Strange issue with stretching, drawing etc

[Anonymous]

I am the IT administrator of an office with approx 25 users working in ArchiCAD. For the most part everything
works fine but I have come across an issue affecting 5-6 users from time to time.
I personally don't work with ArchiCAD so I will try to describe to problem to the best of my ability.

The users can work in ArchiCAD for several hours, even days and everything is working perfect but suddenly some functions just stop working.
For example:

When stretching a wall the "preview" of the walls new location and size disapear. So when you are in the progress of stretching you cannot see its new look but when you click the mouse again the wall appears again,
often in the wrong manner since you could not see the stretching process.

When this stretching issue appears other things stops to function as well. For instance when placing a new line, you click one time to start draw the line and nothing shows, you click again and you see the line.
Also a "preview" issue as I call it, not sure if that is the correct term.

If I shutdown ArchiCAD and start it up again the problem is gone only to reappear after hours / days.

I have been in contact with our local Graphisoft supplier and they have no idea what this might be, they mostly blame the hardware of the computers which I think sounds quite weird.

The users are mainly working in ArchiCAD 15 when these issues appear.
They all have the following setup:

HP Elite 8300 i7, 8GB RAM, AMD Radeon HD 7450
Windows 7 Pro 64bit
HP zr2440w screens
This is the computer setup for all 25 users at the office and this issue only appears on 5-6 clients.

These problems are not specific for a certain projects. It happens both when connected to a BIM-project as well as local.

Perhaps not an ideal description of the issue as I am not familiar with all the terms but hopefully someone will understand what I am talking about

Thanks in advance

[Barry Kelly]

Try updating the video drivers.
This has cropped up before and usually updating the drives solves the problem.

Barry.

[Anonymous]

Hi Barry and thank you for your reply.
I failed to mention that in my original post,
I have updated the graphic drivers to the latest version and even tried with another graphic card (same brand just previous model) and the problem still persists.
Even changed the users monitor (a recommendation from our supplier which I thought sounded very strange indeed and having a hard time thinking this should offer a soultion).

Any other ideas?

[Barry Kelly]

Do you have the latest hotfix installed - hotfix 5 (build 4056)?

The only other thing I can think of is to maybe play with the hardware acceleration setting in the work environment (see attached image) but I am not sure if this will help or not.
No harm to give it a try - you can always set it back.

I remember I did have a problem once back in version 14 (not the same as yours - it was freezing in 3D) and I actually had to remove the video driver and install a slightly older one and that solved the problem.
Maybe that will work.

Barry.

[Anonymous]

Just a random thought, on the machines that exhibit the issue, are the users working on a particularly complex model? Perhaps the graphics cards are overheating, or failing in some way?

The HD 7450 is a very low spec card. ArchiCAD will work it fairly hard.

[Anonymous]

Hi again guys and thanks for your input, have not had the time to further troubleshoot this until now.
The issue has now appeared on two additional workstations at the office.
It happens both in larger complex models as well as very small local files.
Happens in both ArchiCAD 15 and 16, got the latest builds on both (4056 and 4010).
Have tried with 4 different video driver versions now and the issue still persists.

[Barry Kelly]

Sorry I have run out of ideas.
I still think it is a driver or video card compatibility problem.
Maybe this Archicadwiki article might help.

http://www.archicadwiki.com/VideoCardsForArchiCAD15

And similar for version 16.

http://www.archicadwiki.com/VideoCardsForArchiCAD16


In particular the section on installing drivers and making sure the old drivers are completely uninstalled.
Also it may be a problem with the Radeon cards - seems they are not recommended for laptops - maybe there are issues with desktops as well.

Are you in a position where you can try a different video card?

Barry.