Autodesk Inventor® Hardware Web Site

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Reporting A Graphics Problem

See Reporting Requirements for the information that is REQUIRED when a graphics issue is reported. This information enables us to respond in a timely manner without going back and forth a number of times.

Items to check before submitting a report:

  • Are you using the driver tested and certified by Autodesk?
  • If the display properties dialog has application profile settings for Autodesk Inventor®, make sure that they are disabled, unless specifically specified by this site.  This is to prevent conflicts with Autodesk Inventor® settings. (Check the information about your specific card/driver/OS combination for exceptions.)
  • If performance is very slow, Autodesk Inventor® may not be using hardware acceleration.  See the information about the Hardware Tab to view the Graphics Information dialog.  If the driver ID string (first line) contains “Microsoft GDI Generic…” hardware acceleration is not enabled.  (Autodesk Inventor® will run just fine without graphics hardware acceleration. For notebooks with S3 graphics, Autodesk Inventor® may actually run faster without hardware acceleration.  See item ii below, for information on how to disable acceleration for just Autodesk Inventor®.) Some actions that may be taken are:
    1. In the display properties dialog try to find a slider or a checkbox  that decreases or disables hardware acceleration.  This is usually behind a troubleshooting tab or button.  Move it to its maximum setting, or check it to enable acceleration.
    2. Autodesk Inventor® 5 or Newer Note: Users can now turn hardware acceleration on and off by going "Application Options" in the "Tools" menu and then clicking the "Hardware" tab.
    3. Some older or low end cards only support acceleration with 16-bit or 32-bit color.
    4. The graphics driver may be incorrectly installed.
    5. The graphics driver may not support hardware acceleration with Open GL. Get a new driver that does or a new card if the card does not have sufficient resources for Autodesk Inventor® to use hardware acceleration, Inventor will switch to software emulation mode.
  • I installed a new version of Autodesk Inventor® and I now have serious graphics problems.
    1. The Autodesk Inventor® team tests new Autodesk Inventor® releases against the latest graphics display drivers from the vendors. Newer versions of Autodesk Inventor® usually require more of the graphics card and driver than older versions. Please check this site for current information about your graphics card.

    Please verify that your issue is a graphics issue

    1. Turn off hardware acceleration.  ( Display Properties > Settings tab > Advanced Button > Troubleshoot tab > Move slider to none.)
    2. If this works, test to see if there is a position to the right that also works.
    3. This will give you a temporary workaround.

  • Use the Hardware tab to get information on how Autodesk Inventor® is performing.
  • If you no longer see the problem then it is, in fact, a graphics issue. See below for further instruction.

  • If you have graphics-related problems such as excessive flashing, lines connected that shouldn't be, missing faces, portions of faces missing while zooming, program lock up while using transparency or while previewing graphics, bleed though while using multiple windows, or other display "badness", please try New Driver Installation Steps.

  • Please find your graphics card in the ‘Graphics Cards’ section to see our comments.
  • Please verify that Autodesk Inventor® is seeing hardware acceleration.

  • Download and install the most recent Registry settings, as provided on this site in the Preparation and Performance Procedure section.
  • If the driver ID string has suddenly changed, please contact Autodesk, Inc. so that we may make the necessary updates.

    • If you still have graphics problems, please contact us. It is possible that your display driver is not in our library of hardware settings and needs to be added. Please include the following information in the Autodesk Inventor® Bug Report:

    Reporting Requirements

    Please include the following information when reporting on a graphics issue:
  • REQUIRED
    • Graphics Diagnostic Dump. with a graphics window open, go to Tools > Application Options...and click on the Hardware tab. If "Use software graphics" or any variation of GDI or Emulation is checked, click the best mode available. Exit the dialog, Close all open graphics windows, then re-start the process.
      • Include the status of all buttons in this dialog with your report.
      • Click on Diagnostics then click OK. (This dumps much more information than is displayed into the copy/paste buffer.) Paste into a document. to be included in your report.
      • For versions of Inventor that support D3D, reports without the D3D diagnostics dump can not be accepted.
    • OS, SP, Amount of Physical memory, Graphics mode in which the problem is seen (D3D or OGL).
  • Enough information such that the problem may be reproduced.
  • Exactly what was being done when the problem occurred?
  • If the problem is dependent on a specific data set, please include that data set along with the problem report. Autodesk Inventor® 5 or later provides Pack and Go through the right mouse menu in Windows Explorer collect all related parts of a drawing or assembly. This data can then be compacted (right mouse menu in Explorer) zipped and sent to Autodesk.  As always all customer data sent to Autodesk is strictly confidential.
  • A brief history of the steps taken to investigate the problem.
  • OS name and patch level.
  • OS language version.
  • Vendor of the graphics card (for example, Nvidia).
  • Name of the graphics card (for example, Synergy II). See How to tell what graphics card is installed in your machine.
  • Vendor of the graphics driver (for example, NVIDIA).
  • Version of the graphics driver (for example, 4.00.1381.1241). See How to tell what version of the graphics driver you are currently running.
  • Location from which the driver was obtained.  If possible, include the URL.
  • Autodesk Inventor® build number:  This can be found under the help menu in "About Autodesk Inventor®."
  • Autodesk Inventor® language version.
  • Snapshot of Autodesk Inventor® graphics driver information dialog from the Autodesk Inventor®. See How to bring up the Autodesk  Inventor® dialog showing your graphics driver information
    1. For Autodesk Inventor® 5, 5.3, and later: when the dialog appears users will have the option of click OK or Cancel. Click OK to copy all the information in the dialog to the clipboard. Users may then paste everything into the bug report (Microsoft Word document or Word Pad document.).
    1. Screen shot of the display properties dialog showing the graphics card name and driver version. (This may require multiple screen-shots.)
      1. Use ALT + Print Screen to capture the Autodesk Inventor® dialog and paste the screen shot into the same document as above.
    Please visit Autodesk for more information.

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