Rendering Issues and the EXPORTSETMPPP Command
Wyvern
🖼️ 204 images Mapmaker
I ran into the infamous linear rendering issue yesterday when preparing an image to check one of the forthcoming Atlas maps I'm in the process of completing - unwanted lines running horizontally across the final image.
As this is something that's come up repeatedly over time here on the Forum, it didn't take me much effort to find the solution was to type the EXPORTSETMPPP command into the CC3+ Command Line, and then change the value there from four million to forty million.
My question is, why is the default setting so apparently low as to cause this problem to happen with such frequency?
Is it some form of legacy issue, from when CC had fewer, or no, Sheet Effects? Or perhaps it's a computer issue from earlier times, when PCs typically had a lesser graphics-handling/processing power?
Regardless, is it not perhaps now time to change the default setting to the suggested higher limit to stop this from happening over and over?
Comments
It's that low because some very old drivers on some OS versions (especially on systems with low memory) would not render correctly with it set much above 4M. As those configurations are technically still supported, leaving the low value as the default is the most correct thing to do, if not the most convenient. The often-recommended 40M setting hits a value that solves most the problem for most users, while still working for most other use cases. You can usually go higher, but you may find that you start experiencing out-of-memory errors depending on which effects and bitmaps are used in your map.
On the plus side, before the start of 2018, EXPORTSETMPP didn't exist at all (you'd have to manually adjust the configuration file), and before the end of 2014, changing the 4M settings wasn't an option. Things are getting better, if slower than we might all like.
Ah right. Thanks for that - and the history lesson!