[Chimera-users] about problems with windows version

[Greg Couch]

On Fri, 4 Apr 2008, Ricardo José Soares Torquato wrote:

> Dear friends
> I got chimera program from website, and install on my notebook, and
> installed the last realese of windows version, my machine has a turion64
> as a processor and WinXP pro as OS, but after the installation I try to
> run it, I got this message: ! Outline highlight not supported by
> hadware, in small windows.
> Can you help?
> thank's
> Ricardo

This warning means that your (OpenGL) graphics driver is buggy, but 
chimera may still work.  The default highlighting mode is automatically
changed to fill mode instead of outline mode.

To get rid of the warning, you need to either (1) change the Display 
Properties so that the "Color quality" is "Highest (32-bit)" instead of 
"Medium (16-bit)", or (2) update your graphics driver, see 
<http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/graphics/graphicsbugs.html>.

Unfortunately for laptops, updating the graphics driver can be difficult 
because laptop vendors frequently alter the graphics driver for the laptop 
and only do those alterations again once or twice after the laptop is 
released.  However, recent ATI Mobility Radeon systems are generally 
updatable, as are recent NVidia Quadro FX Mobile systems -- make sure to 
check before you buy.

If you are willing to give up your laptop vendor's modifications to the 
graphics driver (e.g., power saving modes, maybe other stuff), you can 
often get a newer graphics driver from the chipset manufacturer.  This is 
especially important for Intel and SiS graphics.  In fact, for chimera, we 
recommend upgrading your Intel or SiS graphics driver to the latest one 
available (this is true for desktop systems too).

 	Good luck,

 	Greg Couch
 	UCSF Computer Graphics Lab