Graphics performance tuning examines your graphics card and 3D display driver and determines whether to use software or hardware acceleration.
Features that might not work properly on your system are turned off. Some features might work with your hardware, but are not recommended because the graphics card or 3D graphics display driver that you are using did not pass the Autodesk certification process or was not tested. Features can be enabled at your own risk.
The tuner log reports which graphics card and 3D display driver were identified on your system and whether hardware effects are enabled. The Effects section displays the current state of the supported hardware effects of the current display driver.
The log file displays information about the current application driver, as well as available application drivers and supported effects. Use this information to determine whether it’s better to use an application driver for your graphics card or the Software driver.
To display mapped object shadows in viewports and to use per-pixel lighting, hardware acceleration is required.
When Uncompressed Textures is turned on, the amount of video memory required to open a drawing that contains materials that utilize images is increased. By using the effect it may decrease the time to load the images the first time that they are accessed, but the downside is it can increase the amount of video memory necessary to display the drawing. Also, there is a reduction in the quality of the images when they are displayed.
As more graphics cards and 3D display drivers are tested, they are added to a list on the Autodesk website. By default, AutoCAD automatically checks for certification updates.