autodesk tutorial projects yesterday and noticed the program seemed to run a lot smoother. I suspect it does have something to do with the graphical settings/defaults.
Switching off shadows and putting graphics on simple seems like a good start, but is there anything more I could do? For the very basic models I'm building I could almost live with just a wireframe. Note I will also be using the Fusion CAM software.
If this CAD stuff graduates from a minor hobby to a serious hobby I would definitely purchase better computer hardware, but I'm hoping to scrape by with what I have in the meantime.
Thanks so much for your help,
Zach
I've noticed that it can really slowdown when you have a lot of stuffs selected. I can hear the fan of my video card (not a powerfull one HD7750 ATI) that start to turn more and more quickly if i turn my design in all the side.
I've got a descent computer. Hackintosh under mavericks 10.9.3 i7-4770 with 16go Ram (with video hardware acceleration enabled, Luxmark confirm it).
Once nothing is selected and even if the design is complex it runs like a charm. I didn't try on my macbook air yet...
Selected like this :