8

Configure Driver 883
From Direct3D, and then choose the new driver
from the Graphics Driver Setup dialog.
The Microsoft Direct3D API supports both
rasterization and 3D scene-level calls. It offers the
optimum display performance for large modeling
tasks, and pixel and vertex shading. (3ds Max
supports only D3D Version 8 or above, which is
included in DirectX 8.1.) D3D calls are accelerated
if the display hardware supports this.
Manyinexpensive3Ddisplaycardscanusethis
driver efficiently. This dr iver supports scene
data culling efficiently, accelerates texture display
(depending on the specific display card), and
perfor ms perspective correction.
The driver works with high-color displays, which
provide a good tr ade-off between display qualit y
and memory overhead. Incremental display
update works efficiently.
ThedisadvantagesoftheDirect3Ddriverareas
follows:
• The dr iver currently runs only under Windows
98, Windows Millennium, Windows 2000, and
Windows XP. (There is no multi-processor
Windows NT support.)
• Dual-plane operations are slow (if available),
andtherecanbesomeadditionaloverheadin
minimizing/maximizing v iewports due to the
way D3D allocates video memory.
You can download D3D drivers from this location:
w
ww.microsoft.com/windows/directx/.
Custom
Choose this if you have a custom driver installed
on your system. Such custom drivers don’t use
the software display dr iver (Heidi), OpenGL, or
Direct3D. If you don’t have such a driver instal led,
this option is not available.
Configure Driver
Customize m enu > Preferences > Preference Settings
dialog > Viewports tab > Display Drivers group >
Configure Driver button
You configure the current display driver using the
V iewports panel of the Preference Settings dialog.
Changes to a driver’s configuration t ake effect
immediately, and the configuration persists
between sessions. However, data down loaded to
thegraphicscardisnotregenerated.Forexample,
ifyouchangethetextureresolution,thehardware
continues to use the previous resolution until you
use the Material Editor to reload the texture.
The options in the driver configuration dialog
vary, depending on which driver is in use. This
reference describes the options for the
software
display driver (page 3–884)
, Direct3D driver (page
3–888)
,and Open GL dr iver (p age 3–884) .
If you use a custom driver, the options depend
on what the driver’s manufacturer provides. See
the manufacturer’s documentation for further
information.
See also
Graphics Driver Setup Dialog (page 3–881)
Configure Software Display Driver Dialog (page
3–884)
Configure OpenGL Dialog (page 3–884)
Configure Direct3D Dialog (page 3–888)