Inventor Hardware, licensing, and whatever

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Inventor Hardware, licensing, and whatever

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Who am I?

• John Elliott
• Inventor QA, Platform Test and Certification Lead
• 503-707-3767
• Autodesk, Inc.
• john.elliott_at_autodesk.com
• 5400 Meadows Rd. Suite 500
• Lake Oswego, OR 97035-3611
•  I like to break things!

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Graphics and more

• http//www.autodesk.com/us/inventor/graphics_cards
  or Inventor Help menu gt Additional Resources gt
  Graphics Drivers
• Graphics information
• Install information
• Where did that readme go?
• Hardware/software conflicts
• I am the web master

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Home page

• Driver finder
• Certified Workstations
• FAQ
• R0, 11, 2008, 2009 install and other information
• Entry level Systems
• Reporting problems
• XP X-64
• Other hardware
• Link to AutoCAD graphics

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Driver Finder
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Graphics for other Autodesk products

• Each product is produced by a somewhat
  independent division within Autodesk
• Some years ago I initiated an effort to
  coordinate graphics driver certifications with
  other products, especially AutoCAD.
• The web sites are independent, but we all work
  on the same drivers.

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Laptop graphics drivers

• Always get a laptop graphics driver either from
  our web site or the Laptop vendor.
• May damage your display
• Do not trust any other source
• Not available from the Graphics vendor even if
  the name is similar.

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Certified Workstations

• For current product
• By performance
• By vendor
• Archive is by vendor
• Certification program

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Install Information

• The key is this information can be modified post
  release of the product

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FAQ

• Has not been updated for a long time
• Send me questions

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Install information

• Do you find this useful?
• What are your big install issues?

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Entry level systems

• We bought and tested these 3 systems
• Conclusion by using D3D, just about any Windows
  system will work.
• Watch out for system memory that is dedicated to
  embedded graphics.

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Keys to purchasing new hardware

• Your needs will grow with time.
• Plan for it.
• Inventor is mostly single threaded
• Weakest points
• Memory
• Disk drives are a big impact
• Average Seek Time 11ms
• Average Latency 4.16ms
• Windows can use extra memory to hide some of the
  above

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Continued

• OS
• Why Vista 64 - Direct observation
• D3D 10 The goal
• Inventor accepts MS WHQL
• Internal memory management
• Address space and physical memory utilization is
  improved.
• Processor Cores, speed , Cache
• Look at our certified workstation list

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Plan for growth

• A system that can hold a lot of fast memory
• Populate in such a way that you an add memory
  later w/o throwing memory away.
• Many systems now have fans on the memory. DO NOT
  turn then on without the fan.
• Space, power, and cooling to add more drives for
  a serious Raid configuration
• Serial Attached SCSI?
• Discuss my HP xw8400

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64-bit considerations

• Configure Inventor for BIG!
• Set undo file size to maximum
• Set undo file location to a drive that has a lot
  of space (100GB). Make sure this space stays
  available.
• Two temp files will follow the undo file.
• Transaction errors of any kind
• The memory mapped file used for scratch data is
  too small. Exit Inventor and increase the maximum
  size of the file using the Transactions
  preferences in the registry.
• Restart inventor

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Laptops

• New ones now have up to 4GB of memory
• This is useful for a 64-bit OS with Inventor
  2008 SP1 2009
• D3D enables the use of any graphics
• Watch out for embedded graphics chips that use
  main memory. This can lock down up to 512MB,
  which is not available for use.
• Weight vs. screen size and battery life?
• What is your use?
• Make sure you can return it

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Disk Performance Tips

• Run a good background defragmenter tool
• Rotational speed warranty Speed Quality
• More is better
• One for OS and software
• One for Windows swap file
• Manually configured
• One for Inventor data
• Discuss RAID

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Backup

• Backing up the whole C drive WITH THE BOOT
  RECORD enables a full recovery, including locked
  licenses.
• USB drive for backup?
• Test the recovery process on a spare drive
• Make notes
• Partition issue
• Root partition may offer to restore boot record.
• Other partitions usually do not restore the boot
  record.

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Open Discusion

• Native 64-bit Inventor 2009 advantages?
• The kind of tests I have been running
• Do you have suggested test cases for me?
• Goal To break Inventor
• How packaged?
• WinZip discovery

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Freebie
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http//labs.autodesk.com/technologies/inventor_pla
stic_features/