Cursor is jerky in C3D 2017

[Jim]

I upgraded to C3D the day it was released and have been using it since.  Over the last week or so the cross-hair has lost all precision.  Rather than moving smoothly, it jumps several feet at a time.  This has made drawing maddeningly painful and more than doubles my time to complete simple tasks.

Most of my work involves importing survey data from CA State Plane, Zone II or III.  This puts me approximately 6.0 E6 ft, 1.9 E6 ft from the origin.  Occasionally I will find there is an artifact near the origin or in another location a significant distance from the primary drawing area.  If the artifact is erased (after turning on all layers), it typically fixes the problem (although I have never had to do this before).  

If that doesn't work I will purge all.  I reluctantly do this knowing that the loss is not as crippling as an erratic cross-hair.  

I have searched the internet for this problem and run through the various system variables that could impact this problem and modified them to no avail.

Any thoughts?  I have a very fast internet connection with a relatively new PC, copious amounts of ram, PCIE SSD for the system drive, SATA SSD for my data drive and high end video card.  I can't imagine it's a hardware related issue.

Any help or link to this issue previously discussed here would be a great help and appreciated.

Jim

@BushW has edited your subject line for clarity: Erratic Crosshair

[Anonymous]

The first thing that comes to mind is to turn off SNAP. Hit F9 to toggle it. It sounds like you're an experienced user, so this is unlikely your solution, but it might be for future searchers.

The second is to set the lower left and upper right of LIMITS close to your project.

Third, to set SELECTIONPREVIEW to 2, not 3.

[Jay_B]

I've had cursor issues before, in my case it was due to having file paths mapped which don't exist.

ie: xref's or support files mapped to a non-existent file location.

[Jim]

The limits are what I suspect is the the problem.  I recently set the limits to just outside my drawing area and it didn't help.

What if there is an artifact outside the limits of the drawing that is on a layer that is on or off.

I just opened a drawing that does not have survey data imported.  It was drawn near the origin.  No problem.  Change to a recent drawing with points millions of feet from the origin and problem returns.  Interestingly, when I run STATUS from the command line I get:

Undo file size: 111 KBytes
Model space limits are X: 0.0000 Y: 0.0000 (Off)
X: 12.0000 Y: 9.0000
Model space uses X: 6579400.0869 Y: 2014075.9111
X: 13177328.9918 Y: 4047913.5916 **Over
Display shows X: 6588460.0018 Y: 2023732.6493
X: 6588979.4204 Y: 2023996.3668
Insertion base is X: 0.0000 Y: 0.0000 Z: 0.0000
Snap resolution is X: 0.5000 Y: 0.5000
Grid spacing is X: 0.5000 Y: 0.5000

Note the model space limits are (0,0) (12,9)

Model Uses  (6579400.0869, 2014075.9111) (13177328.9918, 4047913.5916) 

I bet this is the problem

something is outside my primary drawing area.  That will be deleted.  Then I will tighten up the model space used and test both from the origin and just outside the SW boundary of my project.  Hopefully with my system config it can handle my project area a significant distance from the origin.

Side note: When I upgraded to 2017 I had the same problem.  I'm on subscription and the tech took over my pc, ran some commands, including purging 0 length geometry and it fixed the problem.  I also had a number of attachments listed that were not attached to the file.  That apparently takes up space.  It's a good idea to check the size of your QNEW file before you begin work if having issues.

[Jim]

None of the above works, including tightening the limits and changing selection preview.

What's odd is that the cross hair only acts erratically when no command has been executed.  Even entry on the command line is slow to respond.  Something as simple PLINE starts the command and the cross-hair is ultra precise. 

Any thoughts are more than welcome.  Next move is subscription tech support...

[wfberry]

The graphics card would be my first guess.  Electronic gadgets can come and go at random.

Bill

[BushW]

Hello @Jim

Sorry to hear that you're having this problem but, I came across these AKN articles and blog post that might offer a solution to your issue. I hope this information is useful in helping you.

• Cursor is slow or jerky in AutoCAD, 
• Cursor performance issues in Windows 7 when hardware acceleration is off 
• Why is my cursor very slow or jumpy in AutoCAD?

Please select the ‘Accept as Solution’ button if my post solves your issue or answers your question so, other Community members may benefit and thank you for doing so and I'm here to help.

[Jim]

I use an AMD W8100 workstation level graphics card with the Autocad 2018 ISV certified driver.  I called and this is the appropriate driver for Civil 3D 2018.

[Jim]

I reviewed the Windows 10 Resource Monitor and it looks like my CPU usage is higher than is should be, particularly when a misbehaving C3D file is open.  I want to try excluding these files from my antivirus program (TrendMicro).  

Does anyone know what files, extensions, wildcards or combinations thereof I should list to capture the Autodesk products in Infrastructure Premium 2018?

[Jim · Accepted solution]

I discovered the problem and now know why this has been such an elusive problem for so many, it's not the Autodesk Software!

After reviewing the Resource manager in Windows 10 I noticed that the service CorsairLink4 was using a substantial percentage of CPU time.  I disabled this service in the pc management tools and the CPU utilization significantly decreased and the erratic cross-hair returned to it's expected, precise behavior.

I now remember installing the Corsair service recently to monitor the temperature of my motherboard components.  I have a Samsung 950 PCIE SSD that can display decreased performance if it becomes too hot.  As I am writing this I now remember setting the sampling rate at it's highest setting.  Most likely I can reduce that from something like 100 Hz to a more reasonable 1 Hz and I may be able to run the Corsair monitoring program as well.

Thank you all for the input.  I hope my post helps someone frustrated.  Of course, my apologies to Autodesk for assuming it was your issue.

[BushW]

Hello @Jim

I am happy to hear that you were able to solve this problem and thank you for replying back with your comments. Your answer will most definitely help other community members benefit. 

If you ever have any issues in the future, I'll be here and I'm happy to help.

Best Regards,

Wendell