Anti-aliasing: correct NVIDIA settings and driver

[whunter]

Hi all;

1) Settings issues:
I'm trying to get rid of jaggies in Inventor via the NVIDIA Control Panel by setting the display to Quality with the slider, but I don't see any difference in Inventor's display. Notes: I kill Inventor before I change settings, and then launch after I've applied the settings (but I don't restart, should I?). I have my display in Inventor set to Smoother. I'm using Vista, so it's D3D, no OpenGL.

Can someone give advice on how to get the anti-aliasing to work, please? Is there a 'benchmark' screenshot of one of the Inventor samples available somewhere so that I can compare? Maybe mine isn't so bad...

2) Driver issues:
Card: Quadro FX 570
Driver: 191.00_Quadro_win7_winvista_32bit_english_whql

The above is the latest driver from NVIDIA. www.inventor-certified.com gives 182.46 as tested driver, but I thought the whole point of WHQL is that any WHQL driver will work? Should I rather use the driver from inventor-certified?

There are similar posts to this one on this forum, but no satisfactory answers.

Cheers,
wh

[NeilClasby75]

Hi WH

Glad I sort of helped? 🙂

Did you get it going with D3D9 or D3D10?

Cheers, Neil.

[MattH_Work]

Darn it.

DX9 - Good
DX10 - BAD

MattH

[whunter]

Neil;

9 only, and 10 is the recommended setting for Vista... How do you figure that?

Do you have the details of the NVIDIA cards you applied your 'fix' to, please? I'm in discussion with the guys at Autodesk and it would greatly improve my case.
--
William

[MattH_Work]

Latest News

178.26 - Good

MattH

[richiesuk]

is it ok with xp 64 bit?

[richiesuk]

is it ok with xp 64 bit?

[DarrenP]

vista supports direct X 9 & 10
you have to have a direct 10 graphics card to use it
win 7 supports direct X 9, 10, 11

[whunter]

> {quote:title=DarrenP wrote:}{quote}
> vista supports direct X 9 & 10
> you have to have a direct 10 graphics card to use it

Yes, but that doesn't mean the anti-aliasing (aka multi-sampling) works. I have a D3D 10 card, but multi-sampling only works for 9 under Vista, and then only for certain NVIDIA drivers (see the ones MattH has tested thus far). What is more, my graphics card "Autodesk Inventor Certification Status" is Gold and according to

> {quote:title=http://www.inventor-certified.com/graphics/:}{quote}
>"If the D3D driver is WHQL certified, but reported as Uncertified or Unknown in the graphics diagnostic, Click OK and paste into notepad. Search for the word "Gold" in English.If it is found, everything is OK."

But obviously everything is not OK.

XP-64 only uses D3D 9 (aka DX9) (http://www.inventor-certified.com/graphics/#3GB_OpenGL)

[whunter]

An official response to me from the Autodesk Support Team and developers state that for current (2010 SP1) and prior builds of Inventor, only DX9 will work to enable anti-aliasing from the NVIDIA control panel. DX10 doesn't work for Vista.

They said that will try to improve this in later builds of Inventor. Whether this means a setting inside Inventor or from the NVIDIA control panel is not clear.

So there you have it. DX9 only for Vista if you want anti-aliased display.

RIP

[NeilClasby75]

Hi WH

In response to a previous reply, my card is an NVidia FX2500M in a Dell M90. The video driver is 156.69 with BIOS 5.71.22.28.04.

Not sure how much different 9 is to 10? Faster I guess? Is this something to look forward to?

I also assume that Windows 7 makes no difference as DX is effectively a separate standard anyway - therefore you would have to use DX9 in Window 7?

For the record (to Autodesk) I would say that anti-aliasing is up there as one of the most vital and important issues to be resolved. My week is anything from 50 hours to 110 hours, which is a long time staring at a screen. I simply could not do this without anti-aliasing as without it the lines appear to flicker. Assuming the newer DX standards are faster then this simply makes the use of them even more important, as we all strive to get the maximum performance from our workstations to improve both the quantity of our work, but also the quality of the environment (i.e. Inventor) in which we work. PS Inventor is the bestest thing ever!! 🙂

[whunter]

Hi Neil;

We seem to be only a handful of people who actually make use of multi-sampling. I suspect many users are still on XP, so they have the OpenGL option, or they just don't worry about it/doesn't bother them.

For me it's also essential for the same reason as yours. I also write technical reports and often take screen shots of parts/assemblies for documents (I know there are other ways, but taking a screen shot with Vista's little Snipping Tool is very productive). An anti-aliased picture just looks so much better than a jagged edged thing...

About W7, it won't be any better. W7 is just a (much needed) improved Vista, as I understand. Anyway, I read good things about W7, so will definitely make the switch (UAC is driving me mad).

I had to create an issue as a Subscription Member to get an answer I was happy with, I recommend you do the same. It's the only way to address the issue, one can't, in all fairness, expect the ADSK developers to browse forums looking for issues. BTW, I got prompt and to the point support from the Autodesk Support Team.

[MattH_Work]

Latest News

178.46 - Good

181.20 - BAD

So it seems that 178.46 is the latest driver which supports AA when run with the Quadro FX 570

Hopefully either NVIDIA will put back in whatever they took out, or Autodesk will officially support AA in the future (SP2 ?)

MattH

[ToddHarris7556]

Sorry... feeling a bit confunded at the moment....
I'm also running an FX2500M / M90. Just recently installed Win7/64 and moved my Inv 2010 Pro to it.
Let's just say.... there are lots of challenges with the video. It's fine until I fire up Inventor, and then... flash/tear/jaggies... wow.

Driver Version (in the Adapter properties window) is 7.15.10.9746, with BIOS 5.71.22.28.4.
Dell hasn't yet posted a Win7 driver for this, and NVIDIA says 'go see Dell'.

Where do I find the 156.69 driver, please? Or any more recent driver?
Many thanks in advance.

Todd

Dell M90 4GB Win 7/64
Dell 670 8GB Win XP/64
Inventor 2010 Pro SP1 / Sub Bonus / iLogic

[Anonymous]

Thank you MattH and whunter!!!! And anyone else! I have been trying to get this to work forever.

It looks phenomenal with AA on!! I have it set at 8x (4xSS,2xMS) This is why you pay extra for the Quadro cards! Otherwise you might as well stick with onboard graphics.

Shame on Autodesk for not having better AA support and shame on nVidia for not having drivers that have functioning AA for the last year! (AA didn't work in another program MeshLAB that I use before either and now it does) Hopefully they correct this soon. But for now I'm sticking with DX9 and 1yr old nVidia drivers!

Thanks Matt and Whunter again!

P.S. In 2D drawings this is especially great. They had wicked jaggies before. It was driving me crazy that with a $500 video card and $5000 software I had to deal with that!!

...And screen captures finally look professional.

[whunter]

> {quote:title=jason7550 wrote:}{quote}
> Thank you MattH and whunter!!!! And anyone else! I have been trying to get this to work forever.
>
> Shame on Autodesk for not having better AA support and shame on nVidia for not having drivers that have functioning AA for the last year! (AA didn't work in another program MeshLAB that I use before either and now it does) Hopefully they correct this soon. But for now I'm sticking with DX9 and 1yr old nVidia drivers!
>
> ...And screen captures finally look professional.

Glad I (we) could help!

Apparently you can't override DX10 via NVIDIA control panel settings, DX10 gets its instructions from the application (in this case Inventor). DX9, on the other hand, allows its settings to be set by NVIDIA control panel. So it is completely up to the software engineers at ADSK to make AA work with DX10. It is therefore not the graphics card vendor's responsibility (to the extent mentioned here).

It means they'll (ADSK) have to add an Infinitely Smooth option or an Anti-aliased or Multi-sampling option to Inventor. Anyway, this is my laymen's way of understanding it... And of course, don't forget that with Vista and W7, OpenGL isn't an option, like it is with XP.

As I understand from an ADSK employee, AA will be 'better' in future releases, I hope this yields something to cheer about.

[Anonymous]

On 11/19/2009 12:13 PM, whunter wrote:
> > {quote:title=jason7550 wrote:}{quote} > Thank you MattH and
> whunter!!!! And anyone else! I have been trying to get this to work
> forever. > > Shame on Autodesk for not having better AA support and
> shame on nVidia for not having drivers that have functioning AA for the
> last year! (AA didn't work in another program MeshLAB that I use before
> either and now it does) Hopefully they correct this soon. But for now
> I'm sticking with DX9 and 1yr old nVidia drivers! > > ...And screen
> captures finally look professional. Glad I (we) could help! Apparently
> you can't override DX10 via NVIDIA control panel settings, DX10 gets its
> instructions from the application (in this case Inventor). DX9, on the
> other hand, allows its settings to be set by NVIDIA control panel. So it
> is completely up to the software engineers at ADSK to make AA work with
> DX10. It is therefore not the graphics card vendor's responsibility (to
> the extent mentioned here). It means they'll (ADSK) have to add an
> Infinitely Smooth option or an Anti-aliased or
> Multi-sampling option to Inventor. Anyway, this is my laymen's
> way of understanding it... And of course, don't forget that with Vista
> and W7, OpenGL isn't an option, like it is with XP. As I understand from
> an ADSK employee, AA will be 'better' in future releases, I hope this
> yields something to cheer about.

Yes update soon and often as the best is yet to come! Sounds like an ad
doesn't it? I'm rather new to IV as I was stuck in ACAD for the last few
years, and the things I had to correct for there still haunt me! I was
trying to rotate a block in AutoCAD 2010 yesterday by using grips and
second space bar gets to rotate. IT WON'T rotate and show me a visual
rep. until I exploded it.

[richiesuk]

any news????

[mcgyvr]

> {quote:title=richiesuk wrote:}{quote}any news???? Hopefully this is being addressed in 2011....:) you can sign up for the beta to check for yourself.

[whunter · Accepted solution]

Well, this is now good in 2011, just set to Quality under the Hardware Tab. Happy, thanks.

 --

wh

[richiesuk]

Hi all,

we have latest certified nvidia driver, win 7 x64 inv 2011 pro, and cant set up visual type 4 and neither AA....

any suggestion?

here is the hw report

This Direct3D graphics driver is not Microsoft WHQL certified

Graphics Hardware Description:

NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800

AIRViz Device Manager \ VirtualDeviceDx9

Feature Level 3_1

Hardware Renderer

Graphics driver file nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um is version 8.17.12.5849

Current optimization settings are not known

The display is using 32-bit color

Inventor Version:

Build: 239, Release: 2011 RTM - Date: Wed 02/17/2010      

64-Bit Edition - 8192.00 GB

Loaded Inventor Add-Ins:

Routed Systems: Tube & Pipe

Assembly Bonus Tools

iLogic

Simulation: Dynamic Simulation

Autodesk Mold Design

Inventor Vault

Simulation: Frame Analysis

Content Center

Inventor Studio

Design Accelerator

EDM Addin

Frame Generator

AEC Exchange

Routed Systems: Cable & Harness

iCopy

Content Center Item Translator

3DxInventor

Drag & Drop Interoperability

Inventor Tools

Simulation: Stress Analysis

Autodesk DWF Markup Manager

System Information:

Operating System:                          64-bit Microsoft Windows 7 Professional  (Build 7600)

Language:                                           English

System Manufacturer:                  Workstation Specialists

System Model:                                                 WS14xx

BIOS:                                                     Default System BIOS

Processor:                                           Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU         670  @ 3.47GHz (1 processor, 2 cores, Hyperthreading enabled)

System Memory:                                             7.991 GB RAM

Graphics Device Information:

Renderer:                                           HAL

Manufacturer:                                  NVIDIA

Chip Type:                                           Quadro FX 1800

DAC Type:                                           Integrated RAMDAC

Graphics HW Memory:                  768 MB

Display Mode:                                   1680 x 1050 (32 bit) (59 Hz)

Graphics driver file:                         nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um

Driver file version:                           8.17.12.5849

Driver Date:                                        9 June 2010 0:00:00 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)

Direct3D Graphics Device Information:

Adapter Description:                      NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800

Vendor ID string:                              0x000010de

Device ID string:                               0x00000638

VendorID:                                           10de

DeviceID:                                             638

SubSystemID:                                    62c10de

Revision:                                              a1

Direct3D 10 / DXGI System Information:

Dedicated Video Memory:          742 MB

Dedicated System Memory:       0 MB

Shared System Memory:                              3.500 GB

DxDiag System Information:

Operating System:                          Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.100226-1909)

Language:                                           English (Regional Setting: English)

System Manufacturer:                  Workstation Specialists

System Model:                                                 WS14xx

BIOS:                                                     Default System BIOS

Processor:                                           Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU         670  @ 3.47GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.5GHz

System Memory:                                             8192MB RAM

Page File:                                             3041MB used, 13320MB available

DirectX Version:                               DirectX 11

DxDiag Version:                                6.01.7600.16385

DxDiag Graphics Device Information:

DirectX Version:                               10.0

DDI Version:                                       10

DDI Version Number:                     a

DxDiag WHQL Level:                       0

Driver Signed Valid:                         True

Driver Signed:                                    True

Manufacturer:                                  NVIDIA

Chip Type:                                           Quadro FX 1800

DAC Type:                                           Integrated RAMDAC

Revision:                                             

Graphics HW Memory:                  229 MB

Display Mode:                                   1680 x 1050 (32 bit) (59Hz)

Graphics driver file:                         nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um

Driver file version:                           8.17.0012.5849

Driver Date:                                        6/9/2010 18:49:00

WHQL Level:                                      1

Inventor Options Information:

Options = 0x00000000

Warning Options = 0x00000000

Graphics driver log information:

Jun/29/2010-15:53:49:   User changes the graphics driver by reading XML file: D3D10 -> D3D9.