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IV 2013 slow performance with FirePro card

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Message 1 of 7
ajh_ap
950 Views, 6 Replies

IV 2013 slow performance with FirePro card

I recently got back into modeling with my company's purchase of IV 2013 and an ATI FirePro V3800 for my workstation.  I'm surprised at how slowly Inventor runs with this hardware.  I know this is a rather low-end card, but it's on Autodesk's approved hardware list and I was really expecting better performance.  Specifically, the "Quality" graphics mode is choppy when panning and rotating even very simple parts.  "Performance" mode is much smoother, but the lack of anti-aliasing is frustrating.

 

After some digging, I learned that OpenGL hasn't been supported for a while in Inventor, and I'm wondering if the FIrePro card was even a good choice, considering there are better Direct3D cards available for the same price.

 

Are there any settings in Inventor that I can change to improve things, or am I stuck with mediocre performance?  My computer is rather average by today's standards, but I still think Inventor ought to run better than it does.  I'd appreciate any help you guys can offer.

 

System specifications:

 

  • Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.93 GHz
  • 4 GB memory
  • ATI FirePro V3800 graphics card
  • Windows 7 x64
  • Autodesk Inventor LT 2013
6 REPLIES 6
Message 2 of 7
blair
in reply to: ajh_ap

The 4Gb of memory with a 64 bit O/S is about the same as 3Gb of memory with a 32 bit O/S. So the quickest would be to go to 8Gb of memory. This will reduce the amount of "swap files" and hard-drive caching.

 

Make sure you are on the latest Microsoft certified driver version for your graphics card.

 

Give up the anti-lansing and go with the Performance settting.

 

Control Panel>System>Advanced>Performance>Settings>Adjust for best performance.

 

Reduce the number of programs running in the background: (see what is being loaded at startup on your system).

 

Make sure your Project paths in your IPJ are correct and not pointing to old deleted directories. Possibly even try a new Project file.

 

 

 

 

 

 


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Message 3 of 7
ajh_ap
in reply to: ajh_ap

Thanks for the tips.  I'll give them a shot and let you know how it works.

Message 4 of 7
robbeckley
in reply to: ajh_ap

I made the mistake of buying the FirePro V4800 since Inv2012 performance has been very poor with this card we have since replaced with the std GTX550 Ti. This card works very well and very stable to, of course I would buy something a bit quicker now.

 

You will never get adequate perormace out of the card, interms of gpu core technology this proccesor is very old it dosnt have the memory bandwidth to cope with the nice looking graphics Inventor is capable of now.

 

Driver support is also very poor we had ours running compatabily mode for a year! I never did see any fix's for this from ATI or Autodesk, apperntly it was a driver issue afrom ATI according to my support request.

Rob B.

Win7 64 Pro - Asus P8P67 PRO - i5-2500k CPU O/C@4.5Ghz- OCZ Vertex 2 SSD - 8GB Ram - GTX550 Ti - SpaceExplorer.
Message 5 of 7
ajh_ap
in reply to: ajh_ap

Well, I can't say that the performance has gotten any better since trying some of the tips.  Using Inventor in "Performance" mode is certainly doable with this card, but I have a hard time accepting such poor graphics quality in today's day and age.  The sad thing is, if Inventor supported OpenGL, I'm sure the FirePro would perform very well.  I know they have their reasons for going with Direct3D, though.

 

It's frustrating because I purchased the FirePro card based on Autodesk's approved hardware list, which curiously specifies only high-end workstation cards.  I thought I was getting something with native acceleration in Inventor, but instead any D3D card would have worked, and probably better.  I feel mislead.

Message 6 of 7
robbeckley
in reply to: ajh_ap

Ah back in the day Inventor used to fly in OpenGL and other well known CAD packages seam to muddle along ok with it to 😉

 

It has been a long road to achieving the kind of visual quality that you now see in Inventor especially in the last few release, it is unfortunate that I have never managed to get any CAD company to officially recommend a graphics card to suit the needs and I think the likes of ATI using Inventor compatibility as a selling point is a bit of a 'what's it'.

 

On the bright side you can use Inventor on any descent gaming graphics card at half the price of the Workstation cards which gives it greater compatibility with laptops especially.

 

We use a gaming rig at work now and it works brilliantly, obviously a Workstation setup is officially tested etc. but when Inventor does not require a workstation graphics card or a Xeon processor in these tight times!!! Stress analsysis CAM, Max etc would be a different case of course.

 

I have always found Nvidia workstation or gaming cards to run more stable, I personally have no gripe with ATI in general as I use them at home for price/performance however inexplicably Inventor tends to crash, I am reinstalling after Christmas fingers crossed it will be better.

Rob B.

Win7 64 Pro - Asus P8P67 PRO - i5-2500k CPU O/C@4.5Ghz- OCZ Vertex 2 SSD - 8GB Ram - GTX550 Ti - SpaceExplorer.
Message 7 of 7
ajh_ap
in reply to: ajh_ap

Well, I decided to try another graphics card.  Our other programmer uses OpenGL software, so he'll get the V3800 for his desktop computer, so it's not a total loss.  I'm using a 1 GB GeForce GT430 card and Inventor runs much, much better.  I can now use "Quality" mode without any stutters or hiccups.  Even the "Realistic" visual style works well, which I could not say before.  All in all, I'd say the Direct3D card was definitely the way to go.  Thanks to everyone for the help and suggestions!

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