Display resolution - circles & ellipses

Q. The display of circles/ellipses/curved polylines seems very crude "out of the box", with the curved line segments approximated by a small number of straight lines. In my very old version of AutoCAD LT, the curves are displayed properly as curves. Is this a configuration setting?

A. The the smoothness of the circles is controlled by a system variable. Just type the VIEWRES command, respond to the prompt and and set it something you like – higher values give smoother circles. By the way, AutoCAD does the same; just depends on the 'out of the box' viewres setting.