Tag: video card

Should a video card for Revit cost $100 or $1000?

Luke Johnson

RFO Co-founder iru69 recently (14 October) updated his very detailed post on video cards and Revit at:

Revit Hardware : Video Graphic Cards

I recommend that you read this prior to investing in a new graphics card for use with Revit.

The post even includes an FAQ section – here is a little sample:

“Autodesk/my reseller/unnamed CAD expert says I should only use “Professional” (workstation/CAD) cards with Revit. But then I read here that lots of people use and recommend “Gaming” cards for Revit. Who is right?”
Despite what you may have been told, consumer (gaming) video cards can work just as well with Revit as professional video cards.

“Someone told me that SLI or CrossFire will double the speed!”
SLI and CrossFire are great for the latest video games, but it’s of no use at all for Revit. At least it’s never been demonstrated. If you want to give it a try, be my guest. 😉

Don’t forget about Autodesk’s recommended hardware list page:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syscert?id=18844534&siteID=123112

Using the TAB key – inconsistency between Status Bar and Preselection

Luke Johnson

Using my laptop with Revit 2013 and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 graphics card, I came across an interesting bug.  Using the Tab key, nothing seemed to be working.  But this is what was actually happening – I would:

  1. Hover over something
  2. Press Tab key, pre-selection does not cycle (but Status bar is correct, showing next item under cursor)
  3. Press Tab key again, pre-selection shows item from step 2, but again, Status bar shows the correct (next) item.  Left-clicking will select the item shown in the Status bar, not the one that is pre-selected.

Obviously, the first port of call for these types of problems is Graphics Hardware.  And yes, I was using Hardware Acceleration, and yes, the Hardware had not been tested with Revit, as the Options dialog shows:

Simply turning off Hardware Acceleration fixed this issue, as it will for many graphic-related bugs and errors.

If you really, really want the nice Hardware-accelerated stuff in Revit 2013 and you are using suboptimal hardware, you will need to either:

  • look for better graphics drivers for your hardware (may not work anyway)
  • replace your graphics / video card with one that Revit Wants (very hard if you are using a laptop!)

Similarly:
RevitCity.com | Problem selecting glass using tab key

Quad monitor setup using Geforce and Quadro mixture

Luke Johnson

My main video card is a Nvidia Quadro FX 580.  However, I wanted to run more than two monitors.  So I borrowed a old GeForce 7300 LE and installed it into one of the other PCI-E slots on my Gigabyte EX58-UD4 motherboard.

This is NOT an SLI rig.  But I can run it in a ‘hybrid mode’ where I’m essentially getting access to 4 monitors.  I try to make sure that I always run my main Revit instance on the monitor that is plugged into the ‘good’ FX 580 video card.

The main lesson here is that you need to install GeForce drivers to make this all happen properly.  The Quadro drivers do not seem to work very well in this hybrid setup. 

I am running 275.33 drivers, which you can download from here:
GeForce 275.33 Driver

This GeForce driver also includes cool stuff like overclocking options in the Nvidia Control Panel.