ACCURENDER 3 OPENGL CRASHING

If you can repeat your crash in AccuRender when you open an empty drawing and do AccuRender/Walkabout/LoadAutoCADModelNow, it is most likely a problem with the OpenGL part of the display drivers for your graphics card. That is the time that AccuRender tries to open the "Walkabout-shaded" viewport, which uses the OpenGL language to communicate with the your display driver and graphics card.

A first step is to go to ControlPanel/Display/Settings/Advanced/Troubleshooting and drag the slider labeled "Hardware Acceleration"

all the way to the left. Then test to see if the AccuRender problem has gone away. If the problem goes away, you know there is something in the Windows Display Driver that can't handle some of the OpenGL calls that AccuRender uses.

Another diagnostic test is to restart your computer in Windows Safe Mode (Win2000/XP/95/98) or VGA mode (WindowsNT) and see if the crash still happens. (Restart the computer and hold the F8 key down as it restarts, then select "Safe Mode" from the white-on-black boot menu screen.) If you cannot repeat the crash in Safe Mode, you can be almost certain that the OpenGL modes of your normal display driver are unable to handle what AccuRender is throwing at it.

Once you have concluded that you have an OpenGL display driver problem, the next step in trying to fix this problem is to install newer Windows Display Drivers: You may be able to obtain (free) newer, higher-version, WHQL display drivers from the web site of the manufacturer of your display card, or from the manufacturer of the graphics chipset that your card uses.

Drivers that are Windows-certified by WHQL are worth seeking out. NVIDIA Quadro FX (not geForce) drivers have WHQL certification and

work well with AccuRender.

There is a list of AutoCAD-approved drivers at usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/hc?siteID=123112&id=6711853&linkID=2475161

or go to www.autodesk.com then Products then AutoCAD then DataAndDownloads then CertifiedHardware then GraphicsHardwareList

Also see the Frequently Asked Questions on the Certified Hardware page"".

Some situations such as ATI graphics cards and their bad drivers may be fixed by also installing the latest DirectX which is free from Microsoft at

http://microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.asp

Another thing to try if you have the best drivers you can find and the problem persists, is to change the color depth or resolution of the Display in ControlPanel/Display/Settings and see if the problem goes away. The weakness in the driver may only be in some of the combinations of color depth and resolution.

If none of what I've said helps, please contact McNeel Technical Support mailto:tech@mcneel.com with the specifics of your system, including detailed version numbers on your display drivers, and type of display card.