Some people have reported problems with 3D Simulation. Sometimes the simulation runs very slowly, or stops running at all, or even crashes the system. If you have problems of this type, it is probably because your graphics card does not have the most up-to-date display driver. You should download the latest driver from the Web Site of the manufacturer of your graphics card. To find out the make of your graphics card, go to Start|Settings|Control Panel, select the Display option and click the "Display Type" button on the Settings page.
If you have installed the latest driver for your card and you still have problems, email support@uk.licom.com . It is important that you include as much information as you can: The make and model of your computer, the make and model of your graphics card, which Windows version you are running (98, NT, 2000).
Some hints and tips for improving performance:-
For best speed go to Start|Settings|Control Panel and select the Display option. On the Settings page, select 16777216 Colours (24-bit). Only use 65536 Colours (16 bit) if your card does not have enough memory on the graphic card it is about half the speed of 16777216 Colours (24-bit). Do not use 256 Colours (8 bit) - picture (and Quick Shading) quality is poor and printing of the 3D Simulation display is not supported for 8 bit.
The new 3D Simulation uses OpenGL and hardware acceleration. This means that a fast graphics card will make a difference to the performance. Some graphics cards have options in the display properties for improving performance. If possible, enable any option which suggests "Enable Fast Page Swapping" (might be "Enable Page Flipping") and disable the "Wait for vertical sync" option if the driver allows this.
The simulation runs MUCH faster with Show Tools turned OFF:-
1. Because of the new speed control, many more calculations are made to draw the tool if the tool is shown while the tool is cutting. The old simulation only drew the tool at the start and the end of elements. Now the display is re-drawn probably ten times more often so it will obviously be much slower if Show Tools is on.
2. If you use a small tolerance for good picture quality, the display is slow. The default tolerance is for picture quality, not speed, and if you want to display it with tools shown, you should stop the simulation and increase the tolerance to about 3 x the default value.
