CompuServe Messages

Roger: "Little bit of room", heck – you took it over! <g> Well, yes and no is all I can say to your comments! Yes, you're right on many of your points, but there are a few I question, at least for us, even though for others it may be different… We average 95% of all our customer calls answered right there on the phone – no 'wait until I call the manufacturer' stuff. And on those occasions where we do call Autodesk for backup, I'd guess we have a 90% rate for answers on the first call from them, also. Maybe I'm just lucky – or maybe we've done it enough to have answered most of them for ourselves a few times! If you think that 3D Studio ADI has problems, try AutoCAD Release 12! 3D Studio is a dream system! Have a video problem – just install Vibrant drivers and re-boot! Fixes 90% of them right there! Thanks, JackB! The detailed rendering questions are the ones I enjoy most – like your brick problem. But the myriad of excuses I've seen up on the board for upgrades taking 6 weeks or more!?! I have NEVER had a 3D Studio upgrade take over 2 weeks! But then I pay Autodesk's invoices on time – yes, it makes a difference! I understand that Autodesk can't support 1,000 different pieces of hardware – that was the reason for ADI in the first place, to let the little manufacturers have an opportunity to have their hardware run with the industry leader! But can't the hardware manufacturers get together and get some similar standards of their own? VESA is a start, but where is the VESA for digitizers? Plotters? Printers? And even VESA doesn't cover near enough, or all the VESA boards would run with all the software, and we all know that isn't the case! I will say I've never had anything as easy to configure as my Sun Workstations. Throw in a board, run a driver, which configures and installs itself, presto, it's done! No base address conflicts, no memory conflicts, [>> Continued in next msg]