Solidworks Responds......

For those that don't get a chance to click on and read the comments posted by blog readers, I went ahead and copied and pasted one that I got from Mark Biasotti from Solidworks in response to the last blog about the video card issues with 2008.  When I originally wrote that post, I was hoping to get a response from someone at Solidworks, and it worked.  I am pleasantly surprised by his response, and what Mark had to say.  I have always believed that Solidworks does whatever it can to make their software as friendly to its users in anyway they can.  When you have a product that is being used by over a half a million people though, its hard to please every single one even as hard as they try to do.  So based on that, I'm sure there are some reading this that believe Solidworks isn't listening to them!

Anyhow, I was glad to read that Solidworks is working on certifying additional graphics cards for 2008.  It's one thing to replace a $10 keyboard due to compatibility issues, but graphics cards is a whole different issue.  What seems to be the biggest road block is the issue of your graphics card ability to use Shader Model 2.0  For those that have a few free minutes, and are somewhat technical, visit this site to see if your card supports it.  The site is somewhat geeky, but you may be able to wade through it (disclaimer: I didn't attempt it since I did'nt feel geeky enough).  Otherwise, for now lets wait and see what happens between now and the launch in a few months!

Quoted from comments:

Mike,

Good article, and yes it is okay to post this info on graphics cards since we want users to see this list and it was published and posted even before Beta started.
A few of our development people and myself are responsible for publishing that list and we will certainly be updating it with more cards that meet the requirements of 2008. There are three points I want to make; One, the new capabilities of RealView 2008 can easily be switched on and off and should be viewed as "value added". For users that do not want these new features, and from the sounds of it on forums there are a group of customers that do not want them, they don't have to have them and can simply turn off the RealView icon and they will not suffer any performance over 2007 regardless of whether they have a certified 2008 card or not. Also bare in mind, that the new graphics and UI of 2008 are only a small part of enhancements that we've put into 2008 (in case the argument of wanting something that we did not ask for comes up) Two, like auto companies in the 40's, in the past couple years, the graphics card market has consolidated to only 2 major players, NVIDIA and ATI. So this will, in many ways, make it easier for us and the SW customer to help choose the right card because there will not be a ton of cards to try to determine the right features from. Three, we are not the only industry that is affected by the software/hardware dependency. Take for instance, my 15 year old son, who plays video games. I can only go about 3 months until he comes to me complaining that his latest game is running slow, graphically, or not supporting visualization features due to the fact that the 4 month old “state-of-the-art” graphics card is not longer STA.
Once Shader model 2.0 is supported by the majority of cards coming from ATI and NVIDIA, regardless of price range, this whole issue of 2008 graphics will become mute; and I would guess that to be within 8 to 10 months max.

Regards

Mark Biasotti
SolidWorks Corporation

Comments

[Tony]

Hi, nice article, but FYI you should look up the definitions of moot and mute :)

Cheers