Spaceball 4000 installation causes "Jumpy" screen

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edcJwea
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 1:43 pm
Location: Old Fort, NC

Spaceball 4000 installation causes "Jumpy" screen

Post by edcJwea »

We use Catia V5. Recently installed on IBM Intellistation. Worked great till installing software for Spaceball 4000. Now when panning or rotating a model, even with the mouse, the image on screen "jumps" instead of smoothly rotating.

Have tried removing spaceball and software, but problem will not go away.
Downloaded most recent version of drivers, still same problem.

Is this a spaceball issue?

Oddly enough, the same spaceball works perfectly on a different machine.
Is there a configuration setting that could be causing this?

If anyone has fixed similar problem or can help, Thanks,
edcJwea
agoenczi
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Posts: 668
Joined: Mon Dec 04, 2006 6:17 am
Location: EU

Spaceball 4000 installation causes "Jumpy" screen

Post by agoenczi »

Hi edcJwea

Please specify some system details as operating system (including the service pack), other devices connected to your computer, is your device a serial or an USB device, what release of 3DxSoftware do you use.

I have to specify that serial devices are not any more supported by the recent 3DxSoftware (included in the releases v3.0.x or most recent).

I would suggest to test your 3D navigation device with one of our delivered demos available under "Start -> All Programs -> 3Dconnexion -> 3Dconnexion 3DxWare -> Demos".

Please check if you already have the most recent version of your graphic card driver and update it if necessary.
agoenczi
edcJwea
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 1:43 pm
Location: Old Fort, NC

Spaceball 4000 installation causes "Jumpy" screen

Post by edcJwea »

Here's what I have.
The system is an IBM - INTELLISTATION M PRO Type 6225-25U
It is a P4 3.6GHZ - with 4GB RAM
The OS is XP Pro with SP 2 installed. All critical updates are current.
The system has a USB mouse (IBM).
The Spaceball is a 5000 FLX attached to serial port.
I I loaded the software from the 3DConnexion web site, it was for the SpaceBall 5000 serial and is 2.8.2.
No other devices are directly connected to the system.
Catia was loaded prior to the SpaceBall software.
The Demos work perfectly.
The SpaceBall works perfectly when in SolidWorks. It's only Catia.

I did not think to check the Video drivers. I'll do that today and advise if it fixes the problem.

In the mean time, if something from the description above jumps out as a possible cause, let me know. I have one or two other things to try. First I will un-install Catia and the SpaceBall software. Then I will, first, load the SpaceBall software and driver, then I will re-install Catia after I verify the SpaceBall works.
Thank you for the help. I'll advise.
edcJwea
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 1:43 pm
Location: Old Fort, NC

Spaceball 4000 installation causes "Jumpy" screen

Post by edcJwea »

This isn't an "answer" to why the jumpy screen, but it solves my immediate problem.

After all the updating and re-installing, I tried something too simple to have occured to me before. I opened a different Catia file.

From the beginning, I've worked with the file with which the designer had problems. After each change I made, I opened the same file. Always the same problem.

After the latest round of changes where I updated the video drivers, I happened to try a different file, mostly out of boredom from seeing the original.

The problem was not there. I thought I had "fixed" the problem till I opened the original.... same problem. Back to the "other" file, no problem. I tested other files, no problem.

Conclusion at this point, something is embedded in that particular file which causes the problem. Whether it is related to the SpaceBall, or the video driver version, I can't say. The luxury of time to investigate isn't there.

Many thanks for the help.

edcJwea
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