Message: You do not appear to be using a driver customized for your video card.


Reference Number: KB-00818
Last Modified: April 13, 2023

The information in this article applies to:

Chief Architect Premier or Chief Architect InteriorsHome Designer Professional or Home Designer Architectural or Home Designer Suite



QUESTION

I keep seeing this message when I use Chief Architect. What does this mean?

"You do not appear to be using a driver customized for your video card. For the best performance, we recommend you download and install a video card driver from your video card vendor."


ANSWER

This message displays when:

  • You do not have a video card driver provided by the manufacturer, often described as an installed client driver.
  • The video driver that you are using is a standard Microsoft driver that will not take advantage of your video hardware acceleration.
  • If you are attempting to run the software while remotely accessing another computer where the program is installed and running, which is not supported.
    or 
  • When using an operating system emulation or virtual machine software such as Parallels running on a Macintosh computer, which is also not supported.

The solution is to contact your video card manufacturer and obtain a video driver for your video card.

Laptops generally have customized drivers, so you should contact the laptop manufacturer to obtain the latest driver, rather than going to the video card or chipset manufacturer directly.

Once you obtain the correct driver for your system, this message will no longer display and you should see enhanced performance in 3D views.


MORE INFORMATION

You can find more information about what video card driver is being used on the Video Card Status panel of the Preferences dialog.

To Access the Preferences dialog, navigate to Edit> Preferences on a Windows PC or Chief Architect/Home Designer> Preferences  on a Mac.

If the Device Vendor is Microsoft, then you need to update your driver.

Some commonly used video card drivers can be obtained from the web links listed below. Be certain to verify which graphics drivers are appropriate for your computer by consulting the computer manufacturer:

Chief Architect, Inc. provides this information for information purposes only. The third party information present in this document was verified at writing, however it is subject to change.

For more information on how to install or configure these drivers, consult the manufacturer of your computer or video card.

Current version system requirements can be located on the websites at: