Hier findest du die neue Inventor FAQ

Update: Was sehr interessant ist, ist dieser Hinweis am Ende des Dokuments:

In addition, Direct3D is WHQL certified on a _wide_ range of graphics HW, meaning workstation,
consumer, game, laptop, and integrated-on-the-motherboard graphics chipsets. Essentially, using Direct3D, the only differentiator is performance. This is not true with OpenGL, where OpenGL graphics drivers actually _disable_ some OpenGL functionality on consumer, game, laptop, and chipset HW so you are _forced_ to purchase the more expensive workstation graphics HW, just so your OpenGL graphics works correctly.

Und weiter heisst es in dem Dokument:

Ultimately, we want to provide an Inventor product that is of the highest quality in terms of graphics _and_ that is affordable for a _wide_ range of budgets. For example, if you are no longer _required_ to spend $1000 to $2000 to simply have graphics HW that works, but can instead purchase a $100 to $350 game card … then you can take the $900 to $1650 you saved and spend it on other system aspects that might have a _much_ more significant impact on your user experience with Inventor, such as having 8 GB of RAM instead of 4 GB (a _real_ 64-bit system!)

Was wohl ganz klar bedeutet, dass Autodesk Inventor mit Direct3D auch supergut mit einer “Gaming-Grafikarte” funktioniert und das dadurch gesparte Geld besser in mehr RAM investiert werden sollte.

Any student budget should allow you to purchase a low cost laptop that will work with Inventor becasue if you can play a Direct3D game, you can run Inventor, so far as the graphics are concerned.

Wenn ein Direct3D Spiel läuft, läuft auch der Inventor ;)

For example, since you mention the Dell M90 which uses nVidia graphics HW, in terms of nVidia desktop graphics HW, we use “workstation” graphics HW (e.g. nVidia Quadro FX 4600, 5600) in Inventor Direct3D development and they are excellent choices for Direct3D. We also use “consumer” graphics HW (e.g. nVidia GeForce 8800 versions) and these also work very well. As an Inventor user, you have much greater flexibility to apportion your system HW budget to where you would prefer to spend it when you use Direct3D.

Hier ein PDF Dokument von Autodesk, dass erklärt, warum Autodesk in Inventor auf Direct3D setzt.

Original Question: Is open GL supported on my M-90 vista 32bit ult using AIP 2008? Nvideo
fx2500m The /application/options/hardware/open GL option is missing. Are we all going to
direct3D or do i have to hunt for the missing switch?
Answer: “Norbert” – Autodesk Inventor Graphics Team
The switch is not missing, OpenGL use with Inventor is _not_ supported on Vista or on WinXP x64. You can use OpenGL SW, GDI Generic, but not the HW.
Pardon the length of this post, but I think we need to be clear to you and all our users about the situation regarding Direct3D and OpenGL. When we use OpenGL, we have found over the past many years (and still today) that we need to invest in a large, significant amount of QA that simply verifies that the OpenGL graphics driver supports the OpenGL API on the level that we use (which is actually rather dated, to be consistent with OpenGL GDI Generic, from circa 1997).[...]

http://www.mcadforums.com/forums/files/autodesk_inventor_opengl_to_directx_evolution.pdf