Graphics Issues in Inventor 2014

[ChrisMitchell01]

There have been several postings regarding graphics issues with Inventor 2014.

One type of issue was related to using Quality mode specifically with AMD GPU HW. This has been fixed by AMD; it was a Defect in their GPU drivers for certain ranges of their GPU HW.

However, other graphics issues prevail on both AMD & nvidia & fall into what is being called “ghosting”, where geometry is displayed incorrectly in various ways; e.g. deleted geometry reappears, wireframe instead of shaded, additional surface connections, or in worse cases, either badly corrupted graphics or crashes.

So far, there are two common aspects to these problems in our investigation:

1. They are very difficult to reproduce in a simple set of easy steps leading to a reproducible outcome.
2. They often seem to be connected with extensive use; closing Inventor and restarting will “fix” the problem … for a while. Sometimes they can be worked around by using the Compatibility or Software settings from Tools, App Options, hardware, but not consistently. Also switching from one view mode to another, will clear it up but only for a while.

These indicate that we may be dealing with a memory corruption issue which may or may not exist in the Inventor graphics layer code.  The graphics layer is similar to a "canary in a coal mine"; any memory corruption will typically appear in the graphics first, even if it has no direct connection with the graphics layer code.  If the graphics layer code is being given corrupted data, it will display it as very strange results or in the worst case, the data will trigger a crash.

What would be very helpful to us, is if anyone has a simple set of steps with a given data set that can reproduce a problem, every time. This will give us something definite to dig in to as whereas at present, we tend to be chasing ghosts ourselves...

If you prefer to send me a dataset, just email to chrisDOTmitchellATautodeskDOTcom

Thanks very much in advance for your help,

Chris on behalf of the Inventor team

[rdyson]

Walter,

Sketch 2 has a tiny gap, on the order of .001mm. 

I connected the two curves with a straight line and reconstructed you part. This is what I now see.

I'm not sure that's the complete porblem, but I thought it worth pointing outl

Ray

[AnchorChain]

I didn't read the 5 pages of posts but here is an issue that I seem to be having here lately.  It does this from time to time on assemblies.  If I zoom way out it's fine or zoom really close it's fine but anywhere in between where I would normally work it's this.

I'm running a 16GB hard drive with a 2GB AMD V5900 card.

[WHolzwarth]

Many thanks, Ray. You're correct, and I didn't notice that.

I think, it's best, when starting a new discussion. I'll come back later.

Walter

[mrattray]

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@AnchorChain wrote:

I'm running a 16GB hard drive...

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I'm hoping that's a typo!

[AnchorChain]

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@mrattray wrote:

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@AnchorChain wrote:

I'm running a 16GB hard drive...

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I'm hoping that's a typo!

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It's 16GB of RAM.

[ChrisMitchell01]

Walter,

As Lisa mentioned there is still aproblem with this file in the way that ASM is creating the tesselations. Even after fixing the gap that Ray identified it's quite easy to get undesirable graphical tesselation again, so we need to investigate - see attached. You can email me the F4 files & I'll take a look.

AnchorChain - have you installed 2014 Sp1 Update3 ? The issues with triangles like those we supposedly fixed there. - http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor-products/downloads/caas/downloads/content/update-3-fo...

Thanks,
Chris

[AnchorChain]

I was un aware of an update 3 being available.  I'm downloading it now.

[WHolzwarth]

Chris, I've zoomed and panned around with the F16 files, but I couldn't see it again.

😉 I don't know, how the little wizard managed that. I'll send you the files.

Walter

[cnewmanVIK]

Still having ghost lines appear, although less frequently.  I've attached a screen shot, some system info, and the part that is currently showing ghost lines.  Hope this helps.

[LishuangLu]

Hi cnewmanVIK, Have you ever turned on Ray Tracing in your workflows? We noticed there are some similar display problems if Ray Tracing has been involved and then off and do other edit operations and zoom. Thanks, -Lisa

[cnewmanVIK]

My ray tracing button is greyed out right now, but I don't think I've ever used it.  If it makes any difference, the visual style we use is Shaded with Edges.  Sometimes I change it to show hidden lines, but I don't think I had done that at all yesterday.  I have attached a screen shot of my Application Options display settings in case there is anything in there that might be wrong there.

[AnchorChain]

I downloaded the Update 3 for SP1 in hopes it would fix my graphics issues but it seems to made the "ghosting of parts" issue worse.  Of the 4 systems we're running only 2 of us have all of the lastest updates installed.  Well, the 2 fully updated systems are the only 2 that seem to be having these problems.  Is this the concensous, is anyone else still having issues or worsened problems with the updates?

My orignal post was #47 on Pg 5.

[mcgyvr]

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@AnchorChain wrote:

I downloaded the Update 3 for SP1 in hopes it would fix my graphics issues but it seems to made the "ghosting of parts" issue worse.  Of the 4 systems we're running only 2 of us have all of the lastest updates installed.  Well, the 2 fully updated systems are the only 2 that seem to be having these problems.  Is this the concensous, is anyone else still having issues or worsened problems with the updates?

My orignal post was #47 on Pg 5.

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Have you tried updating or using a different version of the graphics card drivers?

[AnchorChain]

I have not tried other driver versions.  One of the systems is running a FirePro V5900 the other V4900 and both are having the same issues.  This just seems to be a constant problem with Inventor, the graphics issues.  I'm on my second computer and 3rd graphics card since going to Inventor.  On one graphics card we loaded several drivers with no help.  I may just roll it back to Update 2 and live with it.  We're too busy to be a computer maintenance shop 3 or 4 hours each day trying to fix nuisance problems.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[mcgyvr]

Are you at least on the latest driver version? Takes just a few minutes to update and most of the time is the problem with this kind of stuff..

I'm not having any graphics issues and can't think of any that I've ever had with Inventor in a long time.. But I ALWAYS make sure I've got the latest drivers when I load Inventor.. 

[AnchorChain]

We installed my latest graphics card about a month or so ago.  I'll check the driver version compared to the latest available.

I think we've just found another issue, non-graphics related, but only seems to have began after installing update 3.  When placing hardware using the bolted connection you have to select the start plan and then the hole.  It will allow us to select the plain but no the hole feature.  Again, anyone else?

[mcgyvr]

Just want to point out that drivers shipped "with" graphics cards are almost NEVER up to date.. 

Heck I bought a new HP computer a while back and the bios drivers included on the machine from HP were over 3 years old and couldn't even support the processor they installed in the computer.. Once I reflashed the bios the processor started doing its job as it should have.. Performance was greatly improved.. 

[cnewmanVIK]

I am still getting ghost lines occasionally.  I have checked and I have the newest card driver.  I did notice something weird yesterday though.  After I get the ghost lines, even the file icons in my Open File dialog box change.  I have attached a picture of the before and after icons.

[Anonymous]

I'm having some sort of problem with the graphics. I have inventor installed on my mac book pro 13" early 2011 running parallels desktop 9 (Updated last night 09/07/2014). The graphics card on my computer is an "Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB". 

This sort of graphic irregularities happens all the time to me. be it an imported file or a file i created. Here is a snapshot:

As I move the mouse on the screen without doing anithing the image changes. it looks as if the texture of the part had holes. 

It has no effect on functionality but it is not pleasing to work like this.