Hardware Acc. (Revit Architecture 2012x64) vs PowerPlay (AMD Radeon HD 6770M)

[nematsvehclav]

HP Pavilion dv7-6b76eo
i7 2670QM 2.2 GH, 6MB L3 Cache
Chipset - Intel HM65 Express
1TB SATA 5400RPM
8GB RAM DDR3 1333Mhz

Switchable Graphics between:
The on-board Intel® HD Graphics 3000, which is just for power-saving purposes
and the discrete GPU, which is meant for things like Revit - AMD Radeon HD 6770M 2gb GDDR5

I am running Revit Architecture 2012 x64. The GPU has a feature called PowerPlay (hereinafter PP). It's a pretty annoying feature as it causes my notebook to experience Black Screen of Death and to freeze now and then while watching movies or while in a video call. So I just disabled the feature and the problems seemed to have gone away until I started up Revit and eventually found out it was unable to utilize Hardware Acceleration, thus it worked crappy. Once I enabled PowerPlay again Revit worked smooth again cos it was obviously taking advantage of Hardware Acceleration (hereinafter HA). Up until that moment I hadn't changed anything in Revit and it was by default having HA turned on. So the possible combinations I got are as follows:

PP enabled + Revit HA enabled = Revit working smooth
PP enabled + Revit HA disabled = Revit working smooth (somehow? thought disabling HC would make it work bad)
PP disabled + Revit HA enabled = Revit working really bad (???)
PP disabled + Revit HA disabled = Revit working smooth (???)

So does this make any sense to anyone? Could anyone explain how enabling and disabling HA affects Revit, because what I expected was that disabling it would make Revit work bad, but apparently it didn't. How is Revit able to work smooth when I turned off HA? I though HA means that the hardware boosts up the performance of the software, What happens in the case when HA is disabled and why does it not have any negative effect in my case?

In the long run it seems that there's no big difference in Revit with or without using Hardware Acceleration. But I guess it matters a big deal for AutoCAD, though I couldn't find that out on my own by experimenting with my AutoCAD 2012 x64 software.

[Mohab3]

Luckely i work with the exact same programs (revit 2012 and autocad architecture 2012)

Luckely i have the same configurations of your copmuter but 15" (dv6)

so i have the same problem 

my solution was changing the dynamic GPU changing to fixed

1- when the computer is starting press f10 to start the bios settings

2- Find the Switchable graphics setting. I forget which tab it is in. You need to change it from Dynamic to Fixed.

3- Reboot into Windows. Fire up Catalyst Control Center.

4- In the Switchable graphics section, you can now pick between the Intel 3000 HD and the Radeon 6770m manually. This is what we want. You should run on the 3000HD when you are not gaming or doing GPU intensive tasks.

with these settings Revit works like a horse while autocad is still slow but also power play swithched on i did't know that it was important except when i read your article

if u have any other solutions or ideas i would love to know 

Mohab Elfiky

BUE undergaduate 

[nematsvehclav]

Both happy and sad to hear others are also having this issue.

Already tried your workaround and I wouldn't really call it a workaround. From day one I switched the Graphics Mode to FIXED instead of DYNAMIC, just cos I like it this way and find it easier to use. When I tried to experiment whether or not that was indeed the problems I found out that when running @ DYNAMIC mode of GPU I couldn't assign or save any setting to any app. So I gave up and now after switching 3 notebooks of the same model it's obvious that AMD's PowerPlay and GPU hardware acceleration meddle with each other somehow. Nobody from AMD and HP had ever heard of this nor was able to help me out. Tried all version of drivers for BIOS and GPU. NO LUCK!

So the bottom line is that, cos my notebook was still in warranty, I kept having it exchanged till I finally got one that kinda works. Now when PowerPlay is on everything works well - no apps crash, no movies die out suddenly, and Revit works well with Hardware Acceleration enabled. (BTW, hardware acceleration in Revit is a really weird thing on it's own and it's kinda strange that Autodesk won't shed some more light on it. On the contrary, though it's supposed to be a nice feature, I found out many opinions against it.) Once I disable PowerPlay, everything works normal besides Hardware Acceleration in Revit (not sure about AutoCAD).

So now, after all the hassle, I can't even bother and try to find out if the issue has anything to do with your kind of solution - FIXED vs DYNAMIC GPU Mode. I guess it could have something to do with it, but I mean... it's different for each model.

Hope your notebook is also still in warranty and you could get it exchanged, cos the issue you/we are experiencing isn't supposed to happen at all.

[Mohab3]

currently every thing is working normaly after i changed it to fixed but still autocad some how slow don't know why 

my current settings: powerplay is on , fixed graphics ( when it was variable revit every time was using the ram massivly and after 10 min i get a warning that i am running out of memory and it crash if i did't close it and open it again) and hardware acceleration is on

i guess your settings are the same 

[nematsvehclav]

Yep, GPU Mode - FIXED, and PowerPlay on. Keep Hardware Acceleration for AutoCAD on as well.

[nematsvehclav]

By the way, what's the name of the model of your notebook?

[Mohab3]

dv6 6170ee

Intel Core i7 -2670QM• 2.2 GHz

ATI Radeon HD 6770M 2gb dedicated + Intel HD 3000

it came with a 4gb ram i added another 4gb

and 500 gb HDD