Is my Graphics Card The Problem?

[DustinBTW]

I have the most trouble trying to create views on a draft. If an assembly has more than a few hundred parts, it becomes almost imposable to work with. 

My current set up is a Dell Precision t3600 with Xeon E5-1620 Running at 3.60 HGz. with 32 gb of ram. This to me seems like it should be strong enough. The Graphics card is an AMD Radeon HD 6800. I did some research on this card... and it seems quit dated. Could the graphics card cause pore performance drafting views in the draft?

Thanks

[mcgyvr]

Sure.. could be.. (number of parts is kind of pointless as complexity will dictate file size.. aka 1 part could be bigger than 10000 of someone elses.)

Have you tried updating the graphics card driver? 

[SBix26]

What release of Inventor are you using?  Is it up to date with the latest service pack and update?

Sam B

Inventor Professional 2015 SP1 Update 2
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit, SP1
HP EliteBook 8770w; 8 GB RAM; Core™ i7-3720QM 2.60 GHz; Quadro K4000M

[blair]

The graphics card is primary responsible for the display of the model in the graphics window. I would open the task manager and see how much time the CPU core handling Inventor is pegged while you are working on your model/part to see if you are fighting a CPU or GPU issue. If the core handling Inventor is not at 100% while your machine is on it's knees then your issue is most likely GPU related.

Unless you updated the graphics cards, Dell is known to ship first generation drivers which are buggy and slow. That box appears to be a 2-2 1/2 year box it should run better than than. Double check that all the above-board power connectors to the graphics card are plugged in. If these cards only receive power from the motherboard they will run in a reduced function as well.

[DustinBTW]

Ok, so I have done a little more digging on the issue, the specific model number of the card is an HIS Radeon HD 6850. I have been Using inventor for about 30 days now, (was an advanced Solid Edge user) so i am still getting use to the software. 

I’m pointing fingers at the GPU because i watch the resource monitor and nothing really show activity. So it must be the GPU working right?... I am also looking into network issues. 

I took a look at this card online, and it’s about a $250 gaming card. At my previous employer I had nothing less than a $1500 CAD card from Nvidia every 2 years. Never really had an issue, but also I was running Solid Edge.

[ampster402]

before going any futher and possibly wasting cash buying another card, go back to the 1st reply/suggestion/question and take care of the driver.

[mcgyvr · Accepted solution]

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@DustinBTW wrote:

At my previous employer I had nothing less than a $1500 CAD card from Nvidia every 2 years. Never really had an issue, but also I was running Solid Edge.

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Years ago Inventor needed OpenGL based workstation cards.. That changed a while back and now any directx card should work just fine. 

That card you have should work just fine.. again.. update the driver

[dgorsman · Accepted solution]

When using the Task Manager, remember that the Performance tab is typically set at one graph for all CPU's.  So if Inventor is running flat out on a six-core processor it will only show ~ 15% useage on the graph.  There's also the option of showing one graph per CPU, which will show one at 100% and the rest at minimal use in the the previous example.

[DustinBTW]

Thank you for the help…. I did all the appropriate updates to my hardware. But it turns out that my computer did not have the Autodesk Applications Manager installed, thus I was not getting any updates to any of my Autodesk programs. So I fixed that, and installed a whole slew of updates and everything seems to be working much better.