Selection window went missing?

[jvbodegom]

Hi,
I have used 2011 for a couple of weeks now and all of a sudden my selection window went invisible. It still functions, so I can select objects, but I can't see the rectangle. The selection preview effect and the area selection effect have seized to work too so I have no clue what I am selecting.

The settings in the Options -> Selection tab seem to be normal. What could this be? I did not change any variables and nothing has been customized yet. I upgraded from 2008, so I am still exploring the standard 2011 environment. No real need for customisation yet.

TIA

Jeroen

[UdvariSolnerDesign]

Sounds to me like one of those all-encompassing video driver issues.
If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: update your video drivers.
Otherwise, try changing the settings to something else, restarting autocad, changing it back, etc. to see if you can "shake it loose"

[jvbodegom]

Thanks, I'll try that. Can things like that just go MIA because of a video driver? It worked fine just a couple of minutes before...?
It will have to wait 3 weeks, because I'm on vacation until then...

[jvbodegom]

Just got back and updated the drivers. It works fine now!

Thanks!

[jvbodegom]

I started tweaking and noticed the hardware acceleration was turned off by default.
When I turn it on, the window dissappears again. When I switch it off, the window reappears.
Is there a tweak setting in the performance tuner where I messed up?

Never mind... I accessed and exited the tuner and now the selection window behaves as it should be... strange...?

[jvbodegom]

It now seems completely random. Sometimes the selectionwindow with the green/blue transparent backing functions when HWA is enabled and sometimes it doesn't.

Help!

[cadtag]

Well, why not leave hardware acceleration off? do you see any benefits to turning it on? or is it just the 'acceleration' buzz word?

On most of the video cards I've used, hwa makes no discernible distance to anything i'm doing in CAD. YMMV, but if you don't see problems without it, and you see problems with it, seems like an easy choice...

[jvbodegom]

The HWA does make a considerable difference on this machine. With HWA disabled, the crosshair is flashing and extremely laggy when I move it. It jumps as if it snaps to the grid.
First I thought it was the laptop style hardware that is in this computer that was just not made for CAD applications (Imac 27", i5, 4Gb, Mobility Radeon 4850 HD) that made AutoCAD slow, but it was the HWA that was turned off. In 3D the performance is even worse with HWA turned off.

So both with and without HWA it works only so so...

[jvbodegom]

I just noticed that the selection window does function in Paperspace, but not in Modelspace.
Does this ring any bells?

[EDIT]

It did ring a bell in my head...

The crosshairs in paperspace were set to black on a black background, in the Options-Colors tab. They showed up white on black anyway, so I did not look at that. Now it is set to white on black and now the selection window shows. (the Crosshairs are still white too...)
I still think it is strange that the crosshairs were white when they should have been black according to the settings and it is strange that they were not always invisible and that it was affected by the HWA.
Atleast I can replicate the dissapearance now so I think this was the problem.

Thanks for the replies everyone!

[j_menacker]

AMEP 2011 64 on WinXP Pro - Selection window disappeared this morning while editing a drawing. Also background for command line changed to black. No Options were being accessed when the window disappeared.

Went to Options>Display and selected the Color button. Changed crosshairs and command lines back to white. All appears to be well again. No changes were made to hardware acelleration or video drivers.

Joe M