Occasionally the user may find that the graphics displayed on the computer screen are not as intended. The following section will step through some common problems and resolutions.
Hardware Problems
A large variety of graphics cards exists on the market today. While each type of card should perform in the same way (although some faster than others), there are many different manufacturers and software drivers that may cause differences in expected performance.
Chasm Consulting tests a wide variety of different cards to ensure optimum performance where possible.
If an issue exists, often updating the software driver from the card manufacturer can help resolve issues. Due to the low price of 3D graphics cards, if the computer or graphics card is very old (greater than 5 years), it may be better to upgrade the computer or replace the graphics cards with a newer type.
Screen fails to display after coming out of ‘sleep / hibernation’
The screen remains blank, or shows corrupted data when resuming from screen savers or hibernation. This is caused by the graphics card failing to send the correct message to Pumpsim™ to enabled Pumpsim™ to reset the card and restore the graphics.
Resolution – In most cases the screen can be recovered by using the VIEW > REFRESH menu item. In extreme cases the software may need to be shutdown and restarted. Updating the graphics cards software drivers can often help in this case. Alternatively, disable the screen saver / hibernation, and allow the computer to simply turn off the monitor instead.
Anti-aliasing does not work / is very slow
Only newer graphics cards fully support this image-smoothing feature. Older graphics cards, particular Intel motherboard types, do not support it. Low power graphics solutions from ATI or NVIDIA may support it, but graphics performance will slow.
Resolution – No solution. Install a newer video card which supports full screen anti-aliasing or turn off anti-aliasing in the settings.
Custom Icons cannot be used
Only newer graphics cards fully support custom icons. Older graphics cards (particularly Intel) may not have sufficient memory pointers to support the placement of potentially tens of thousands of icon images on the screen, therefore support for these cards has been disabled.
Resolution – No solution. Install a newer video card.
Software Problems
Occasionally, the screen will not display graphics as expected. This can stem from a wide range of settings in Pumpsim™ which may not be set correctly to display the desired graphics.
No Graphics Shown on Screen
The pipes may be hidden or invisible, or located off the screen.
Resolution – Use the VIEW > FIT ALL command to make sure the graphics are relocated to the screen. If no graphics show, use the VIEW > SHOW ALL, to turn on all hidden layers and levels. If still no graphics show, ensure that pipes are still present in the model, by running the RUN > SUMMARY menu option and ensuring a number of pipes are present.
Finally, make sure that options such as VIEW > HIDE ZERO FLOWS, and VIEW > HIDE EXCLUDED are not turned on.
I can see pipes, but no text / arrows / nodes
The screen may only display the raw pipes, but no other information.
Resolution – The option to display text or arrows may be turned off (press ‘T’ or ‘A’ respectively to turn back on), or use the sidebar toolbar menu. If this does not work, the LIMIT command may be turned on. This command hides text / nodes / arrows if the pipes is not specifically set on the EDIT form to show data. Turn the LIMIT option off using the ‘L’ button.