Bus Stop Sketchup For Mac
For a little background: SketchUp uses the OpenGL library for rendering 3D. When SketchUp uses a video graphics card, it's up to the graphics card manufacturer to provide the OpenGL library with a driver. Sometimes, the OpenGL library will change for various reasons. SketchUp uses most elements in the library, including some aspects of OpenGL that aren't used very much by other applications. If there are any changes to OpenGL in the driver such that it deviates from the OpenGL standard, issues in SketchUp may appear such as issues selecting a face. If unchecking 'Use hardware acceleration' fixes an issue, this is a great indicator that there's an issue with the driver's implementation of OpenGL. SketchUp Guide Tommy.
Unfortunately, only some 3D drivers in the consumer video card market are 100% OpenGL compatible and can use this feature (though many cards claim to be 100% OpenGL compatible). Most 3d drivers are designed for games, and are often not tested using other 3D programs. Consequently, incompatibility problems can occur requiring a fix from the video card manufacturer. Disable this option if you are having problems with the 3D rendering of your models or if your video card is not 100% OpenGL compatible and does not support hardware acceleration. OpenGL incompatibility is a significant system configuration issue leading to problems with SketchUp. Difficulties with Sketchup tools, performance, and rendering (such as mysterious graphics appearing on your screen) are usually the result of a video card not fully supporting OpenGL (despite claims by the manufacturer), an out-of-date video card driver, or incompatibility with 32-bit color depth. A temporary solution is to disable hardware acceleration in SketchUp while troubleshooting the problem.
Consult the Video Card Compatibility section of the Readme file (in the SketchUp installation directory) for additional details regarding compatibility issues for specific video cards. Or, visit the SketchUp Mini and SketchUp Plus support Web site at XYZ for technical support help with your video card. Wikipedia article gives a good, in depth summary of OpenGL function. Mac OS X chart for different graphics hardware.
SketchUp requires OpenGL 1.5, but 2.0 support is better. The list in the link may have additional extensions from later versions.
But nonetheless, the extension names alone indicate which things OpenGL controls - there is a lot of 4-dimensional calculating going on for all the rendering changes that occur while modeling. which SketchUp settings are affected by the graphics hardware - and how the settings affect modeling speed. OpenGL extension viewers View the content of your graphics card driver online. Cross-platform, graphic card stress test. for Windows,. (GLEW) is a cross-platform open-source C/C extension loading library.
GLEW provides efficient run-time mechanisms for determining which OpenGL extensions are supported on the target platform. Windows, Mac, Linux. Free system information program from Piriform, CCleaner developer. Great utility for detailed system information, and it also detects all the OpenGL extensions included in the graphics driver. Go to Graphics OpenGL GL Extensions to see what your driver includes. Poor performers.
Historically, ATI drivers had more deficiencies in the OpenGL library included in their drivers. Currently though, ATI/AMD drivers have improved. To help understand why there may be a difference between manufacturer drivers, look at the in OpenGL extension support offered by NVIDIA and ATI/AMD Radeon cards., GMA, and, IGP, are graphics chipsets integrated into the motherboard. There is no dedicated video memory.
They compete for the same system memory as the central processor unit, the CPU, and often use the same bus (the pathway) to access the memory. Graphics drivers for GMAs and IGPs are notorious for not being 100% OpenGL compliant and some GMAs may only offer support for OpenGL 1.4, not 1.5 and above. On board graphics have some physical limitations. Even if drivers for integrated graphics chips claims to have adequate OpenGL support, the drivers will temper how the chipset processes the information to avoid overheating the computer.
In contrast, graphics cards can run faster as they include on board fans and often require more power in addition to what is supplied to it through the motherboard. As an aside, back in 2008, Intel advertised for driver developers to help create world-class 3D drivers to enable their products to run demanding applications. So future Intel products may perform better with SketchUp. But for now, Intel graphics for Windows systems are not recommended by Trimble SketchUp - although Window Surface Pro tablets with their integrated graphic chip reportedly does a good job running SketchUp.
It is possible to set up graphic card settings for individual programs. TaffGoch shows the SketchUp specific control panel settings from the partner-certified driver he uses - which has custom settings recommended specifically for SketchUp. Anisotropic filtering is toggled off for SketchUp when the graphics card settings are customized for individual programs. A few people reported they needed to turn off conformant texture clamp for their NVIDIA card (the infamous 8800 mentioned above in fact). However, this option is no longer offered under the NVIDIA Control Panel. It dealt with texture compression under OpenGL. Non-driver settings. Some drivers prefer if the SketchUp window is set to the maximum window size instead of a minimized state.
Blank SketchUp window issue solved by correcting the primary monitor assignment in a multi-monitor set-up. Some people have reported SketchUp display issues when DirectX 10 is installed on a XP system.
Many higher-end Graphic cards, like NVIDIA's 8000 series and above support DirectX 10. Those cards can be used on either XP or Vista machines. However, DirectX 10 is designed to run on Vista. Downgrading to DirectX 9 may help some XP-users. Update ( or downgrade) the graphics driver. If updating the driver doesn't fix the issue, you can try the following steps to turn off Fast Feedback or Hardware Acceleration:. Click 'Window'(PC) or 'SketchUp'(Mac) 'Preferences' 'OpenGL'.
Uncheck the 'Use fast feedback' box and restart SketchUp. If you're still encountering an issue, uncheck the 'Use hardware acceleration' box and restart SketchUp “ Fast Feedback, if it is compatible with your machine, won’t change anything that you can see. Rather, it will change only the speed of your drawing actions when working with large models. Fast feedback more efficiently redraws your screen between the front and back buffers of your video card which speeds up drawing, but it only kicks in when performance has degraded to a certain level.' SketchUp Guide Tricia. On XP systems, right-click on an empty desktop space. Go to Properties Settings Advanced Troubleshoot.
Bring the Hardware acceleration slider to None. Select OK and OK again. Check if you can go into SketchUp Preferences and adjust the setting on the OpenGL menu.
Close SketchUp and re-enable system hardware acceleration. Restarting SketchUp to check for the problem. And if SketchUp now functions, change the OpenGL and/or fast feedback settings in SketchUp preferences.
Restore system hardware acceleration. Post-Windows XP, the same thing as described above can be done while under administrative mode: Control Panel Appearance and Personalization Display Screen Resolution Advanced Troubleshoot. But given the extra hoops one has to jump through to enter administrative mode, it may be more practical to use the app from sketch3d.de or Dan's.
If you don't have an nVidia GeForce 8800GT, this advice could still potentially help. Some time ago, I noted that a two-year-old driver on my laptop always performed better than the 'latest and greatest' driver. You, too, could have better results with older drivers. Collect driver versions applicable to your graphics hardware, and try each of them. Keep in mind, while experimenting with device drivers, that Windows XP provides a feature to 'roll-back' device drivers, to the previously employed driver. Note that Microsoft states, '.Driver Rollback permits only one level of rollback (only one prior driver version can be saved at a time.)' If you try a new driver, and it doesn't resolve the graphics issues you're experiencing in SketchUp, you can roll back to the previous driver.
You can NOT roll back to several drivers previous. It's a good idea to download drivers, always saving them in a 'driver' folder of your creation. Run the driver installations from that folder. In this manner, you can experiment with different drivers, and can ultimately re-install that one particular driver providing the best performance.
(Keep notes while experimenting!) TaffGoch. So after considering all your options you're thinking about going shopping?. to see which graphics cards are installed in different machines. may help to narrow down the choices. It usually contains several review links for selected graphics cards. Compare videocard performance benchmarks with the financial value of the cards.
also has a wealth of graphics card information. for Mac graphics card speed reports. Mac OS X chart for different graphics hardware.
NVIDIA buyer's help. PDF article explaining the difference between professional and consumer graphics cards. (Note, SketchUp IS designed to run on systems with 'crappy' graphics cards. And SketchUp can be set to function without the additional rendering processing from graphics hardware albeit slower.
A professional graphics card is NOT required hardware. Many professionals and hobbists are quite happy using a consumer-grade graphics card. But a crappy card with a deficient driver will not run as well as a good, 100% OpenGL compliant, 3D-modeling card.). Interactive comparison guide. If you plan trying to upgrade your system, do your homework. Many newer/better graphics cards also require more power. So a higher wattage power supply may also be required.
Also older systems may have some compatibility issues with swapping out and installing a new graphics card. In that case you are mixing old technology and its older OS chipset drivers, BIOS settings, etc. with the latest and greatest graphics card on the market. A GPU upgrade may be possible on older machine - but there may be a few hiccups that need to be cured along the way.
And there is still no guarantee of success. Sick of this graphics card stuff yet?
Bus Stop Sketchup For Mac Free
Do the best you can with the card you have by practicing good. catamountain.