ArcGIS Pro and ArcMap crashing on Surface Pro 4

[TimWilson]

I have been trialing ArcGIS Pro 1.4 and ArcMap 10.5 software on a new Surface Pro 4 computer. So far the results have been disastrous! Both programs crash regularly, although ArcGIS Pro especially so. In addition, after crashes the file or personal geodatabases seem to get corrupted, in that I can no longer write to them. My Surface Pro 4 has 16GB memory, 256HDD and an i5 dual core (quad logical) processor. What it doesn't have is a dedicated video card. While the ArcGIS Pro "check requirements" test says my computer meets minimum requirements, I'm wondering if the lack of dedicated VRAM is the problem.

Has anyone successfully used ArcGIS Pro / ArcMap on a Surface Pro 4? I may have to beg with the store I bought it from to get it replaced with a different machine...

Thanks.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

Surface Book works flawlessly with both but it has two video cards.

Check the video, If it said that you met the requirements, it should work, but check the video requirements section

[TimothyWilson1]

I have the most powerful Surface Pro 4 available. Turns out it is an i7 processor, not i5. It comes with an Intel Iris 540 video driver. I have used the ESRI "Can your computer run ArcGIS Pro 1.4?" tool to confirm the specs and it passes on the video card (along with everything else):

"Video Card
You Have: Intel(R) Iris(TM) Graphics 540
Features: Minimum attributes of your Video Card
Required: Icon Video RAM 512 MB You Have: 4.0 GB

Required: Icon Pixel Shader version 4.1 You Have: 5.0

Required: Icon Vertex Shader version 4.1 You Have: 5.0"

There is no way for me to adjust the amount of GPU memory, but 4GB seems pretty good. It is unclear to me whether it is using 4GB of the 16GB RAM for the VRAM.

Still, the GPU situation is the only meaningful difference I can think of between Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book that could explain the crashes.

Cheers 

[DanPatterson_Retired]

I don't know  the book comes with 2 video cards since you can detach the keyboard and run it as a tablet.

The video is but I can't believe that no one else on GeoNet hasn't tried a pro

	i5: Intel HD graphics i5/i7: NVIDIA GeForce graphics

[StefKoroblitsas]

Yeah not all of the surface books have 2 video cards(need to pay more for the NVIDIA Model), it depends which model you have bought, I would say it would a struggle without the dedicated video card.

[IuriiShendryk]

Downgrading from ArcGIS 10.5 to 10.4.1 resolved all "crashing" issues on my Surface Pro 4.

[TimothyWilson1]

Interesting. I recently went the other way however by upgrading both AM and APro - I will report any changes. I'm not that hopeful however because the Surface Pro 4 video driver seems poor in general. Would not purchase it again!

I have discovered that crashing is reduced by avoiding Arc basemaps. My guess is they require higher video processing and/or caching.

[TimothyWilson1]

Update 8 months later - while I would still never buy a laptop again that does not have a dedicated (say, NVDIA) graphics card, ArcGIS10.5.1/ArcPro2.0 are no longer crashing on my Surface Pro 4 since Microsoft updated its drivers some time ago. I have yet to try it with APro 2.1 however.