I’m not the first post to complain about how much the grid slows down the viewport. I’m assuming you’ve stopped looking at things like this in terms of improving V5 but anyway here goes.
Simple things that could alleviate the problem
In my case anyway I’m almost never working in all quadrants of the coordinate system, or not equally anyway. With something like a boat where the stern is 0, and it’s way longer than tall/deep, Rhino could easily be drawing 1/8 as many grid squares and still provide the functionality I need. Set up limits for each direction in the options instead of just one box for a number.
Obviously stop drawing tiny 1mm squares when you’re zoomed back enough that you can’t see them anymore.
In the mean time, have a toggle option in the Grid command so at least you can turn it on and off with a single button or hotkey etc.
In playing with this trying to set up some grid buttons… The grid command won’t let you set an extent bigger than 10,000… Where as the dialog in the options will allow 25,000 or 30,000 or whatever.
It’s also kindof difficult to work around the way the grid command seems to wipe out the previous settings for each viewport when you run it.
I.e. if I do each one through the options I can set up the front view for say 5,000 and the side view for 25,000.
But then running grid zaps that out and makes them all the same.
Would be nice if Grid left settings alone that you didn’t provide new values for. I.e. if the button could just turn it on and off without screwing everything else up.
OK I’ve made a duplicate of my Wireframe display mode that doesn’t show the grid… And my button changes the display mode instead of actually messing with the grid settings.