Knowledge Base

There are several possibilities for less than satisfactory graphics performance in IntelliCAD 7.2. Some of these issues are result of known bugs, driver compatibility or older hardware.

	
Jerky mouse movements on large drawings - Try typing SELECTIONPREVIEW at the Command: line and set it to 0. If performance improves, you may want to keep at 0. This setting controls preview of selection of entities on "mouse-over". Otherwise return it to the default value of 2.
	
Zoom with wheel causes delays of few seconds and the Status bar displays "OpenGL" (which is more modern driver) - In some of the graphics cards (mostly ATI), there are issues with the graphic driver and IntelliCAD "starving" each other, causing these delays. There are four possible solutions in order of preference:
		

			
Install newer build. Testing builds are available from http://littlecadenginethatcould.blogspot.com
			
Delays may be related to automatic REGEN being too frequent or too slow on particular drawing, for example due to large coordinates. User may choose to disable automatic REGEN in favor of doing it as needed. Type REGENTOOLTIP at the Command: line and set it to ON. This will cause the program to display a balloon in the the lower right corner, offering user to regen but will wait until the user REGENs or clicks on tooltip.
			
Upgrade graphics card to a moderate newer card if possible (desktops only). See below.
			
Type HWACCELERATION at the Command: line, set value to 0 and restart IntelliCAD. This forces the use of an older legacy driver. You will see BMP at command line. Be aware, however, this option might also slow other operations.
		
	
	
Many operations are slow like zooming, gripping, panning, jumpy rubberline - MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A RECENT VIDEO CARD DRIVER. It seems the most common and most easy to fix issue is to update an out-of-date graphics card driver. To check you graphics card model:
		

			
On Windows XP - right-click on desktop, go to Properties → Settings
			
 On Win7, Win8 or Vista - right-click on Desktop, pick Screen Resolution → Advanced Settings
		
		Once you know your graphics card, please download the newest driver from the manufacturer of the card:
		

			
NVIDIA: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
			
ATI/AMD: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx
			
Intel: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/
		
		If the graphics update did not help, please proceed further.
	
	
Type OPTIONS at the Command: line, select the DISPLAY tab and make sure "Show scroll bars" is not checked. Checking it on causes performance problem (currently known open issue).
	
If your status displays BMP, type HWACCELERATION at the Command: line and set to 1 (unless forced to value 0 by case "4" above). If HWACCELERATION is 1 already, please consider upgrading your card if running desktop computer.
	
If your Status bar in IntelliCAD displays OpenGL, you could try newer build or HWACCELERATON=0 as discussed above, but perhaps the cause is in your CPU or drawing complexity, please discuss with Carlson Technical Support.

IntelliCAD's graphics card requirements are not very demanding, however some of the modern cards still do not work well. Generally, discrete (not integrated) graphics cards work the best. It is recommended that your graphic card support at least OpenGL 2.0. There are times, however, that video cards miss a feature in the specification which is needed by IntelliCAD, causing IntelliCAD to revert to legacy mode. Spending money on high end gaming graphics card will not likely give you much of an advantage... typically you would be better off with more memory and faster CPU like Intel i7.
Here is an example of moderately priced card working well:
Nvidia GeForce 9800: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130534 which works in desktops with PCI-E slot. Note, however, that users of older computers with AGP slots may have less of a selection to choose from.