component outlines disapear while in interactve place

[josy11]

Hi All,
I am a new Altium user and am working through the intro tutorial available from Altium designer help menu - I am trying to work through the MultiVibrator tutorial and am at the interactive placement step. I am using Altium 13.3.4. When I click and drag a component that is off the board ( initial import into PCB) the component outlines completely disappear and only reappear once I click and place the component within the board outline. The outline also disappears when I attempt to move the component again even though it is within the board outline.

I am guessing it is a visibility setting, but I can't seem to find it. I have turned all layers on the layers and colors menu, and can find any option similar to "ghosting" component outlines while placing -

Any help would be appreciated - I can't imagine placing components interactively without seeing them

Joe

[hkBattousai]

Can you add some screen shots please.

[free_electron]

first things first :
- get the 3.12 update. (or 3.13 from today ; hotfix for a bug i found)

elements disappearing while moving if not an altium problem but more commonly a graphics driver problem.
I had a problem a few weeks ago where , when moved , traces would disappear.. hovering over where they were supposed to be did show a 'highlight', move cursor away and they disappear. open the same file on a different computer and all is well.

this turned out to be a graphics driver problem with the ATI video card i have. updating to the latest drivers solved that problem.

[toohec]

I've had this problem in the past (on multiple machines) and I was able to resolve it by turning OFF the "Use Alpha Blending" display option in the preferences dialog box.  This option can be accessed by selecting DXP > Preferences; then navigate to the PCB Editor > Display section of the preferences window.  You should see the "Use Alpha Blending" option on the right side.

This will likely solve your problem.  As mentioned earlier, you should verify that your Altium and display drivers are up to date as well, but you may still need to disable the alpha blending option.

[josy11]

Hi Tohec
Great suggestion - it worked like a charm - thanks a million!

Without starting any wars here, I am evaluating this system to purchase for some side work, as I used to layout boards many years ago- anyone care to compare this to PADS or other similar based systems?  - goods and bads - no system is perfect

Thanks to all who responded - i will also update my eval if I can

[free_electron]

PADS is stagnant. nothing really new has happened since it was borged by Mentor.