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    gcleaves
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Light Designer 2.02 graphics issue?

My laptop is having issues with LD 2.02. In the Layout and Program/simulate tabs the area that shows the fixture icons will not refresh on a mode change, instead giving me a black window where the fixture icons are usually shown. All other graphics appear normal. This will also cause the software to crash.

I first noticed this fairly consistently at Re-cert training in May. It doesn't appear to be configuration specific, but I can say for sure that it has happened on the training configurations used in class as well as to the configuation attached in the zip file.

I was told at training that this was an OpenGL issue. I have since updated my OpenGL driver and not seen any improvement.

Also included in the attached zip file is the recently created DMP file and a DOCX file with a screen shot of the System page of laptop. I have compared this to the requirements published by ETC for laptop computer requirements and except for the maximum resolution, I meet or exceed every requiement.

Please help. It is very annoying to not have a functional computer when trying to manipulate or create a configuration in Light Designer. I can also report that this error seems to be limited to my laptop and does not seem to manifest itself on my desk machine.

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  • As you were told in the training, this is an issue with the OpenGL graphics processing on your laptop.

    This can be down to bugs in the graphics card driver, hence our general suggestion to check for updated drivers.

    Unfortunately the information about your laptop in the ZIP doesn't actually say which graphics card you have or its capabilites.
    - If you click on the "Windows Experience Index" you get a bit more info, including a "View and print detailed performance and system information" that will then show which graphics adapter you have. I've attached mine so you know what page to look for.
    (It's generally better to attach screenshots as a PNG image rather than an MS Word document, as not everyone has MS Word. Paste it into Paint)

    According to Microsoft, your computer is only just capable of running Aero (3.0 is the absolute minimum), so you might get an improvement by turning that off to reduce the load on your graphics card.

    Unfortunately, as you have already updated the driver and the screen resolution is lower than the requirements, this low Experience Index does imply that the graphics hardware in your laptop may not be capable of the necessary OpenGL acceleration.

  • in reply to Richard

    Well, there's the problem. My graphics on the laptop are officially sucky. Total available graphics memory: 358MB. Dedicated graphics memory: 0. Dedicated system memory: 64MB. Share system memory: 294MB.

  • in reply to gcleaves

    I'm actually surprised you don't have more of an issue as a result of limited memory. The minimum required fro LightDesigner is 1GB shared memory as noted on the Data Sheet http://www.etcconnect.com/docs/docs_downloads/datashts/7180L1007_Uni_Paradigm_LightDesigner_Spec_Sht_vC.pdf

    Unfortunately not much can be done to remedy this on the hardware that is currently being used.

  • in reply to bpalmer

    While I understand that my laptop video sucks, I feel compelled to point out that the minimum video memory is not called out on either the Paradigm data sheet sited above or on the minimum computer requirements for returning service technician. The cut sheet for Light Designer referenced above and returning technicians requirements specifies that there be "1 GB of RAM or better (2GB recommended)." My computer has 3 GB of RAM, so by the book, my computer should be fine. neither of these documents talk about "shared memory".

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  • in reply to bpalmer

    While I understand that my laptop video sucks, I feel compelled to point out that the minimum video memory is not called out on either the Paradigm data sheet sited above or on the minimum computer requirements for returning service technician. The cut sheet for Light Designer referenced above and returning technicians requirements specifies that there be "1 GB of RAM or better (2GB recommended)." My computer has 3 GB of RAM, so by the book, my computer should be fine. neither of these documents talk about "shared memory".

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