Video card D3D compatibility - Revit 2010 on Vista / Win7

[Wes Macaulay]

I corrected your statement for you.

DX is new to Revit and maybe the Factory just needs another year (even if their track record doesn't speak well for things changing for the better).

Ha! I am inclined to agree with you, and in fact shared my frustration in the open SR I have on this issue. In the SR I mentioned that DX has supposed to bring wider compatibility but it doesn't seem like we've experienced that. In the SR I stated that I'd like to see a guarantee that WHQL-certified drivers on DirectX will be compatible with Revit.

Here's hoping

[iru69]

You're talking about that old "Render Benchmark" test? Those benchmark numbers won't tell you anything about your video card.

What we're interested in is how well it works with Revit's HWA... does it crash, are there strange artifacts, does the Ribbon go black, do shadows work, etc... Open up a model and put it through its paces.

Will do, ill run the RAC and MEP bench tonight. Although last time i tried doing the bench in win7 it wouldnt write the csv file

[KGC]

Yeah i guess that would help wouldn't it. You guys leaving the GPU settings set to default or are you tweaking it at all.

[twiceroadsfool]

No -- though I'm hoping people will start posting to this thread with their results.

Aaron, I think the Factory doesn't want to take the heat if someone buys the recommended card and it doesn't work! Plus, who wants to take sides on the vendor wars?

This whole thing is a mess. It's hard to lay the blame on the Factory -- I've got a Radeon 4650 which works great (Vista 32). But the mobile 4670 (Win7 64) and the desktop 4670 (Vista 32) don't work with D3D in Revit -- turning D3D on in Revit on the 4670s makes views slower and causes objects to flicker on and off. So with the same drivers, why does the 4650 work with D3D in Revit, and the 4670 not work?

In that regard, i dont blame them one bit. Thats why (even though i knew it wouldnt appeal to their more generous tendancies) i didnt ask for an officially recommended card OR driver. In fact, i wasnt asking about a card to use, since i had a particular card i was referencing in the SR.

Actually, i just asked them if they could tell me a particular QuadroFX card DRIVER that they were using in house (whether officially certified, or not), on ANY of the Quadro cards, and they couldnt.

Im not upset though, i understand they really cant. Its just frustrating becasue they either have:

1. A factory full of employees whos computers crash as much as ours (and they wont talk, lol)
2. A factory full of ATI cards that sing perfectly and never waver (and they dont want to support one or the other).
3. A factory with some Quadro cards that theyve gotten to work, but they cant tell us with which drivers or which settings out of obligation not to.

In either case, i sympathize with them. All in all, our crashes arent that frequent, as long as HWA is turned off, and no one is in XP32 with the QFX570, LOL.

[KGC]

Well I couldnt open the model i wanted, dunno why. But i was able to open another arch model and do a simple drafting rendering. No black lines or any other noticeable issue. Ill try and get the good model opened tonight and do a better rendering (more shadows and such) and see how it comes out.

I think my issue is that im not connected to the internet and havent been able to get all the cab files.

[iru69]

Well I couldnt open the model i wanted, dunno why. But i was able to open another arch model and do a simple drafting rendering. No black lines or any other noticeable issue. Ill try and get the good model opened tonight and do a better rendering (more shadows and such) and see how it comes out.

The video card has just about nothing to do with rendering (as in Revit). It doesn't matter what video card you have, or whether you have Hardware Acceleration turned on or not, it's not going to affect rendering performance. Rendering is processed by the CPU, not the video card.

[gwnelson]

FX580 is working better on 7 than it had on Vista or XP, all 64 bit. Hardware accel is on and I do get a little residual effect where a bunch of entities get highlighted but zooming out seems to release everything. Overall I'm 95% happy with my hardware & 2010 performance. (No mention of railings or other content issues here).

[KGC]

You're talking about that old "Render Benchmark" test? Those benchmark numbers won't tell you anything about your video card.

What we're interested in is how well it works with Revit's HWA... does it crash, are there strange artifacts, does the Ribbon go black, do shadows work, etc... Open up a model and put it through its paces.

The video card has just about nothing to do with rendering (as in Revit). It doesn't matter what video card you have, or whether you have Hardware Acceleration turned on or not, it's not going to affect rendering performance. Rendering is processed by the CPU, not the video card.

You lost me.....

[iru69]

You lost me.....

Please excuse me if I misunderstood you and you already are aware of this, but a common misconception is that a faster video card and/or Revit Hardware Acceleration (HWA) results in faster rendering times. It doesn't. It (rendering) doesn't have anything to do with D3D (DirectX) either. Simply put, rendering performance is entirely dependent on the speed of the CPU and RAM.

The "compatibility" being discussed in this thread has to do with working with views and the model, and more specifically when Revit HWA is turned on (since it's rather rare that a video card won't work okay with HWA turned off). When you zoom in and out or orbit around the model, is it smooth or do parts of the model disappear? Does Revit become more prone to crashing? Do shadows work as expected? Do strange graphic artifacts or random lines suddenly appear, etc.

An example is the ATI FireGL V3400 video card in my computer. It works fine with HWA turned off. If I turn HWA on, it appears to be okay for a little while as I work with the model, then random graphic artifacts will suddenly appear or the view will turn completely bright yellow or other weird stuff. So, that video card would go under the "not compatible" with HWA list.

I hope that helps explain what this thread is about.

[KGC]

OK i got you. I was aware of the first part, but i guess that didnt click in my head when I did a quick rendering. Well based on that The model i opened was a large University Housing project, 250k sq ft or so i think. I switched between a couple views and a 3D view with no issues. Although that was with HWA turned off. Ill do more of that as well as everything else you mentioned.

Sorry for the confusion.