Video Driver check and update

When you first install SolidWorks, you’ve upgraded, or just purchased a new system, with the latest and greatest hardware… at least for this month. You may experience some instability or graphical issues, like ghosting, no Real View, crashing as a result of swapping windows, even things taking a little longer than they should.

Vendors of video cards like nVIDIA and ATi, do write there own video drivers for specific operating systems, 32 and 64 bit processors etc. These cards have specific settings and configurations that need to be altered for optimum use with SolidWorks. SolidWorks development themselves take these drivers and alter their setups to run SolidWorks as best as possible. SolidWorks test and certify the drivers and publish them on their website at:

http://www.solidworks.com/sw/videocardtesting.html

Note: Even if you have the same driver version (number) as the one listed at the link above, that was downloaded from the vendors website, you will still not have the correct configuration and driver setup.

When you get to the site you will notice 4 drop down filters to help filter for the correct driver. Please note that there are vendors that include DELL, IBM and HP, so if you have a system that was purchased from on of these suppliers and the card was supplied by this supplier and not fitted by yourself later, then please use this as the vendor as the drivers are specific to these vendors. You will also note that you can filter for your system. Note to that the Operating System selection is critical, and that there are separate drivers for 32 and 64 bit systems. If you are running a laptop it is more than likely that the vendor supplied the card and often they have an ‘M’ at the end of the name.

When you get to your driver note the icons allocated to them with regards to the card passing all tests, passed with limitations, supports RealView etc.

When you are running a dual monitor setup, please ensure that your card does support multi head hardware acceleration, if not ensure that you always have SolidWorks application running on the primary monitor.

If your card is not listed it is possible that the card is not supported for CAD use and that it could be a gaming card. Gaming cards will have names like GeForce and Raedeon. If you do have a gaming card we recommend that you swap it out, if you have recently purchased the system it has been possible to swap the card for a CAD based card.

Note: Not having a certified card, or driver for your system will most defiantly cause instability in your SolidWorks usage. Intercad and SolidWorks struggle to support customers with hardware that is not supported or tested.

To test whether or not your card is to blame for your instability, you can; Close all SolidWorks files, go to Tools>Options>System Options>Performance> and check the option, “use software openGL” this will remove your card from the equation. Now test to see if things improve. If yes then your card or driver is to blame.

Micah Speight  / Application Engineer

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