Inventor 5/6 - I think I'm going to need a bigger boat!

[roknjohn]

I thought that I had a pretty decent machine:
Dell Precision 530
DUAL 1.4 Ghz Intel Xeon Processors
256MB RAM
Matrox Millenium G450 AGP - DualHead

Well, I tried installing Inventor 5 & Inventor 6. Both installed ok, but when I attempted to run either, I got a OpenGL error. I tried setting the Tools|Application Settings|Hardware.. options, as well as downloading the latest video drivers.

With a few of the hardware settings under "Application Options," I was able to suppress the OpenGL error. But, if I try to open even the simplest part file, or create a new "standard.ipt," the system crawls - and I mean crawl. e.g. It takes 2-3 minutes to paint just the menus and tool bars. If I click on a menu item, it takes about 10 seconds to drop-down. Completely unusable!! (The weird part is, the initial 3D rendering of the part is fairly quick, its the non-graphic windows that seem to be the problem.)

I've tried turning off the dual monitor mode, using 16-bit color depth, 1024x768, etc., to no avail. I didn't expect blazing performance but I at least thought that I was better than the average bear. :-)

Do I need to upgrade or do you think it's an installation problem?

[HolyMasamune]

Umm I don't think it's something with your computer speed. Something's probably gone wrong with the installation or your computer may have some bugs (i mean it's a dell) that prevent you from running inventor. Our school uses computers that are like 233 mhz with uhh...64 mb ram or something and they still run.

[riley_ag]

open gl problems are most likely resolved with your video card

make sure you have the newest drivers, also, see if there is a way to change the driver settings in inventor itself, you can do that without having to start 3dsmax, not sure about inventor though.

hope this helps

it is late and I am stupid, just fully read your post
um... so you switched to software opengl or other options
I dont know then, sorry

[Mike Betts]

I agree with the above, I have run Inventor 5 on much less powerful machines than you have without problems.

After you check out the video and, if you still have problems, try increasing the virtual memory/ pagefile size. I usually run a fixed filesize of 2 GB and recently upped it to 4 GB when I started to do some serious stuff (non-FIRST related). I do not let Windows manage the file size...

[Jeremy_Mc]

Originally posted by Mike Betts
I usually run a fixed filesize of 2 GB and recently upped it to 4 GB when I started to do some serious stuff (non-FIRST related). I do not let Windows manage the file size...

i wouldn't do that...you usually don't want your page file size to be bigger than RAM because windows says "hey! there's more memory over there!" and uses your page file more than your ram. your page file is WAYYYYY slower than ram.

*jeremy

[Mike Betts]

Read the installation instructions... Example: 3DSmax 5.0 recommends 8X RAM for virtual memory... I've never had a problem with things running slower as RAM is always preferred over VM. Moreover, some apps may not handle it well when Windows "automatically" adjusts VM.

In addition, variable VM can fragment badly as your disk utilization gets greater than 60-70%... I had an NT machine about 3 years ago come to a complete and utter halt due to pagefile fragmentation...

Just my humble opinion... Your mileage may vary.

[roknjohn]

Well, Dell & Matrox were not much help at all. I took Autodesk out of the equation after I discovered my 3D Pipes screensaver wouldn't run either.

But I did find a workaround solution. It came from another G450 user who was having the same problem with another OpenGl application. Adusting the hardware acceleration setting in Windows to the second lowest setting, allowed both the screensaver and Inventor to run. I haven't noticed any side effects yet, but its seems to be running fine.

See you in a few weeks!!