General Information on Fixing Virtual View Problems/Crashes

Most Virtual View problems—crashes, "white screens", artifacts, and overall-unusual behavior, but not performance issues—are caused by an outdated video card driver. Therefore, if this driver hasn't been updated in a while (or even if it was, depending on how the update was performed) it is strongly recommended that its version is checked and, if necessary, the driver is updated to the most recent version. Once the update is complete, there is a good chance that the issue you are experiencing in/with the Virtual View will be resolved.

Video card drivers should only ever be obtained from the website of the GPU's (Graphics Processing Unit) manufacturer: nVidia, AMD or Intel.* (If you do not known which GPU your video card is equipped with, please use the GPUz utility to determine this.)

* Discrete video cards officially-supported by Vivien, regardless of manufacturer, are equipped with an nVidia or AMD GPU. Intel GPUs are not found on discreet video cards, only integrated into the computer's processor. GPUs from manufacturers such as Matrox or S3, discreet or integrated, are not supported. (As a side note, integrated Intel GPUs do not support all of Vivien's Virtual View's features, and performance when utilizing such GPUs will likely be poor, even with simple files. It is for this reason that CAST Software strongly recommends the use of a discreet GPU from nVidia's GTX or AMD's Radeon Rx/Vega series of video cards. Similarly, while most of Nvidia’s AMD's GPUs integrated in AMD's APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) products do not suffer from the same drawbacks, these, too, are best-avoided.) You will find extended information about video card support in the WYSIWYG Hardware Guide, which I invite you to read. (This guide does indeed refer to our other software, WYSIWYG, but since the two application share the same codebase, the same "hardware principles" apply.)

The driver must not be obtained via Windows Update, nor from the computer manufacturer’s website (i.e. Dell, Lenovo, ASUS, etc.), nor from the video card manufacturer’s website (i.e. ASUS, PNY, EVGA, etc.). Such a driver will most likely be (severly) outdated because Windows Update and such websites do not update their content as often as new drivers are released by the GPU manufacturers.

While you may of course download and install the latest drivers by clicking the links above, the best way to keep your video card driver up-to-date is by installing one of the following utilities:

• For nVidia GPUs: GeForce Experience(applies to all nVidia GPUs)
• For AMD GPUs: Radeon Software Crimson Edition (ensure that the download is for the video card in use)

These utilities have the ability to keep the driver up to date automatically, on their own (should you wish to allow this) or they can be used to check for and install a new driver manually.

Intel’s Driver Update Utility (found at http://downloadcenter.intel.com/) claims to do the same, but, in my experience, it has never found an updated Intel driver for any of my Intel hardware (of any kind, not just for the video card). Perhaps you will have better luck, but in case not, simply access the page and search for the driver by the model name of your integrated GPU.


Please let me know if you have any questions,

Dany