Hidden Shademode slows PC

Hello.

I'm running into grief when using the "hidden" shademode, particularly within viewports in layout tabs.

Basically, it just slows my computer to a near halt. If I click on any layout tabs which have any viewports set to hidden shademode, the tab takes about 20 seconds to load, and then if I try and zoom, it has to think about it for about 3 seconds every increment.

In model tab, if I'm set to Hidden, every command (including zooms and view changes) takes a good few seconds to execute.

The drawing I'm working on is not really that complex, and other similar drawings on the system don't seem to be quite so damaging.

I've put all the PC specs I could find out with my limited computer savvy/ability to use google in my profile.

Help me Cadtutor forums, you're my only hope.

I think your computer specs speak for themselves. Not good.

2GB RAM is minimal and integrated graphics just plain suck the life out of 3D. Time to get a real computer or upgrade the one you have.

What is the max RAM your motherboard will accept? 3GB? 4GB?

What is the speed of the RAM that is installed now and what max speed will the mobo support?

Do you have the $$$ to buy a dedicated graphics card?

Let's start there.

Other drawings don't seem to suck the life out of your computer? Have you purged this particular drawing including any regapps? Are there any xrefs attached to this drawing? Does this drawing have an arm's length scalelist?

I believe your motherboard has four memory slots and can accommodate a max of 4GB of RAM. The RAM can be PC2-3200 (400MHz), PC2-4300 (533 MHz) or PC2-5300 (667 MHz). Check you RAM and see which type is installed. If you add more RAM (1GB at least) make sure it is the same type. One stick or module of a faster speed RAM will default to the speed of the slower RAM so don't waste your money.

The motherboard, as you stated, has an integrated Intel GMA (graphics media accelerator) 950 chip onboard. However, I believe you can disable this and add in a PCIe based graphics card as I noticed that the words "card support" were part of the video display specs. Since you are doing 3D work buy a graphics card by nVidia or ATI (now owned by AMD) that is on the certified list of supported cards by AutoDesk. Buy the best card you can afford. You won't regret it.

Finally, come back here and tell us what you did to upgrade your system. We'll be most interested.

Lots of technical computer stuff

Hmm. Indeed you are powerful.

Anyway, one thing I forgot to mention is that this is my office computer. My home computer has 4GB of ram, and a 3.6GHz 2 Core Duo processor, as well as a nice Radeon something something graphics card. If I ran Autocad at home, it would be like a dream. A good dream.

Since RAM is cheap as, I could probably justify buying another stick out of my own pocket, but I'm not about to go buying graphics cards for my office computer.

What's really funny is that until very recently, I actually had the most RAM in the office. One guy had 500MB (not a draughtsman, but still).

Also, I rarely use 3D. Most of our stuff doesn't require it. I've been here for 2 years and this is the first project I've had to use 3D on, and I've pretty much learnt 3D for this project.

Oh, one thing that the computer really didn't like was a Custom UCS that I made and saved... that seemed to crash it fairly frequently...

As for the scalelist, I haven't touched it, it's just got the standard ones in there, and I don't even use xrefs.

I hadn't actually purged the drawing, but I did just now, there wasn't really much to purge though. Still doing the same thing.

But thanks for your help.

You will continue to run into these types of issues then. Talk to management and see what they say about adding a dedicated graphics card. I'm sure you could find one at a price their budget could afford.