Graphics Card Issues

Blank screen

Lots of black

Modeling tools do not function

Selection tool does not select things you want

The computer refuses to open SketchUp (other problems may also cause this symptom)

Excessive bugsplatting

Selection box is missing

Only seeing a wireframe - regardless of face style setting

Cannot save files or trouble saving files (reported on a few PCs)

SketchUp worked when it was first open, but in later sessions the tools and display does not function.

Hardware and software requirements

A deficiency with OpenGL support from a graphics driver is often the reason for the modeling misery some people experience. With an 100% OpenGL compliant driver, SketchUp can use hardware acceleration, and use specialized graphics RAM build on-board a graphics card in addition to the computing done through the Central Processing Unit (CPU, located on the motherboard) and the motherboard RAM.

Rendering calculations are initially performed on the CPU which passes on its results to the GPU to convert the information into the stuff you see on the monitor. SketchUp rendering can either be CPU-bound (Central Processing Unit) or GPU-bound (Graphics Processor Unit) - depending on which Style settings are enabled in SketchUp. But either way, for the best results using SketchUp, what is needed is a partnership of processing power.

For a little background: SketchUp uses the OpenGL library for rendering 3D. When SketchUp uses a video graphics card, it's up to the graphics card manufacturer to provide the OpenGL library with a driver. Sometimes, the OpenGL library will change for various reasons. SketchUp uses most elements in the library, including some aspects of OpenGL that aren't used very much by other applications. If there are any changes to OpenGL in the driver such that it deviates from the OpenGL standard, issues in SketchUp may appear such as issues selecting a face. If unchecking "Use hardware acceleration" fixes an issue, this is a great indicator that there's an issue with the driver's implementation of OpenGL. [SketchUp Guide Tommy]

The following is taken from an old SketchUp user manual technical reference, but the information still applies today:

SketchUp and OpenGL

3D applications, such as SketchUp, require abundant system resources. Aside from having a fast CPU and large amounts of RAM, your video card and video card drivers must be 100% OpenGL compliant.

What is OpenGL?

OpenGL is the industry-standard, used in numerous software applications and games, to draw 3D geometry. Most Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X operating systems come with a software-based OpenGL driver. However, these drivers rely heavily on the CPU to perform the rendering calculations of OpenGL (a task that is not done efficiently by most CPUs).

Many video card manufacturers have also built cards that support the OpenGL standard. These cards perform the rendering calculations using a specialized chip called the Graphics Processing Unit or GPU (instead of relying on the CPU). These chips significantly enhance OpenGL performance upward of 3000 percent. This performance enhancement is known as Hardware Acceleration.

Hardware Acceleration

SketchUp can take advantage of hardware acceleration if your computer has a 100% OpenGL compatible video card.

Unfortunately, only some 3D drivers in the consumer video card market are 100% OpenGL compatible and can use this feature (though many cards claim to be 100% OpenGL compatible). Most 3d drivers are designed for games, and are often not tested using other 3D programs. Consequently, incompatibility problems can occur requiring a fix from the video card manufacturer. Disable this option if you are having problems with the 3D rendering of your models or if your video card is not 100% OpenGL compatible and does not support hardware acceleration.

Note - Hardware Acceleration might only be available on your system for certain resolutions and color depths. Check the system settings for your video card to see if it supports hardware acceleration (using the System Preferences on Macintosh OS X).

Trimble cannot control the quality of the OpenGL driver on your computer system. Video card device drivers are proprietary and are maintained solely by the manufacturer of the video card in your system. Therefore, Trimble cannot guarantee that SketchUp will work with hardware acceleration on your system.

Compatibility Issues

OpenGL incompatibility is a significant system configuration issue leading to problems with SketchUp. Difficulties with Sketchup tools, performance, and rendering (such as mysterious graphics appearing on your screen) are usually the result of a video card not fully supporting OpenGL (despite claims by the manufacturer), an out-of-date video card driver, or incompatibility with 32-bit color depth. A temporary solution is to disable hardware acceleration in SketchUp while troubleshooting the problem.

Consult the Video Card Compatibility section of the Readme file (in the SketchUp installation directory) for additional details regarding compatibility issues for specific video cards. Or, visit the SketchUp Mini and SketchUp Plus support Web site at XYZ for technical support help with your video card.

• • OpenGL Wikipedia article gives a good, in depth summary of OpenGL function.

• OpenGL Capabilities Mac OS X chart for different graphics hardware.

  • OpenGL Hardware Registry SketchUp requires OpenGL 1.5, but 2.0 support is better. The list in the link may have additional extensions from later versions. But nonetheless, the extension names alone indicate which things OpenGL controls - there is a lot of 4-dimensional calculating going on for all the rendering changes that occur while modeling.

• Review which SketchUp settings are affected by the graphics hardware - and how the settings affect modeling speed.

View the content of your graphics card driver online.

• GPUTest Cross-platform, graphic card stress test.

  • OpenGL Extensions Viewer for Windows, Mac, Android

  • OpenGL Extension Wrangler Library (GLEW) is a cross-platform open-source C/C++ extension loading library. GLEW provides efficient run-time mechanisms for determining which OpenGL extensions are supported on the target platform. Windows, Mac, Linux

• Seeker Compatibility Test

• Speccy Free system information program from Piriform, CCleaner developer. Great utility for detailed system information, and it also detects all the OpenGL extensions included in the graphics driver. Go to Graphics > OpenGL > GL Extensions to see what your driver includes. Windows

• • Historically, ATI drivers had more deficiencies in the OpenGL library included in their drivers. Currently though, ATI/AMD drivers have improved. To help understand why there may be a difference between manufacturer drivers, look at the difference in OpenGL extension support offered by NVIDIA and ATI/AMD Radeon cards.

  • Graphic Media Accelerators, GMA, and Integrated Graphics Processors, IGP, are graphics chipsets integrated into the motherboard. There is no dedicated video memory. They compete for the same system memory as the central processor unit, the CPU, and often use the same bus (the pathway) to access the memory. Graphics drivers for GMAs and IGPs are notorious for not being 100% OpenGL compliant and some GMAs may only offer support for OpenGL 1.4, not 1.5 and above.

  • On-board, integrated graphics have some physical limitations. Even if drivers for integrated graphics chips claims to have adequate OpenGL support, the drivers will temper how the chipset processes the information to avoid overheating the computer. In contrast, graphics cards can run faster as they include on board fans and often require more power in addition to what is supplied to it through the motherboard.

  • As an aside, back in 2008, Intel advertised for driver developers to help create world-class 3D drivers to enable their products to run demanding applications. So future Intel products may perform better with SketchUp. But for now, Intel graphics for Windows systems are not recommended by Trimble SketchUp - although Window Surface Pro tablets with their integrated graphic chip reportedly do a good job running SketchUp.

• • Some drivers prefer if the SketchUp window is set to the maximum window size instead of a minimized state.

  • My dual graphics card problem solved Blank SketchUp window issue solved by correcting the primary monitor assignment in a multi-monitor set-up.

  • Some people have reported SketchUp display issues when DirectX 10 is installed on a XP system. Many higher-end Graphic cards, like NVIDIA's 8000 series and above support DirectX 10. Those cards can be used on either XP or Vista machines. However, DirectX 10 is designed to run on Vista. Downgrading to DirectX 9 may help some XP-users.

It's amazing how many SketchUp issues can be resolved by updating the driver for your video graphics card. For assistance updating the card, check out this Help Center article.

Intel chipset drivers Try getting the most from integrated Intel graphics by getting the latest driver from the manufacturer.

If updating the driver doesn't fix the issue, you can try the following steps to turn off Fast Feedback or Hardware Acceleration:

• 1. Click "Window"(PC) or "SketchUp"(Mac) > "Preferences" > "OpenGL"

  2. Uncheck the "Use fast feedback" box and restart SketchUp. If you're still encountering an issue, uncheck the "Use hardware acceleration" box and restart SketchUp

Fast Feedback, if it is compatible with your machine, won’t change anything that you can see. Rather, it will change only the speed of your drawing actions when working with large models. Fast feedback more efficiently redraws your screen between the front and back buffers of your video card which speeds up drawing, but it only kicks in when performance has degraded to a certain level." SketchUp Guide Tricia

Disabling hardware acceleration will force SketchUp to rely on the CPU (Central Processing Unit) to perform OpenGL rendering functions. That can be 3000 times slower than the same calculations otherwise done through the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) on board 100% OpenGL compliant graphics cards.

More on CPU and GPU processing for SketchUp

Hardware acceleration can be disabled at the system level if preference setting cannot be accessed through SketchUp.

• • On XP systems, right-click on an empty desktop space

  • Go to Properties > Settings > Advanced > Troubleshoot.

  • Bring the Hardware acceleration slider to None. Select OK and OK again.

  • Check if you can go into SketchUp Preferences and adjust the setting on the OpenGL menu.

  • Close SketchUp and re-enable system hardware acceleration. Restarting SketchUp to check for the problem. And if SketchUp now functions, change the OpenGL and/or fast feedback settings in SketchUp preferences.

  • Restore system hardware acceleration.

  • Post-Windows XP, the same thing as described above can be done while under administrative mode: Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Display > Screen Resolution > Advanced > Troubleshoot. But given the extra hoops one has to jump through to enter administrative mode, it may be more practical to use the OpenGL Configuation app from sketch3d.de or Dan's OpenGL switch.

While not officially sanctioned, some people have had success with modified, 3rd-party drivers.

• • Omega drivers

• LaptopVideo2Go For NVIDIA laptop graphic cards.

Google SketchUp Graphics Card Survey Note: Survey Results on Google Docs can be examined and sorted as desired by clicking on View > List.

So after considering all your options you're thinking about going shopping?

• • Apple Store to see which graphics cards are installed in different machines.

  • GPUReview may help to narrow down the choices. It usually contains several review links for selected graphics cards.

  • PassMark Compare videocard performance benchmarks with the financial value of the cards.

  • Tom's Hardware also has a wealth of graphics card information.

  • Bare Feats for Mac graphics card speed reports.

• OpenGL Capabilities Mac OS X chart for different graphics hardware.

  • NVIDIA buyer's help

    • Quadro vs GeForce PDF article explaining the difference between professional and consumer graphics cards. (Note, SketchUp IS designed to run on systems with 'crappy' graphics cards. And SketchUp can be set to function without the additional rendering processing from graphics hardware albeit slower. A professional graphics card is NOT required hardware. Many professionals and hobbyists are quite happy using a consumer-grade graphics card. But a crappy card with a deficient driver will not run as well as a good, 100% OpenGL compliant, 3D-modeling card.)

    • Help Me Choose Interactive comparison guide.

If you plan to upgrade your system, do your homework. Many newer/better graphics cards also require more power. So a higher wattage power supply may also be required. Also, older systems may have some compatibility issues with swapping out and installing a new graphics card. In that case, you are mixing old technology and its older OS chipset drivers, BIOS settings, etc. with the latest and greatest graphics card on the market. A GPU upgrade may be possible on the older machines - but there may be a few hiccups that need to be cured along the way. And there is still no guarantee of success.

Sick of this graphics card stuff yet? Do the best you can with the card you have by practicing good modeling management techniques.

[ catamountain ]

And a SketchUppers' graphics card feedback page has been started. Most review sites seem to test video game benchmark standards. SketchUp however has more demanding OpenGL requirements than games. The feedback page is an opportunity to record real SU-user experience with this important hardware component.