Is there a notification when FlexSim falls back to using a generic OpenGL ?

[clair_augsburgerZGWRZ]

[ FlexSim 17.0.0 ]

Hi,

About the graphics settings in the Global Preferences, the User Manual says:

"If no graphics acceleration is available with your system configuration, FlexSim will automatically fall back to using a generic software OpenGL implementation and ignore the settings defined here."

When FlexSim automatically falls back to using this generic implementation, does the user get a message to inform him that his computer is not meeting FlexSim's system requirements and therefore the graphics will be reduced ?

[sam_stubbsYXX86 · Accepted solution]

As far as I'm aware there isn't any pop up warning window or anything. (The devs can correct me if I'm wrong.) But you can always check for yourself. If you go to Help > About FlexSim. The second line under SYSTEM INFORMATION will inform you what Open GL set up it is using.

[clair_augsburgerZGWRZ]

I'm asking this question because if there's no message, someone who has a bad computer will have a slow rendering, no bone animations etc and might think that the capabilities of the software are limited, whereas it's his hardware fault. Please let us know what the developpers think.

[philboboADSK]

This is how it has always worked. It is just documented now.

[clair_augsburgerZGWRZ]

I don't think it has always worked this way. In the past a user with a bad hardware had to manually switch to compatbility mode. Now the documentation says that in that case FlexSim will automatically fall back to using a generic software OpenGL implementation. That's why my question is: is there a notification when FlexSim automatically switches to this generic implementation ?

[philboboADSK]

It still works the same way it has always worked.

In the past (and right now), a user with "bad hardware" gets an OpenGL context back from the graphics driver that claims to support certain features and then doesn't actually do them when told to.

In this situation (then and now), you would still need to upgrade your graphics drivers to a version that actually supports what it claims to support, or you could (although it is strongly discouraged) manually change to using a generic context. This is the same as it has always been.

This is a completely different situation than what the quoted paragraph is describing, where "no graphics acceleration is available with your system configuration" and FlexSim gets a GDI Generic context from Windows.

For an example of the situation described in this paragraph, try using Remote Desktop to connect to a virtual machine running FlexSim on a server without a graphics card. FlexSim (then and now) will get a Microsoft GDI Generic OpenGL 1.1 context regardless of the settings in Global Preferences.

The answer to your question is exactly what Sam said: no. It doesn't give you a notification regarding what OpenGL context FlexSim is using; it just displays that information on the Start Screen and the About screen.

If I wanted it to work differently than it works, I would change it to work differently. "The developers think" that it works exactly how the developers designed it to work.

[clair_augsburgerZGWRZ]

Thank you very much Phil for this detailed answer, I understand better.