Hardware recommendations

chango70

Just Did the Cube test

Results (Average over 5 tries with no shadow, no profiles and no AA):
14.6 frames/sec

Computer (laptop)

CPU: Intel Core2 Duo T9500 @ 2.6GHz
Ram: 4Gb @ 667 Mhz
GPU: Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT 512 MB

Wow this is fantastic! Will some one be able to compile the results? I would love to but unfortunately I have a deadline at my office until the 18th so i can't. I understand that GPU is making the main differences so maybe just compile a GPU table?

my 2 cents

I personally would kill to find out if the Nvidia Quadro FX card does perform better than the equivalent Geforce cards.

chango70

@plot-paris said:

this is true, after the discovery of this very useful command (Test.time_display) we dont need to have big models anymore. it is rather helpful to play with different style settings to find out how they influence the performance.
of course it still makes sense to have some scenes with different poly counts to check if the performance speed decreases proportional to the model complexity or if there are differences in hardware (for example that one crafic card is exactly the same speed as others with low poly but is much faster with hight poly)

anyway, my test results wit the city model:
(Core2Duo 3.00 GHz, 2 GB Ram, nVidia Quadro FX 1700)
(Hardware Acceleration, Fast Feedback, Anti Aliasing 4x)

Scene 1: 30.9 fps

Scene 7: 0.4 fps

and in Jackson's Cube model:

(17.1; 16.8) 16.8 fps

ps: nevertheless we should design a beautyful model that makes the whole process fun to watch. I think we first have to set up such a file, where we mind every factor that is important to know (textures, styles (like profiles), transparency (faster, nicer), low-/high-poly count, beauty ,...) and then we have to ask a ruby coder to write an automated script that runs the "Test.time_display" command, saves the result, proceeds to the next scene... finally displays all the gathered info in a window (like it does now after every test).
oh yes, is it possible to read out the hardware settings with ruby (or even the hardware components of the computer?)

Its slightly worrying to know that in the cube test the FX1700 only managed around 2 fps over my lowly (cheap) Geforce 8600M GT (14.5 fps with 4x AA)! I was just thinking of forking out £300 for for the FX. Now I am not so sure anymore. Does anyone have a FX3700 or a FX570 to compare?

bellwells

@plot-paris said:

just to cheer you up...

my 5 year old laptop with a Celeron-processor and 1 gig ram achieved 1.7 frames with the cube test!

Jakob, looks like you and I are at the bottom of the barrel. My Sony has really been a workhorse for me over the years; can't complain too much.

rabbit

The database of hardware that supports sketchup needs additional fields to cover it - For example, it matters not only which video card you have, but also what drivers. In my case, (a HP Pavilion laptop with a nvidia go 7600 card) the initial software was vista, but i have "downgraded" to xp. Since there are no updated drivers for this card that support xp, sketchup had all sorts of problems, and it wasn't till i managed to install updated drivers (174.93) via modded inf files (http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/) that sketchup ran smoothly.

Running sketchup (and other cad / 3D programs that use opengl) on a laptop with nvidia cards can sometimes require additional tweaking.

cheers
rabbit

chango70

So... Do we have any initial results from the survey at all?

SketchUp Guide Tommy

Hi Everyone,

Wow. I'm floored by the direction this post has gone. I think that creating a standardized test is great way to collect more objective feedback. If you're all cool with the idea, I'd like to launch version 2 of the survey which utilizes a particular model and the Ruby command "Test.time_display." We'd also like to gather more information about drivers, as rabbit recently mentioned, to further increase the relevance of the survey. Haha. I'm beside myself at the moment, I'm so excited

Anywho, back to the post that started this discussion. I created a gadget based on the results of my first survey. The content is hosted on the following page:

http://sketchuphelp.googlepages.com/hardwarereportresults

Enjoy!

chango70

Err.. Sorry for the silly question but, how do you open it?

juju

@chango70 said:

Err.. Sorry for the silly question but, how do you open it?

+1. Also tried by signing in with my Google login details. She don't work!

ehaflett

+2, I got an 'Access Denied' error.

chango70

Seriously! when I try to log in I just end up in googledocs? Whats happening?

SketchUp Guide Tommy

Hi Everyone,

I'm sorry for the confusion. It looks like there's a bug with the gadget. I'm going to keep playing with the settings to see what's going on.

Many thanks.

UPDATE:

Try going directly to the View mode for this spreadsheet at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pdV8e-LldOEpQw6k3-ovifg&hl=en

Chris Fullmer

I can see that spreadsheet just fine now.

Chris

plot-paris

it works for me too! thanks Tommy.

but I can't really see, what is the most important factor that influences SU's performance...

chango70

I can't see a thing!?? If its just a spreadsheet can't you just upload it here? Surely it can't be that big.

SketchUp Guide Tommy

Hey Chris,

I just wanted to say that it was awesome to meet you in person at Basecamp. Thanks for chiming-in on this thread

Hi chango70,

Hmm. That's strange. Try clearing your browser's cache. I'd prefer to show the online version of the data because I have the data in a gadget that can be controlled with filters. Likewise, the gadget will be updated when new surveys are completed.

Hi Everyone,

As I mentioned earlier, I haven't had a chance to draw conclusions from the data myself. However, playing with the filters has revealed some interesting correlations. For example, the Radeon X1600 appears to be working well on MacBook Pros running Leopard. Feel free to poke around with the filters and see what comes up. This is all good feedback for when version 2 of the survey launches, which will be much more objective.

Enjoy!

chango70

Thx I got it! Thumbs up for the hard work.

bellwells

The links get me to a "sign-in" page and when I log in, I get a blank google doc. How does one view the spreadsheet?

Chris Fullmer

I see that I am already logged in when I click on the link. So can you enable the always logged in mode or something? If you're logged in when you click the link, it should take you right to the spreadsheet. Or maybe log in, and then paste the link into your browser that you logged-in in. See if that works,

Chris

bellwells

Thanks, Chris. For some reason, it's working fine now.

chango70

After reading this forum I've decided to get the following rig for my Architecture Diploma:

Processor (CPU): Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 (4 X 2.83GHz) 1333MHz/12MB (Overclocked to 3.6GHz)

Memory (RAM): 4 GB CORSAIR DOMINATOR 1066MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY (2x2GB)

Motherboard: ASUS P5K WS: DUAL DDR2, S-ATA II, x16 VGA, 2 x PCI-E

OS: Vista Ultimate 64-bit Edition + SP1

HD: 300GB WD VelociRaptor SATA 16MB CACHE (10,000rpm)

Graphics Card: 512MB QUADRO FX3700 PCI Express + 2 x DVI + Stereo Display

All for about £1500 from PCSpecialist

Hope it will be a killer.

What do you guys think?