When visiting customer sites, I often meet geologists, mining engineers and surveyors with a wealth of industry and software experience. However, given the relentless and rapid advancement of computer science, with ever more complex system configurations, many users are often disinterested, unfamiliar or struggle to keep up to date with latest methods of system configuration. This blog post aims to address one of the most common system settings that is often overlooked during software installation.
Like most computer-aided design (CAD) packages, GEOVIA Surpac software relies heavily on a dedicated graphics card (e.g. NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards) and the associated memory to graphically show complex 3D representations of drilling, geology and mine designs.
However, many laptops and notebooks today are supplied with integrated graphics cards (e.g. Intel HD cards) that share memory with the motherboard and in many cases do not provide adequate processing power for the rigors of CAD and therefore produce a poorer quality user experience.
Usually in a new machine (e.g. a laptop), both an integrated and dedicated graphics cards are fitted. However, the preinstalled software on the machine nearly always assigns the integrated card to the majority of tasks, including GEOVIA Surpac. By using the integrated card, GEOVIA Surpac typically has less available memory, struggles with large datasets, and is therefore more unstable and more difficult to use.
Below we will examine the methodology for configuring NVIDIA graphics cards to increase performance.
Workflow: Example NVIDIA Quadro M2000M card
1. Right click on the desktop and in the menu select ‘NVIDIA Control Panel’.
) for advice with regards to specific machines and/or hardware configurations.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
To know whether your system meets GEOVIA Surpac’s minimum or recommended system requirements please visit this page:
Ross is a qualified Resource Geologist with 9 years' industry experience in database management, geological modeling, grade control, geostatistics, resources estimations and process mapping. Since joining GEOVIA, Ross has worked with and assisted mining clients across Europe, Middle East and Africa. His commodity experience includes gold, copper, lead, zinc, iron, coal, bitumen and various industrial minerals. He regularly delivers support, training and consultancy services in GEOVIA Surpac, GEOVIA Minex, GEOVIA MineSched and various roles on the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. Ross is based in Coventry, UK.