sketchucation logo sketchucation
    • Login
    ℹ️ Licensed Extensions | FredoBatch, ElevationProfile, FredoSketch, LayOps, MatSim and Pic2Shape will require license from Sept 1st More Info

    Hardware recommendations

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved SketchUp Discussions
    sketchup
    409 Posts 97 Posters 81.1k Views 97 Watching
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • M Offline
      mateo soletic
      last edited by

      Hi Tommy, nice to have You here on the forums.
      Looking forward to those results. 👍

      Cheers,
      Mateo

      [Concept Illustrations](http://concept-illustrations.com/)

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • T Offline
        Teezer
        last edited by

        I have an Intel CoreDuo 6600 WinXP SP3 machine with 2GB, and a 256k GeForce 8600GT. I've not had any issues with SU performance until recently, when a model I've been working on for a while began to display jerky responses to repositioning instead of smooth movement. I checked the file size, and found that it had exceeded 10 megabytes.

        My model is currently at 12mb, and has become sluggish. I'm guessing that 13 to 15 megabytes will be the largest model that I can process with this configuration.

        Real life is just another website, albeit a rather boring one.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • R Offline
          remus
          last edited by

          Good idea tommy, and welcome to the forums.

          Im not sure about anyone else, but i found the processors bit of the survey a bit confusing, and kind of weird as well. I cant think of anyone whos got a computer with 8 separate processors, as your survey suggests. Perhaps it would be better to just specify the processor type?

          http://remusrendering.wordpress.com/

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • SketchUp Guide TommyS Offline
            SketchUp Guide Tommy
            last edited by

            Hi Everyone,

            Thanks for such a warm welcome 😄. You all rock, and I appreciate everyone's feedback on the form.

            Hi remus,

            Excellent point about the processors. I struggled with a way to gather this information. I think I left "8" in the number of processors before adding the "Multi-core" question. I'll drop that down to 4.

            Hi tomsdesk,

            As you may know, GeForce 8800 cards haven't been playing very well with SketchUp. We found an older driver for this card which you can get from http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_169.02.html. Regarding vetting additional drivers, I'll see what I can do 😉. I hope everyone here posts their findings on driver performance as well.

            Hi Gaieus,

            It was a pleasure meeting you, and I know that it won't be the last time we meet. After this post, I received 40 more responses to my survey (which almost doubled what I had). Thanks for your support.

            Enjoy!

            Regards,
            SGT

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • K Offline
              kwistenbiebel
              last edited by

              @sketchup guide tommy said:

              Excellent point about the processors. I struggled with a way to gather this information. I think I left "8" in the number of processors before adding the "Multi-core" question. I'll drop that down to 4.

              Wait a minute 😄 .
              Indeed 8 processors is still very rare (only servers?).
              8 cores on the other hand isn't that rare.
              My Mac Pro (using Vista on it) has 8 cores but only 2 (quadcore) processors (4 cores each).

              I think that, if you want the survey to be useful, the technicalities should be correct.

              By the way: welcome ☀

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • T Offline
                tegin
                last edited by

                I use a Macbook Pro 2.5Ghz C2D, 2GB ram, Nvidia 8600m gt 512 mb, It works pretty well. However my latest model was too complicated and time by time it was hard to navigate and create new objects. The configuration that is sufficient for you depends on what you are doing. I would prefer having a workstation graphics card. However cpu is more than enough. I get renders on Vray and it is really fast.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • T Offline
                  tomsdesk
                  last edited by

                  Tommy, thanks.

                  Hope you can indeed get something done (if something still needs done after the release of the Great and Wonderous Wizarding Seven :`) I went with the Quadro a few months ago, only to find the latest Autodesk driver is the closest I can get to an SU wonder...done again, as things stand, I would have gone with the Geforce and spent my money on double the ram.

                  Best, Tom.

                  http://www.tomsdesk.moonfruit.com/
                  2.5D Trees & Shrubs!

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • T Offline
                    tald311
                    last edited by

                    Tommy,

                    Welcome.
                    Thank you for this survey. I think its a great idea.

                    One suggestion, if possible, is to add a question of if any given system is using RAID hard drives and also a question on hard drive speeds.

                    I am currently using a VISTA Laptop (Core Duo 2.4, 4 gigs ram, NVIDA GeForece 8800M and Raid hard drives) and it handles SketchUp in ways I did not think was possible. I have very large models as well (1 million to 3 million faces) and it was jaw dropping. Its not perfect with Vista for something’s but I have a feeling the RAID is making a difference.

                    Thank you
                    Daniel Tal

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • plot-parisP Offline
                      plot-paris
                      last edited by

                      tald311, may I ask, which RAID configuration you are using and what harddiscs (speed, company...) that are?
                      I am going to buy a new notebook soon. and what you describe...

                      @tald311 said:

                      ...and it handles SketchUp in ways I did not think was possible. I have very large models as well (1 million to 3 million faces) and it was jaw dropping.

                      ...sounds simply amazing.

                      cheers,

                      Jakob

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • K Offline
                        kwistenbiebel
                        last edited by

                        I didn't know sketchup was that dependant on the hard drive.
                        In 'Preferences' , I always see to it the' auto save' option is turned 'off' as it causes SU to slow down a lot, but I am surprised to hear that the hard drive has such an influence...

                        Is this maybe because SU is not 'large adress aware' (it can only use a limited amount of RAM) and turns to the page file instead ? (=using a part of the hard drive as RAM replacement).
                        That could explain why better hard drives (in a RAID configuration) actually provide a speed gain....

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • T Offline
                          tald311
                          last edited by

                          I am not sure what SketchUp uses as hardware. I use gaming systems for modeling since they are designed for handling 3D models.

                          The only thing I am sure about SketchUp is it is single-core and that is because of the real-time rendering stuff. One of the Devs explained it to me but I am not that tech savy (so take this whole e-mail with a grain of salt).

                          The system that I just bought is this one:

                          http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668093.php

                          I know that RAID drives is recommended for some 3D games. And since I am a gamer (added bonus) I look for the most intensive graphics games I can find and see if my system can run it.

                          The current problem is VISTA and Shadows buts that only limitation I have run into. I am hoping SU 7 responds better to Vista since we do not have a choice any more but to use it.

                          I do know with Vista that JPEG snap shots I cannot take in XP, I can in Vista with high-rez. Your system does need to be designed for 3D graphics though – what ever that might be, which is why your survey is a GREAT IDEA!

                          Thank you again.

                          Daniel Tal

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • GaieusG Offline
                            Gaieus
                            last edited by

                            I have a 256 mb Ati Radeon (I think X550) card in my desktop. I cannot really speed things up with hardware acceleration but get along with it pretty well. Some people have issues with ATI cards however so wait till a more experienced "hardware guru" chimes in.

                            Gai...

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • C Offline
                              copain
                              last edited by

                              anyone uses radeon hd4850 for sketchup?
                              i heard radeon cards aren't very compatible with openGL apps..

                              thx for the fast reply gaieus, and anyway this is my 1st post.. nice 2 meet u all 😛

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • 2 Offline
                                2myChaGrin
                                last edited by

                                Great idea for the hardware survey! I wish it would've been done before I upgraded my machine. I ended up going with the HPm9340f. For less than a grand, I got equipped with an Intel Q6700 Quad core, 6 GB ram, 750 GB HD and a NVDIA 9500GS with 768MB dedicated video memory, upgraded from a AMD 64 bit processor. I've seen a drastic improvement in handling large models in sketchup and it's cut my render times down by almost 80%. It's a good "bang for the buck" machine if anyone is undecided. I would still wait for Tommy's survey though.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • J Offline
                                  Jackson
                                  last edited by

                                  What a great idea- I filled in the survey.

                                  Jackson

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • C Offline
                                    chango70
                                    last edited by

                                    Hi All

                                    I am new to the forum and this is my first post! Hurrah! Just want to say what a fantastic job you guys have done to keep this forum fresh and relevant.

                                    I am looking for a new desktop computer so this thread is very useful to me. Having filled out the questionaire I would like to make a comment that some of you probably have picked up already. From my experience rating performance of your own machine is too subjective. It would mostly depend on the level of complexity needed in the individual modeler and therefore relying own their own judegement is perhaps not the best way to go about this. Perhaps there should be a collection of models for download with increasing complexity and let people note down each model from the lower end until their computer starts to show jerkiness on screen or show serious slowdown then post which model did it. Just a thought

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • GaieusG Offline
                                      Gaieus
                                      last edited by

                                      You are perfectly right about this (and welcome, by the way) but I hope that at least some basic data will be collected now.

                                      We also used to have topic about performance and there was a file with several scenes and more and more instances of the same component in those scenes (on layers). It was interesting to see how different machines performed.

                                      Gai...

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • plot-parisP Offline
                                        plot-paris
                                        last edited by

                                        is there a way to show the framerate, with which SketchUp is displaying the model, when moved?
                                        because that would be a very objective figure. (or is it possible to write a ruby that does that)

                                        just click through the scenes in the test file (complexity increases). then there are some "framerate test scenes" where the complexity doesn't increase, so that you can have a look at the framerate when moving the model.

                                        dumb question: are there different model-types or -settings that effect different hardware components (like styles = gpu, poly-count = cpu and ram...)? the test file should mind these factors as well.

                                        ...now that I think of it. could't one of the ruby masters write a script that produces a text file with framerates achieved during the test? then we could open the test file, start the ruby, start an animation (with scene delay). when the animation is finished, either upload the text file here or post the results...

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • J Offline
                                          Jackson
                                          last edited by

                                          Now that's a great idea Jakob! Not subjective and not restricted to very low-end or very high-end systems as some "can you run this skp animation?" based tests are.

                                          Jackson

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • plot-parisP Offline
                                            plot-paris
                                            last edited by

                                            we just need someone to write a script that puts the framerate in a text-file (I have unfortunately not the slightest idea of how to do anything in ruby).
                                            the best way to put it, would be something like:

                                            • scene1 to scene2 = 76 fps
                                            • scene2 to scene3 = 44 fps
                                            • scene3...

                                            and then we need a nice test-file that not only tests your hardware, but also makes testing enjoyable (like starting with a small village with few simple houses, going to a city of decent size and finishing with a huge capital (loads of polygons) with a big castle or cathedral in the centre...

                                            (that is a nice idea for the competition thread) 😉

                                            [Edit] I just used an old model to demonstrate, how such a scene could look like. of course it would be much more enjoyable, if you had a bit more variety... but as I said, this is only a first idea[]

                                            I just spotted a problem (I think). how much do components affect cpu and ram? because the file size should be rather small for fast download - therefore should consist of components... but can we test all necessary information with that?

                                            [Edit] I just used an old model to demonstrate, how such a scene could look like. of course it would be much more enjoyable, if you had a bit more variety... but as I said, this is only a first idea[]

                                            benchmark_test.skp

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • 1
                                            • 2
                                            • 3
                                            • 4
                                            • 5
                                            • 20
                                            • 21
                                            • 1 / 21
                                            • First post
                                              Last post
                                            Buy SketchPlus
                                            Buy SUbD
                                            Buy WrapR
                                            Buy eBook
                                            Buy Modelur
                                            Buy Vertex Tools
                                            Buy SketchCuisine
                                            Buy FormFonts

                                            Advertisement