Hi,
I use both KiCad 5 and 6. But this issue relates to KiCad 5
I use it on 2 laptops and 1 PC. All are Dell.
All run the same Win10 and KiCad versions.
The problem I have is with one of the PCs (a Precision M4700). If I view 3D in Layout, I get a good image. However, if I update anything on the PCB or close then re-open the 3D viewer (Alt-3), I get nothing but copper holes as shown. Interestingly, raytracing the image looks great.
If I close KiCad 5 and then re-run it, the 3D images are OK until I close and reopen the 3D viewer.
Any clues what might be going on?
Note that this same PC works perfectly with KiCad 6.
KiCad V5 has not been updated for about 10 months now, and apart from all the new features, KiCad V6 has received a lot of updates, and some of those were probably already present in V5.
You can turn on / off various items and layers in the 3D viewer. Can you do anything with that?
And why are you using both KiCad V5 and V6? It’s quite easy to convert any older KiCad project to V6 by just opening it in V6. (But when you save it, it can’t be opened by older KiCad versions anymore).
How so?
Best I know KiCad V5 and V6 do not tolerate each other well when installed on a single PC.
it is (or at least should) be possible to run both the stable version of KiCad and the current nightly version on the same computer, but not with two stable versions. I’m not aware of specific problems, but I guess very little testing is done for such an setup. Using a virtual machine, or maybe some “snap image” works.
Hi, it is possible to have kicad 5 and kicad 6 on the same PC. they install in a different directory by default. (I still have kicad 5 on mine).
Does your PC happen to have an AMD graphics card? This looks identical to what I saw on my work PC (Win 10, AMD workstation GPU) on KiCAD 5 and early versions of 6. Somewhere along the line in the V6 bug fix releases, there was a fix for this and it now works correctly.
If you really need the 3D view in V5, try this, which used to work for me and will probably work for you if it’s the same issue:
- Set both the schematic and PCB editor to “Modern Toolset (Fallback)” in the preferences menu
- Restart KiCAD
- Start the PCB editor
After this, the first time you open the 3D view, it should come up fine. But if you close and repopen it, the issue will re-appear, and you’ll have to restart KiCAD - the entire program, not just the PCB editor - to get it working again.
As far as I know, at least for AMD GPUs, this was only ever an issue on Windows with AMD drivers. My Linux box at home never had this problem, but it uses the open-source AMD driver, not the proprietary one.
I have 5.12, 6.0.8 and 6.99 all installed on two Win10 PCs. One is an all Intel laptop and the other AMD R7 with Radeon RX 6500
No problems with either of these with accelerated graphics
I have 5.12, 6.0.8 and 6.99 all installed on two Win10 PCs. One is an all Intel laptop and the other AMD R7 with Radeon RX 6500
No problems with either of these with accelerated graphics
I have no idea if the problem existed with all AMD GPUs, or just ones sold as workstation cards - I’m not sure, but don’t they have different drivers?. Given they appear to be using a Dell Precision, I’d assume it’s an AMD workstation card. The one I had the issue on has a Radeon Pro WX7100.
At any rate, it looks like the fix ended up in 6.0.5: 3D rendering not working reliably on AMD video card (#10741) · Issues · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab, so that and newer should be OK.
Well. I give up. I’ll just use another PC. I tried everything suggested and nothing works.
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