By Dennis Collin
A common question I often receive from users is that their device performance is not as good as they expect, even if it is a well specified system. If the system is a laptop, then it may be as intended as systems often have a setting to optimize battery life. Laptop PCs contain a graphics adapter integrated into the motherboard which is used for basic graphics display. However, they also sometime have a faster discrete graphics adapter for more demanding graphical tasks.
When working with Autodesk applications that are graphically intense, the switching of the graphics adapter in the middle of operation can lead to display and performance issues or program crashes. Also, by default, the system may load the software with the low-end video option and not switch to the high-performance GPU. Configuring the system to always use discrete graphics for the software will avoid these issues.
There are different ways to set up high-performance graphics depending on the video card and its software/driver version. Later versions of Windows 10 will have their own option to designate the high-performance card for an application. This is a top-level setting that should work no matter what graphics card and driver is set within a system.
You can manually choose a graphics performance setting for an app in Windows or configure the graphics card settings for your NVIDIA or AMD card respectively. Choose one of the following methods:
Windows Graphics Settings
- Right-click the desktop and choose Display settings.
- Scroll down and click Graphics settings.
- Browse and navigate and select the AutoCAD executable. For example, in the case of AutoCAD 2024 this would be c:\program files\autodesk\autocad 2024\acad.exe
This will add AutoCAD to the list.
- Select the application to access the options button and click on it.
- Choose the High-Performance option and then save and close.
- Restart the software, launch it, and see if the performance is improved.
If using an Nvidia GPU
- Update to the latest certified driver. (http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx)
- Right mouse click on the AutoCAD application and choose ‘Run with graphics processor’ (choose High performance)
AMD Radeon Software (Adrenalin 2020 Edition)
- Update to the latest video driver (http://support.amd.com/en-us/download).
- Right-click the desktop and choose AMD Radeon Software.
- Select Gaming>Games.
- Choose Add Game and browser to the executable location.
- AutoCAD should now be added to the list.
If the above solutions don't help or apply install the recommended graphics card driver for your system. Consult the relevant application type, version, and Windows build in the list here:
https://www.autodesk.com/support/system-requirements/certified-graphics-hardware/autocad