Revision Graph Display Problems

TASK

Troubleshooting Revision Graph display problems

SOLUTION

As of release 2006.1, Revision Graph can make use of hardware-accelerated rendering or pure software rendering. Hardware rendering is enabled by default, but you might encounter performance or stability problems when using Revision Graph, such as:

• Error messages when Revision Graph starts up, referencing OpenGL problems
• Slow refresh times when you use Revision Graph
• Crashing

These errors are likely a symptom of problems with your OpenGL configuration, and you should switch to software rendering. To switch to software rendering mode, check the option to "Use software rendering for Revision Graph" in the General tab of P4V's Preferences dialog:

By default, software rendering does not provide transparency or antialiasing, but as of release 2007.3 a "high quality" option is available that provides these features, albeit with a reduction in drawing speed that might be noticeable on some machines.

Hardware rendering provides both high quality and fast drawing speeds on machines where a hardware OpenGL implementation is available, and is the default on the Mac and Windows platforms.

Revision Graph with high quality (or hardware) rendering

Revision Graph with low quality software rendering

Perforce does not directly support the configuration or operation of OpenGL, but the remainder of this FAQ contains basic background information on OpenGL for those customers who wish to use the hardware-accelerated rendering mode.

Most Windows and Macintosh computers already have OpenGL installed. OpenGL has been part of the standard Windows packaging since Windows 98. OpenGL has always been included with MacOS X. Support for OpenGL on UNIX varies.

If you experience problems with OpenGL hardware acceleration, first make sure that you have the latest display drivers from your video card manufacturer. If problems persist, try disabling hardware acceleration in your driver's configuration option (refer to the driver documentation for instructions), or enabling the software rendering option in P4V as described above.

The basic Exceed X Server (from Hummingbird) does not work with OpenGL applications. To enable OpenGL in this context, you need to upgrade to Hummingbird's Exceed 3D package.

For further information on OpenGL, see the following sites:

http://www.opengl.org/about/
http://wwws.sun.com/software/graphics/opengl/faq.html
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi?query=opengl&stype=all
http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Nvidia-OpenGL-Configuration/index.html
http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/