New Cura does not start on older machines

[albert 2]

Hello Daid,

I am sure I am not the only one who has issues with the new CURA concerning the display.

I have tried the last beta and the new Cura 13.06 on my Vista laptop and my 2009 Win XP PC. On both machines the older versions run perfectly well. Unfortunately I get an error message as soon as the main windows open. It seems to be related to OpenGL or other display drivers.

 

Could you please restore compatibility of the new CURA with older machines or at least make it possible to turn off advanced display modes so that we can use the new software?

I'm sure many people don't have the money to buy an up to date computer every two years or so. And a lot of us use older secondary machines to control the ultimaker if they do not have the luxury of an ulticontroller.

I have tried to update the graphics drivers on both machines but this creates all sorts of issues with other software. So I am caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

One of my reasons for getting the Ultimaker in the first place was that I was able to run the software without being forced to buy a new computer as well. When doing research for a 3d printer last year I tried to install "makerware" on 4 different machines from the two older ones I mentioned before to a brand new 64 bit PC and it would not run on any of those. So the makerbot fell thru because of this.

I hope we will not be excluded from the new software because our computers are not the latest models. Cura 3.04 is running well but sometimes the slicing times are almost as long as the time it takes to print an object.

Thank you- CURA is great work nonetheless.

Albert

 

[albert 2]

Just an idea-

perhaps the first run wizard could include a check for available display modes. "Do you see this spinning cube?"

If the users machine is up to date all the latest bells and whistles will be used, if not, a basic version of the window will be displayed, enough to be able to use the new slicer. All your work on the new slicing engine should not be torpedoed by the display drivers.....

Albert

 

[Daid 306]

I'm working on a compatibility mode! I tried to get it in the release but it's not working properly yet :( I do not have direct access to a "bad" machine all the time, so it's a bit tricky to test this. The compatibility mode actually works, but the detection of features fails causing the compatibility mode to fail to activate.

(If you feel like hacking around, in "Cura/gui/util/opengl.py" there is a function called "hasShaders", if you change that to "return False" instead of the more complex test it might just work for you)

EDIT: "Older machines" is not really the issue here, I have a very old laptop that supports the new code fine. But it's machines without proper GFX driver support that are causing issues now. I'm on it, and I hope to have a fix out soon. There is also a problem with some slowdowns caused by the SD card auto-detection that slipped under my radar.

 

[albert 2]

Hi Daid,

thank you for the fast reply! The "hack" did not work for me, either I get another error box or the program hangs on the splash screen. But I'm glad the question is on your radar and I have no problem with waiting until you find a solution to it.

I think its simply great that one can talk to you guys.

albert

 

[gblab 0]

Hi,

I have run into the same problem/error as described by Albert, and in my case installing an updated version of the graphic card driver solved the problem. Might be worth a try!

mlg

Gerhard

 

[jeroen-teunissen 0]

Updated NVIDIA GeForce FX5500 driver which fixed our (display) problems.

 

[jeroen-teunissen 0]

.... On another win XP SP3 machine i had the same problem, fixed by installing new Radeon X600 drivers.

After that, on both machines, another problem occured with COM-ports. Working on that.