Soilidworks works no more???

I tried to use Solidworks 2005 sp0.1 today and it doesn't work!
I have tried a new total ( from formatting the hard drive onwards), full
machine installation from scratch and it still does not work.
I have tried installing Solidworks 2004 sp0.0 also, but same problem.
Because this in the UK, we have to use a dongle, (Hasp usb), is there a date
related problem with these dongles?

I am going to try a magic number install and see if that works.
Good start to the year, I think not, lol
I will let you know.

 

Ha!, got it working.
The magic number install didn't work either, so it had to be hardware
related.
Every other program works, except Solidworks, then I saw a message
concerning openGL, when trying to end the solidwork process, after
cancelling the send report to Microsoft window.
I can replicate the fault condition at will now.
In the Bios, there is a setting regarding the "AGP aperture size. When set
to 256MB, Solidworks works, when set to 4MB, Solidworks, doesn't work.
OpenGL in software, box is not ticked, so it must be using hardware.
I had flashed to the latest Bios, where the default AGP aperture is 4MB.
This compaq has an on board graphic's card, which is disabled. I am using
Asus Nvidia 5790 card.

Any answers to why this would affect only Solidworks??

 

Supposedly SW doesn't take advantage of AGP, but that is something I
heard a long time ago. I think most machines are set at 64. You might
want to change the settings to get best performance after reading the
following. This would be a good application of the SpecAPC benchmark.
Run the benchmark with different aperture settings and determine which
is fastest.

Here are articles that explain it somewhat:
http://www.tweak3d.net/articles/aperture-size/index.shtml
http://www.ocfaq.com/article.php/overclocking/vidcard/43
http://www.cybercpu.net/howto/basic/AGP_aperture/index.asp
http://www.pcplus.co.uk/tips/defaul...leid=4556&subsectionid=383&subsubsectionid=91

 

It's a shame that those links relate to older video cards, but was very
usful, no less.
I have the geoforce 5700 chipset, graphics card with 256mb of on board ram.
1GB system ram
P4 2.8
Setting the agpa to 64MB, nearly kills my machine, (sloooooow crawl), so I
will set it to 128MB and see.

 

Hmmm!
I spent ages downloading SPECViewperf 8.0, only to get a failed message
saying, "selecting pixel format failed", when trying to run the solidworks
2005 test, now I'm totally lost, lol
Btw, setting the AGPA to 128MB have brought my pc back to form.

 

First of all, there is no GeForce 5700 graphics card shown on SW
compatibility list. 5700 falls between some of the numbers SW lists for
an older tested GeForce card. The test shows limitations for that card
even when used with the drivers listed.

The setpixel error is a graphics card driver error. You want to get
that sorted out before fiddling with BIOS settings, etc. If your card
is not supported then there is not much you can do. I have run ASUS
graphics cards before without problem, but sometimes I had to use their
drivers. The question then becomes one of whether the ASUS driver will
support what SW needs to run.

Finally, what I took away from the articles listed on the AGP aperture
settings was that you have to test it yourself. There was one test in
the listing where 64Mb was slowest with one particular software. If the
SPEC benchmark is throughing that error then you know for sure you have
a hardware/driver compatibility error which is why you should run
benchmarks as a system test.

In summary, you are using an uncertified graphics card with an unknown
driver so it is up to you to do the testing to assure yourself that it
is going to work in your application.

 

Good point about the Graphics card, but I like gaming and the Nvidia 900 xgl
can not compete with the 5700 in unrealtournament 2004, lol. I have both
cards.
The driver that I am using is the latest nvidia driver, 6693, that
solidworks recommend on their site for SW2005 and the 900xgl, which covers
even the 5700. but I will try the Asus driver and report back. I know SW
doesn't certify the 5700, but it works fine for me.
I found this openGL benchmark that works:
http://www.glexcess.com/files.htm
It's quick and you can see what difference tweaking the graphics card makes,
if any, to your system. It was quite amazing to see, what the difference,
changing the AGPA, makes.

 

Finally I got SPECViewperf 8.0 to work!
It was to do with the screen resolution, lol
Mine was set to 1024x768, I ramped it upto 1280x1024 and now it works like a
dream.
This seems to be a really good hardware test.

Here are my first results, first using the Asus driver and next using the
lastest Nvidia driver 6693.

sw-01 Viewset Asus
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Test Weight Frames DLB Visual Double Frame Buffer Depth
Stencil
# Per Sec Sec ID Buffer Red Green Blue Alpha Buffer Buffer
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 12.50 17.0 N/A 5 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
2 12.50 4.63 N/A 5 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
3 12.50 4.02 N/A 5 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
4 12.50 4.98 N/A 5 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
5 12.50 8.49 N/A 5 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
6 12.50 6.92 N/A 5 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
7 12.50 26.5 N/A 5 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
8 12.50 8.25 N/A 5 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sw-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 8.190


sw-02 Viewset Nvidia 6693
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Test Weight Frames DLB Visual Double Frame Buffer Depth
Stencil
# Per Sec Sec ID Buffer Red Green Blue Alpha Buffer Buffer
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 12.50 16.8 N/A 7 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
2 12.50 4.23 N/A 7 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
3 12.50 3.77 N/A 7 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
4 12.50 4.72 N/A 7 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
5 12.50 10.6 N/A 7 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
6 12.50 7.07 N/A 7 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
7 12.50 27.1 N/A 7 True 8 8 8 0 24 0
8 12.50 8.40 N/A 7 True 8 8 8 0 24 0

 

Try the SPECApc benchmark for SW, not SPECViewPerf. You want to optimize AGP
aperture for SW don't you?

 

Thanks for the redirection, lol
Now for the results:- note lower score = better

4MB AGP Aperature
Solidworks 2005 refused to startup

8MB AGP Aperture
Gave up after 1hour 37 mins!!

16MB AGP Aperture
Test Total = 734.15
Graphics 1.07 = 166.94
CPU 1.18= 273.74
I/O 1.08= 293.47
Score 1.11=726.02

32MB AGP Aperture
Test Total = 733.04
Graphics 1.06 = 168.97
CPU 1.16= 277.05
I/O 1.10= 287.02
Score 1.10=726.28

64MB AGP Aperture
Test Total = 728.65
Graphics 1.07 = 162.11
CPU 1.17= 274.63
I/O 1.08= 291.91
Score 1.13=722.03

128MB
Test Total = 741.76
Graphics 1.06 = 169.02
CPU 1.15= 280.4
I/O 1.08= 292.34
Score 1.10=734.38

256MB
Test Total = 732.06
Graphics 1.09= 165.63
CPU 1.16= 277.29
I/O 1.09= 289.14
Score 1.12=724.47

Now even though 256MB looks better, the total time difference between 32MB
and 256Mb, is only + 0.98 seconds.
Between 32MB ans 128MB is a staggering +8.72 seconds, therefore 128Mb is
really a bad choice! the best seems to be 64MB for this benchmark!
Some really odd returns though?

 

There is nothing odd about the results. They are what they are and
obviously other than the low end settings SW is, for practical
purposes, not effected by AGP aperture size. Since the aperture
setting being increased can take away memory from other processes I
would keep it toward the low end. I suppose 64Mb is a good compromise.
I am presently running my own tests also. This benchmark is pitifully
slow.

 

I will run these tests on my work machine, when I go back to tommow.
End of holiday :-(
I would add, that maybe the reason why the test runs so slowly on your
machine,
is because the testsare not designed for the sinclair spectrum, with only
128k ram, lol
Only kidding, you are right, they are very sloooooow!
Good luck, at least it keeps you off the PC, to do other boring things.

 

On one of my systems 128MB was the fastest setting by a very small
margin. I have yet to test AGP settings on my fast machine.