Cannot enable hardware acceleration Autocad 2015

[caprousalis]

Interesting problem. I have two workstations and both seem to have the same problem. Recently (it used to work on both after initial install) I cannot view

point clouds (boxes appear with text that basically say "point clouds are not displayed when hardware accelleration is off"). Problem is I can't enable hardware acelleration (greyed out). Related hardware: MSI GT70 (I7-4940mx, Nvidia GTX880m) also Dell Precision T1700 (Xeon E3-1270, Nvidia K4000). Both have the latest video drivers. I rolled back the driver on the desktop to the earlier certified driver with no effect. About to pull my hair out on this one. Is it a driver issue or an update from windows. Should I have completely uninstalled the current drivers and then install the older "certified" drivers? The K4000 is certified by Autodesk so I feel confident this isn't a hardware issue. Not sure when the problem first appeared because I work mostly with Faro Scene software (laser scanner) and only occasionally import point clouds (via Recap) into Autocad. Any help would be much appreciated. -cp

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

welcome @forums.autodesk.com!

Please start command _GRAPHICSCONFIG and show us the screenshot from that dialog.

Also let us know which operating system, which graphic card driver and which service pack for your AutoCAD 2015 is installed.

- alfred -

[caprousalis]

Win7 Pro (64bit), Autocad 2015 SP2, Nvidia K4000 (driver 10.18.13.6256)

[pendean]

All drivers for AutoCAD versions are here from Autodesk http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syscert?id=18844534&siteID=123112

Otherwise you cannot force AutoAD to adopt a card it doesn't like or finds it unable to use.

[john.vellek]

Hi caprousalis,

Is that the same version as 362.56? That is the current one I see on Nvidia's driver download.

The driver that was tested was NVIDIA Driver Release - Quadro Desktop/Quadro Notebook 354.56 64bit [10.18.13.5456]

It might be worth the effort to install this older version to see if it remedies the problem.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

your screenshot shows that your AutoCAD is not able to connect to the DirectX 11 interface, so it runs on (slow) software emulation.

Try to install a newer graphic card driver from nVidia and maybe a new installation of DirectX for your system.

That is from your screenshot:

And that is when DirectX is recognized and connected:

Good luck, - alfred -

[caprousalis]

I did install that driver. Same result. I did not uninstall the previous driver though. Maybe I will try that again... thanks anyway

[caprousalis]

That was the first thing I tried..... Only thing is I did not uninstall the newer driver..... maybe I will try that... thanks

[caprousalis]

I installed the "certified driver" "354.56" with no change. Here are some screenshots i thought were interesting. Performance info denotes DirectX 10 installed, but dxdiag list DirectX11 as being installed. Am I missing something here? Is it possible to re-install DirectX11?

[caprousalis · Accepted solution]

Solved!! Reinstalled AutoCAD to reset Certification file (hardware). Once I edited the registry to call out .net 4.5 instead of the installed .net 4.6 the install went pretty smoothly and now low and behold I have hardware acceleration...

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

thank you for your feedback, great you got it solved.

>> Reinstalled AutoCAD to reset Certification file (hardware)

Do you have more info's about which file you mean exactly? (could be helpful for others too!)

- alfred -

[caprousalis]

I believe the file "certificationDB.xml" is the culprit. Re-installing the program either updates or replaces this hardware database. There was another post about this problem I happen to come across while researching and this file was mentioned and the solution was a re-install.... -cp

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

it sounds like a joke (but it's not), but since yesterday - after updating the nVIdia driver - I'm in a similar situation, but a bit different.

When starting AutoCAD 2017 I can't turn on hardware acceleration

When starting Map 3D 2017 I can't turn on the hardware acceleration

When starting Civil 3D 2017 I CAN ACTIVATE the hardware acceleration

And knowing that all 3 types of AutoCAD's are starting the same ACAD.EXE I see that as really strange.

>> I believe the file "certificationDB.xml"

Well, I have found that already and yes, there are separate "certificationDB.xml" for each of the above configurations, but changing them (using the good one from Civil 3D and copy it to the folder for Map 3D did not solve the problem.

Seems like either I have to uninstall and reinstall all or I spent more nights and weekends to find the difference which makes it working ;(

- alfred -

[john.vellek]

Hi @Alfred.NESWADBA,

Does rolling back the driver do anything? Or, has the damage been done?

[caprousalis]

In my case, I rolled back to a "certified" driver for an Nvidia K4000 with no change. I reinstalled the latest driver 362.56 and uninstalled, then re-installed AutoCAD 2015 and it resolved the issue. I did this on two workstations, both with Nvidia video (GTX880m, K4000).

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> Does rolling back the driver do anything?

I have not tried to reinstall the exact same driver as before, just tried the 3 latest releases (including the one released today, with fingers crossed 😉 ).

It is interesting too that all the older releases of AutoCAD and verticals (2014,2015,2016, AutoCAD, Map3D, Civil3D) as well as AutoCAD 2012 and Civil 3D 2010 ... all are working very well with hardware acceleration, just AutoCAD 2017 and Map 3D 2017 do not.

I would not think too much about the releases older than 2014 as I'm running Windows 10. But that this happens for the same ACAD.EXE/2017, one vertical is working and the other is not, that sounds not very logical to me (for the moment).

[EDIT] and yes, I have already uninstalled the complete nVidia package, I also run the AutoCAD repair installation (not he uninstall/cleanup/reinstall), nothing helped [/EDIT]

- alfred -

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> Does rolling back the driver do anything? Or, has the damage been done?

Second, I installed now the old driver (with first uninstalling and then with the option "as new installation", so all the old settings are removed), but didn't help.

Same as before, all 2016 and older releases work fine, Civil 3D 2017 works fine, whereas for AutoCAD 2017 and Map 3D 2017 I can't enable hardware acceleration.

- alfred -

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

hopefully last message: I can confirm the reinstalling the complete 2017 products (complete Infrastructure Design Suite 2017) give me back the hardware acceleration option for AutoCAD and Map 3D.

(and now I will never know which file or setting it was ;( )

- alfred -

[john.vellek]

Hi @Alfred.NESWADBA,

I certainly feel your pain. I am glad that the total reinstall fixed the problem but as you mentioned it will be hard to determine what was the real fix out of the whole mix. If you determine it was something specific, please update your post (I am sure you will as you are thorough).

Thanks for your contributions.

[Anonymous]

This is a problem for me also.  I have AutoCAD 2016 and 2017 installed and hardware acceleration is only working for AutoCAD 2016.

For AutoCAD 2017 the tuner log looks like this:

Card name: NVIDIA Quadro 4000M
Driver version: 10.18.13.6839
Tuning Date: 4/07/2016
Virtual device: gdi13.hdi (Software)
The card and driver does not meet the minimum requirement.

while 2016 says:

Card name: NVIDIA Quadro 4000M
Driver version: 10.18.13.6839
Tuning Date: 5/07/2016
Virtual device: Dx11 (Hardware)
The card and driver meets the recommended requirement.

It would be great to be able to resolve this problem without reinstalling AutoCAD. I tried copying the 2016 CertificationDB.xml into the 2017 folder to no avail. Deleting the file had no effect. 

Is there any way to force the graphics tuning process?  I have tried resetting AutoCAD to its defaults, uninstalling all video drivers and editing the registry as recommended.