Most processes (applications) in Windows that display graphical objects and formatted text use up a system resource called Graphical Device Interface (GDI) handles. By default, each process has a limit of 10,000 GDI handles. If the process exceeds this limit, the process will become unstable and hang or crash.<\/p>\n
You can view the current GDI handles for a process via the Windows Task Manager by adding the \u201cGDI Objects\u201d column.<\/p>\n
\u00a0![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/4\/task-manager-300x97.png\")
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Since SOLIDWORKS PDM primarily use the Windows Explorer process when you work with files and folders within a file vault view, running out of available GDI handles can lead to stability problems.<\/p>\n
The more Explorer windows you have open on a system, combined with the content displayed in the folders, the more GDI handles the process will use. So the longer you keep your system running, the higher the chance is that you will eventually hit the limit.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/4\/task-manager-2-300x191.png\")
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If the Explorer process runs out of available GDI handles, the system will likely freeze up and crash. In many cases this will seem like the system is \u201crandomly\u201d crashing as you would likely not be aware ahead of the crash that the GDI handles might be the cause.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/4\/explorer-300x180.png\")
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To avoid this from happening you can close additional Explorer windows, which in turn will release GDI handles. Restarting the system or the Explorer process will also release the GDI handles.<\/p>\n
To help monitor the GDI handles and prevent random stability issues, SOLIDWORKS PDM 2019 adds a new Resource Monitor feature that will show a warning if the Explorer process is reaching the GDI\u00a0handle limit. You can read more about this feature in Knowledge Base Solution S-075339<\/a>.<\/p>\n For SOLIDWORKS PDM 2018 and older versions, you can use the GDI monitor tool in Knowledge Base Solution S-072801<\/a> to help identify processes using up many GDI handles.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SOLIDWORKS 2019 New Graphics Architecture – BETA ONLY<\/strong><\/p>\n By Nicole Phillips<\/span><\/p>\n For model display, SOLIDWORKS 2019 uses a new graphics architecture for parts and assemblies. This new architecture is still in BETA<\/strong> form and it is NOT recommended for production data currently.<\/p>\n This architecture provides a more responsive, real-time display, especially for large models. It takes advantage of modern OpenGL (4.5) and hardware-accelerated rendering to maintain a high level of detail and frame rate when you pan, zoom, or rotate large models. These performance improvements scale up with the higher-end graphics cards not fully supported in previous versions of SOLIDWORKS. These changes do not apply to drawings.<\/p>\n To turn on the new architecture in SOLIDWORKS 2019 (for non-production environment), select\u00a0Tools\u00a0>\u00a0Options\u00a0>\u00a0System Options\u00a0>\u00a0Performance\u00a0and select\u00a0Enable graphics performance (Beta feature<\/strong>, requires SOLIDWORKS restart).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Noteworthy Solutions from the SOLIDWORKS Knowledge Base<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s it for this month. Thanks for reading this edition of SOLIDWORKS Support News. If you need additional help with these issues or any others, please contact your SOLIDWORKS Value Added Reseller.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Comments and suggestions are always welcome. You can enter them below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello to all, Welcome to the new edition of the SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News!\u00a0 This monthly news blog is co-authored by members of the SOLIDWORKS Technical Support teams worldwide. Keep an eye on those GDI\u2019s By Tor Iveroth Most<\/p>\n... Continued<\/a>","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":6787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[497,34,35],"tags":[874],"class_list":["post-22141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solidworks-support-monthly-news","category-support","category-tips-tricks","tag-pdm"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22141"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22307,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22141\/revisions\/22307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/4\/Resource-GDI-300x193.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"icon](\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/4\/Screen-capture3.png\")
Why do SOLIDWORKS\u00ae products fail to install if Windows\u00ae Update KB 2999226 is missing?<\/b>
\nFor more information, see Solution Id: S-075133<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/4\/SOLIDWORKS-Electrical-Icon.png\"){kind=icon}
In the SOLIDWORKS\u00ae PCB software, how do I export design rules?<\/b>
\nFor more information on the steps, see Solution Id: S-075077<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Icon](\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/4\/Screen-capture1.png\")
What could cause the SOLIDWORKS\u00ae PDM 2018 SP4 task add-in (SWTaskAddin) for \u2018Print\u2019, \u2018Convert\u2019 and \u2018Design Checker\u2019 to become unstable and crash Windows\u00ae Explorer and the Administration tool?<\/b>
\nTo see scenarios that cause the issue and to resolve this issue, follow the steps in Solution Id: S-075257<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/4\/Screen-capture4.png\")
How can I reduce the time SOLIDWORKS\u00ae Simulation takes to display result plots?
\n<\/b>See Solution Id: S-075032<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog-assets.solidworks.com\/uploads\/sites\/4\/Flow-Simulation-icon.png\"){kind=icon}
In SOLIDWORKS\u00ae Flow Simulation, why do I see a “negative pressure” warning?<\/b>
\nFor more information, see Solution Id: S-075083<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n