Performance & Hardware Acceleration
LinkCAD uses OpenGL for hardware-accelerated rendering. This page covers settings that affect viewer performance.
Hardware Acceleration
LinkCAD uses your GPU's OpenGL driver for rendering. Most modern graphics cards (NVIDIA, AMD, Intel) support the required OpenGL 3.3 profile.
Enabling Hardware Acceleration
Hardware acceleration is enabled by default. If you experience rendering issues:
- Update your graphics driver to the latest version
- Check that your GPU supports OpenGL 3.3 or later
Warning
Remote desktop sessions (RDP) may fall back to software rendering with reduced performance. For best results, use a local display or a remote desktop solution that supports GPU passthrough.
Performance Tips
Large Files
For files with millions of polygons:
- Limit display depth — reduce the number of hierarchy levels rendered
- Toggle array interior — hide the interior of large arrays
- Use wireframe mode — press Ctrl+F to switch to wireframe, which is faster than filled rendering
- Disable broken polyline highlighting — the analysis pass adds overhead
Memory Usage
LinkCAD's in-memory database holds the entire drawing. For very large files (> 1 GB GDSII), ensure your system has sufficient RAM. A rough guideline:
| File Size | Recommended RAM |
|---|---|
| < 100 MB | 4 GB |
| 100 MB – 500 MB | 8 GB |
| 500 MB – 1 GB | 16 GB |
| > 1 GB | 32 GB or more |
Conversion Performance
Conversion speed depends primarily on:
- File size and geometric complexity
- Number of tools applied during conversion
- Whether the hierarchy is flattened (flattening is expensive for deeply nested designs)