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. For information on the options available, see Manual Performance Tuning Dialog Box.
The Performance Tuner creates a log that reports which graphics card and 3D display driver were identified on your system and whether hardware effects are enabled. The Current Effects Status section displays the current state of the supported hardware effects of the current display driver.
An example of the Current Effects Status section might look like the following:
Current Effect Status: ---------------------- Enhanced 3D Performance: Available and on Smooth display: Available and on Gooch shader: Available and using hardware Per-pixel lighting: Available and on Full-shadow display: Available and on Texture compression: Available and on Advanced material effects: Available and on
You can manually turn on and off features that your system supports, recommended or not.
The log file created by the Performance Tuner displays information about the current application driver, as well as available application drivers and supported effects. This information is in the Available Application Drivers and Effect Support section. Use this information to determine whether it’s better to use an application driver for your graphics card or the Software driver. The Available Application Drivers and Effect Support section might look like the following:
Available application drivers and effect support: ------------------------------------------------- Software driver Effect support: Enhanced 3D Performance: Not applicable Smooth display: Not applicable Gooch shader: Software emulation only Per-pixel lighting: Not applicable Full-shadow display: Not applicable Texture compression: Not applicable Advanced material effects: Not applicable Autodesk driver: Not Certified Effect support: Enhanced 3D Performance: Available Smooth display: Available Gooch shader: Available Per-pixel lighting: Available Full-shadow display: Available Texture compression: Available Advanced material effects: Available
To display mapped object shadows in viewports and to use per-pixel lighting, hardware acceleration is required. When Enhanced 3D Performance is off, mapped object shadows cannot be displayed in viewports.
When Texture Compression is turned on, the amount of video memory required to open a drawing that contains materials that utilize images or has attached images is decreased. By using the effect it can reduce the amount of video memory necessary to display the drawing, but the downside to this effect is it may increase the time it takes to load the images the first time that they are accessed. Also, there is a reduction in the quality of the images when they are displayed in the viewport or plotted.
Certification Updates
As more graphics cards and 3D display drivers are tested, they are added to a list on the Autodesk website. You can check for updates and download the latest list at any time. In the Adaptive Degradation and Performance Tuning dialog box, click Check for Updates.