DianneDSC

Coming from 20+ years of using Autocad / Autocad Architecture before switching to Chief in 2014 the hardest thing to get a handle on was dimensioning. Now the process seems so much better than Autocad. Since I had 3d experience with Autocad Architecture learning to build the model in CA was quick to learn. The tools in chief are so much better though. If you've only used 2d Autocad there will be a learning curve but it will be so fun! There is an abundance of resources and tutorials to help you get going. Definitely the 2nd best decision I've made in my home design business. The best decision was hiring Melissa Baca (she found out about CA and shared with me)

I ordered from Dell when they had a promo on Alienware. Also received some Dell rewards that went towards a new TV. Very pleased with our purchases.

If your railing is round make sure horizon lines is checked in preferences, render, general options. I had a similar problem with round columns and this fixed it.

If there is another exterior door to a deck or patio it can be the 36" egress door. Then the entry door can be smaller than 36" such as a double 30".

Thanks Joe and Johnny. This works great!

Technology changes so fast doesn't it? I had thought about going a step down in processor and video card to save a few $ but figure going this configuration maybe will be happy for longer. Better specs available but didn't really want to spend more so feel this is a good choice for me. Actually have 2 ordered...one for me and one for the designer that works for me.

Thanks!

Order has been placed and will arrive later this month. Excited! We've been needing new laptops for awhile and these should last us several years. The XPS 17 I have now has served me well for 5+ years. It was top of the line at the time.

The 512 adds a few hundred. Other than Chief and Bluebeam, not much additional software. We're using cloud based accounting and crm. Thanks for the feedback.

The XPS I have now is heavy but transport it when needed with a rolling laptop bag. I checked out the AW17 R3 at Best Buy today. Different specs though. It's heavy but impressive. I've placed my order from Dell,so excited!

Thanks all for the input.

Thank you David. This will be a good upgrade from what I'm using now.

Alienware 17 R3 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 980M with 8GB GDDR5 Intel® Core™ i7­6820HK (Quad­Core, 8MB Cache, Dynamically Overclocked up to 4.1GHz) Windows 10 Pro, 64­bit, English 17.3 inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS­Panel Anti­Glare 300­nits Display 16GB Dual Channel DDR4 at 2133MHz; up to 32GB (additional memory sold separately) 256GB PCIe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage) Killer 1535 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1 Price $ 2,150 Good specs for the price?

Set the sheet display to on and move the sheet to where your floor plan is located. Depending on the size of your plan you may need to adjust the sheet size and printing scale in the sheet setup.

Try doing a save-as without the layout being open. We have been having similar issues as well and this seemed to clear up any layout confusion. Start with the main plan that you want referenced in the layout, such as "proposed", and have this linked to the layout. After your as-built drawings are complete in this plan, do a save-as and name "as-built" - do this with the layout closed. This way you are always working in the proposed plan file, which is linked to the layout file.

Is the background in Autocad black? If so change it to white.

Well, like other ideas, this worked for a day. This morning the card / driver is not working properly. There are no problems with X8 on our identical laptop that driver 362.00 was never updated.

Well, like other ideas, this worked for a day. This morning the card / driver is not working properly. There are no problems with X8 on our identical laptop that driver 362.00 was never updated.

We've updated one of our 2 laptops to this driver yesterday. Cleaned all nvidia stuff off then did custom install with only the video driver selected. So far so good.

The latest test we have tried is this: delete and remove all Nvidia items. Then clean install of the recently released nvidia driver 364.72 but using custom install. Only check the video driver. Unless you're a gamer the other stuff is not needed. I've said this before....so far so good. I'll post an update tomorrow as well.

We've tried that but it seems updating to 364.47 / 51 did something damaging to the video card or changed a setting.

Follow up to the possible fix to Nvidia driver issues by disabling the Virtual Audio Devise through windows device manager. This worked only temporarily with the newest Nvidia video driver 364.51 . So we did a clean removal and installed 362.00 and disabled audio device. This worked....for only a couple of days. Back to 3d issues with Chief. These problems are only on one of our laptops, which both are identical except on one the Nvidia driver was never updated to 364.47 or 364.51. The laptop that was not updated with the bad drivers is not having any issues. To the OP, I was hoping I had found a solution to your issues as well as ours. The idea regarding the audio device came from the GeForce forums.

Yes to disabling the nvidia audio driver in the Windows device manager.

What driver do you have installed? Our laptops have a GeForce 555m card. If you have driver 362.00 keep it. If you have a newer driver try disabling Nvidia audio drivers through device manager. This worked, so far, with issues on our laptop that has graphics driver 364.51. Just implemented this earlier today so hope it stays fixed. Also hopes this helps you.

I updated my NVidia to the 364.47 on the 7th and everything was fine. Then I did a Chief update the yesterday...still fine. Started my computer up today and when I open up any 3D view, chief crashes. I removed the NVidia update to the previous version and updated to the 364.51 version, both crashing when I open a 3D view.