When was the last time you updated your video card drivers?

Anytime there is a major upgrade to Solidworks, it is always a good rule of thumb to make sure your computer is running a tested and recommended graphics card and the most up to date drivers. The first thing you will want to check is what graphics card and driver version you are currently running. The easiest way to do this is to open your SOLIDWORKS RX application (located in your list of programs under SOLIDWORKS tools). There will be a tab inside the RX window labeled ‘diagnostics’. There it will list the brand name of your card and the driver version you currently have installed.

The next step is to go to:

http://solidworks.com/pages/services/VideoCardTesting.html?lsrc=quick_links

Here you will find three pull down menus. The first menu says ‘All Vendors’. In this drop down you can select the brand of graphics card that you are running. If you have a Dell of HP computer you can select to search by your computer brand to see which graphics cards are the best matches for various computer models. The next drop down menu says ‘All SOLIDWORKS Versions’. Here you can select 2008 to list only the graphics cards that are approved for SOLIDWORKS 2008 and the most up to date drivers. The last drop down menu is ‘All Operating Systems’. Here you can select your operating system (Vista, Vista x64, Win2K, WinXP, WinXP x64). Click the button that says ‘show passing’ and you will get a list of approved graphics cards and driver combinations. Scroll down to find your graphics card or computer model/graphics card combination (depending on what you selected in the first drop down) and compare the driver listed to the driver that is shown in your SOLIDWORKS RX diagnostics. If there is a newer version available it is recommended that you download and install this driver.

Staying up to date with your graphics card drivers can help prevent any number of graphics issues and crashing problems while working in Solidworks.

Design Better.

Bria Helgerson