annoying display issue

[Edwardt]

The issue is other applications are displayed in the workplace are when I click on a TFP pro 14 menu (it doesn't really matter which one I select). Pls see attached before and after screenshots for an idea of what happens. 

TFP is the only program I own that does this and TFP has done this since I bought it 3 months ago. In case its a hardware conflict my platform is XP SP2, decent nvidia GPU, & every program include TFP is as I am aware fully up to date.

Any suggestions on how I can fix this or is this something to be fixed in a future update?

thanks Ed

[kanewolf]

TFP is very sensitive to graphics drivers.  I have an ATI and have had trouble off and on.  Turn off hardware acceleration and see if it happens.  The slowness is agonizing when panning 3D.  Update your graphics driver.  Might get better, might get worse.  Did you check the envisioneer forum to see if it is common on that site?

[Nik]

Hi, I get 'Can't read file header: Unknown file format' from those thumbnails and links.

Anyone else have similar issues ??
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FWIW, I had horrendous problems persuading graphics cards to work well with 'Classic' FP. For some reason, 'Open GL' hooks were not handled correctly. Even though my OpenGL test utilities *swore* my installation complied every way from Sunday, I had to turn off hardware acceleration etc. The last, best set-up had a matched pair of GeForce '520' 256 Mb OCs, with scary CAD benchmarks. They could drive twin wide-screens without flinching, but FP could not access their power. Mind you, FP could not access most of the PC's 3Gb RAM, began thrashing the swap-file with a clear Gb to spare. Uh, IIRC, you can now get solid-state disk-drives that would allow redirection of windows swap-file..

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Nik,

Nice to hear from you again.  Do I take your question to mean that you have TurboFLOORPLAN now?

I do not fully uderstand your question about  "'Can't read file header: Unknown file format' from those thumbnails and links."  When are you getting this?  The only place I can think that uses thumbnails is in the materials catalogue - is that where you get the message?

Re Hardware Acceleration etc. With Classic Floorplan I had HA problems all the time, even having to turn down the graphics acceleration on the PC itself to overcome the issues.  In the first release of TurboFLOORPLAN I had problems only during Advanced rendering and this was fixed when they issued a patch shortly after. Since then I have had HA on all the time on 5 different PCs and had no problems on any of them.  All have been standard installations with no 'tweaking' on my part as I do not know anything about PCs.  The latest one, an Asus laptop, has 4GB RAM, runs Vista, Core 2 Duo with Nvidia G102M 512MB. Whether TFP makes use of the resourses available I do not know, but it has by far the best for onscreen 3D walkthrough etc and the quickest render of any - three times as fast as the previous laptop, so I am really pleased.  TFP has always rendered much quicker than FP3D but it is just wonderful on this latest laptop.

Ed,  Re your display issues:  I would certainly try turning off the Hardware Acceleration (Settings/Program Settings/Graphics) as it may help, but I have had similar experiences on some of my PC's at different times in the past, in applications other than TFP, especially photo editors and web browsers.  I have not had it happen with TFP, so this leads me to wonder whether your problem is TFP or some other program or memory issue on your PC that is causing this effect with TFP.

Allan

[Nik]

Hi, Allan !

Sorry, my display issues are those thumbnails in the forum, which bewilder this IE 6 browser...

Sadly, I'm clean out of CAD and 3D, though I still collect 'Medieval-ish' 3DS and OBJ meshes for future use. Now I'm a 24/7 Carer, I daren't concentrate on 'abstracts' longer than takes to boil an egg. (*)

Worse, my CAD system's obsolete. I'd have to start from scratch, build a new, multi-core CAD_PC, battle a new OS, learn TFP, re-learn TurboCAD, re-work all my custom 3DS doors, windows etc etc that I tweaked to 'plug in' to 'Classic' FP, re-draw my mega-project from blank-slate...
{FX: Shrug...}

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(*) I still write SciFi in mad snatches but, the worse I'm stressed, the stranger it gets: Currently, maxed-out weird...

[Edwardt]

Hi All,

Thanks for your help. Indeed turning off hardware acceleration has solved this issue although its now rather slow to use (the lesser of the two evils I guess).

Best wishes

Ed

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Ed,

Experiment with the HA on and off.  You may be able to run some parts of the program with it on. You may find, for example, that it is OK with it on for inserting things on the Plan but not for 3D walkarounds but the opposite may be true also. It is very much specific to the PC and everyone will have different effects, or one at all. It would a nuisence turning it off and on of course (we have asked for a toggle button on the Status bar to make it easier). You may also find it performs better if you operate TFP with no other programs running.

Allan

[kanewolf]

Also, as I said before, a video card driver update to the latest NVIDIA version might help.  The Open GL portion doesn't seem to be an emphasis area on the "consumer" graphics cards.  Of course a Quadro card is only $150 on Newegg so, if it is really an issue, you could switch graphics cards.