OpenGL issue?

ericschimel · 22 Dec 2010, 20:26

In our office, we’ve got three computers, all Dell Precision laptops with Quadro fx1600m video cards.

The three machines are very similar in specs to the one I am on, but they were all ordered a few months apart, so some of the components, and processor speeds are slightly different.

I just upgraded all three machines from XP to Windows 7 Professional 64bit.

Two of the machines have exhibited what I think are strange OpenGL issues.

Normally, these machines are screamers on just about everything, including Sketchup. But two of them every now and then start to render Sketchup models, and other 3D apps that use OpenGL very slowly. When they get slow, its worse then running it on the lowliest of netbooks. The "Active degradation" kicks in if you even think of orbiting.

I have discovered a few things that can alleviate this problem:

Rebooting, but it will come back sooner or later
Resizing the Sketchup window. When I do this, Sketchup generally comes back to life and screams along.

I have also experienced other strange bugs on these machines. They all seem to be OpenGL related. So perhaps my issue is not with Sketchup, but some sort of other issue related to video? I thought maybe some of the forum members could offer some advice here.

BTW, this is on Sketchup 8

thomthom · 22 Dec 2010, 20:41

Could be. Have you tried updating the graphics drivers?

ericschimel · 22 Dec 2010, 20:47

I one machine i removed and reinstalled the drivers. I still had the same issues. Then i got the drivers direct from nvidia, and still had no luck. I also tried the beta drivers from nvidia as well, and I am still seeing the same results.

mitcorb · 22 Dec 2010, 23:12

What if it is motherboard chipset related? You did say these machines shipped months apart. Motherboard specs could change? Chip sources could change? Or this absolutely cannot happen?
I would say someone with direct lines to either OpenGL or Dell should try to rule this out.

sketch3d.de · 23 Dec 2010, 16:53

@unknownuser said:

...two of them every now and then start to render Sketchup models, and other 3D apps that use OpenGL very slowly.

if this happens when running on battery the Windows and/or the nVidia GPU energy profile may have an influence on this.

hth,
Norbert

ericschimel · 23 Dec 2010, 17:42

Interesting thought... Would these power settings be in the normal power control area of Windows, or is there a separate set of options somewhere else for nVidia units?

ericschimel · 3 Jan 2011, 13:58

I rolled back to a driver that was a lot older (written before Win 7 came out) and it works fine now.... Very strange..