Revit with Surface Book

[Anonymous]

I have a brand new Surface Book, i7 8 GB RAM with Nvidia GPU.  I have had problems attempting to run Revit, and have heard of others stories on the incompatibility of Revit with the Surface Book.  The program flickers and freezes whether the screen is attached or not attached to the keyboard, and whether I attempt to run Revit with the GPU or with the integrated graphics card.

I'm guessing this computer or graphics card just are not compatible with Revit at this time.  I am wondering, is there any possibility of this issue being known by Microsoft, and is any attempt being made to resolve the issue through Nvidia, Autodesk, etc?

I really like this machine, but may have to trade up if there seems to be no solution to running Revit in the near future.

Thanks.

[scott_d_davis · Accepted solution]

i have a MS Surface Book, i7 with 16 gb of ram, and Revit runs just fine!  It all has to do with the screen resolution scaling.  Revit does not like to run  at the native 3000x2000 by 150% scaling factor.  Try a scale factor of 200%, and even try using a smaller resolution, like 1900 x 1200 at 100%.  There probably is an "optimal" setting, and maybe others will chime in, but I run  1900 x 1200 at 100% and have no problems.

You also say that the screen flickers whether the screen is attached or not...but this isn't possible.  Revit cannot run in detached mode, because the i7 processor is in the base.  Surface book in tablet doesn't have the power to run revit.  in fact, it wont let you detach the screen if revit is running.

Also, for others that are considering, I would get the 16 GB ram model.  You may run into issues with larger models with only 8 GB of ram.

[Anonymous]

I'm also having an issue running Revit on my 3840x2160 display. I brought it down to 1920x1200 but the software still opens up with white screens and I'm unable to change the scale factor because the window is flickering. Any ideas? I posted a thread about this issue. Thanks! 

[scott_d_davis]

you need to change the screen resolution and the scaling prior to launching Revit. Many times, you need to sign out of windows and sign back in before changes will take effect

[Anonymous]

Revit 2017 works fine, no scaling or having to mess with resolution.

I do have a problem with the GPU.

Since I can't enable hardware acceleration for the Nvidia chip,   I found out that by disabling the Nvidia chip and forcing Revit 2016/2017 to use IntelHD520,  Revit lets me use hardware acceleration and it works faster than Nvidias GPU in software emulation mode. 

In autocad there's a huge difference.  I have my surface book updated even tried installing Nvidias beta drivers.

I can still model stuff and work ok when I am not at the office, since I am a structural engineer and my models are much simpler that architecture models, but I feel I am not using my laptop to its full potential. 

 I was hoping someone could tell me if it is just me.  

i5, 8mb, Nvidia GPU.

Thkx,

[Anonymous]

Are you using the Surface book with the i7 - 16gb ram with th Performance Base or the standard base?

Thank you,

Mike Johnson

[Anonymous]

Hi,

At the moment the performance base wasn't out yet.

Haven't tried the new version, I´ll wait for the SB2.

Errol

[Anonymous]

Scott,

Have you experienced any overheating issues with your Surface Book when running Revit? My original Surface Book (i7,16GB) developed severe burn marks (horizontal and vertical) in the upper left and right corners of the screen. Although the local MS store replaced it with an identical Surface Book, they wouldn't replace it with the newer Performance Base version. Without Revit running, I can feel that the back of the screen is minimally warm. However, with Revit 2016 or 2017 running, after a short period of time, the back of the screen gets exceedingly hot. So much so that I close out of Revit. The project I am working on is a very small tract house with a 56Mb file size. I haven't reached the point of trying to render a project. Some of my legacy Revit development project file sizes are 150Mb. I've owned the Surface RT (wife's), Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2, and now two Surface Books. My Surface Pro 2 could run circles around the Surface Book, @$3,500 w/2 year extended warranty. 

Thank you in advance for any advice you can offer.

Larry C. Sims