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    • C Offline
      Charlie__V
      last edited by

      Hello all,
      Anyone running an Nvidia GeForce 8700MGT with hardware acceleration enabled ?

      I searched and found that an older driver for the 8800 allows for HA, but no such driver for the 8700.

      EDIT:
      Well for those interested....looks like I may have solved/answered my own question.
      Seems I had a combination of option settings selected that were causing me grief.

      In the Nvidia control panel I needed to have the image setting set to Let 3D app Decide

      And in SU preferences....Open GL....Capabilities....use an option with Anti Alias set to 0x

      SLI Enabled/Disableddoes not seem to make a difference.

      Above settings are with Dell driver 176.78_Dec21_2008

      TIA.....
      best,
      Charlie

      Specs:
      Dell
      XPS M1730, Intel Core 2 Extreme X9000(2.8GHz, 800Mhz 6M L2 Cache)
      NVIDIA SLI Dual GeForce 8700MGT with 512MB GDDR3
      4GB, DDR2, 667MHz
      320GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
      OS: XP Pro SP3

      Precision M1710/Win 7 Pro 64 bit/i-7 6920 Quad core 2.9 Ghz -3.8/16Gb ram/NVIDIA M5000M 8Gb

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      • R Offline
        robsc
        last edited by

        hi, all; I've just had good luck installing windows 7 on my computerputer and installing an Nvidia 9500 gt card. SU runs swell now, and I'd like to add my data to the aforementioned hardware survey. Unfortunately Windows7 beta is not one of the operating systems listed in the drop-down. Would the suthor please care to expand this menu so that i might further share this info? thanks, robsc

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        • C Offline
          chango70
          last edited by

          Is there a way for you to compare sketchup perfomance between windows 7 and Vista?

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          • R Offline
            robsc
            last edited by

            i think the video card demonstrated the largest difference in performance, but my feeling is that win 7 is MUCH more stable than vista, and considerably faster. btw i did a clean install and it took not much more than 1 hour to accomplish robsc

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            • C Offline
              chango70
              last edited by

              Just done a quick test with my new i7 Core 920 CPU desktop (2.67GHz x 4 Stock overclocked to 3.00GHz x 4) running the same VRay rendering against my T9500 2.6GHz x2 Core Duo laptop.

              i7 Cores managed to finish the rendering just under 3 minutes, while the Core duo took 14 minutes. Thats almost 5x the speed!!!

              It turns out the multi threading on i7 Cores gets working as 2 cpus per core making VRay run like as if I had 8 cores. ๐Ÿ˜ฎ

              Superb results, I recommend it to anyone.

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              • C Offline
                chango70
                last edited by

                I believe that now the i7 Cores are released there is no reason other than cost to go AMD anymore. The benchmarks are amazing! The slowest i7 Core 920 is faster than the fastest last generation Quad (the QX9775)which is incredable! Plus they apparently can overclock relatively easily according to Tom's Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/). It was worth the wait. Now I am going to specify a system with the following hardware:

                Intel Core i7-920 2.66Ghz
                6Gb DDR3 Ram
                WD velociRaptor 10000Rpm HD
                Samsung 1TB Spinpoint 7200rpm HD
                Asus P6T Desluxe Intel X58 Motherboard
                Quadro FX 1700 Graphics Card

                That should do the trick ๐Ÿ˜„ for modelling and rendering

                Any improvement welcome.

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                • R Offline
                  remus
                  last edited by

                  looks jealous

                  http://remusrendering.wordpress.com/

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                  • GaieusG Offline
                    Gaieus
                    last edited by

                    I have a (fairly "old") Intel Pentium 4 processor in my laptop and it's 3.8 GHz but it was from the time when multi core was still in an experimental stage and this single core processor was made to be able to perform dual threading (I think this is called "hyperthreading" in the HW world). It's really handy because in fact it is a single core (with quite high clock speed) so SU can run at high speed on it but when it comes to applications which are capable of multi threading (ie. rendering), it works as a dual core.

                    First I didn't know this and I was surprised to see that in the Task manager I have two CPU's displayed and when rendering with IDX Renditioner, it was apparent that two different, independent sets of rows were being processed in the image at the same time.

                    I am not a HW guru so I learn something new every day.

                    Gai...

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                    • C Offline
                      chango70
                      last edited by

                      I just did the same test against my friend's 2x Xeon Quad Mac Pro found out this rig is about 25% faster. Considering his cost around ยฃ2200 and mine around ยฃ1500. I'd say I had a deal.

                      Gaieus, yes i heard about the Pentium 4 multi threading. I heard for some reason they axed it on the Duo Core processors. Maybe it was too good value for money?

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                      • GaieusG Offline
                        Gaieus
                        last edited by

                        I don't know. I'm just feeling lucky now

                        Gai...

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                        • AnssiA Offline
                          Anssi
                          last edited by

                          The new i7 processor has hyperthreading again. If I understand right, it can also split a demanding task among multiple cores doing something like hyperthreading in reverse...

                          Anssi

                          securi adversus homines, securi adversus deos rem difficillimam adsecuti sunt, ut illis ne voto quidem opus esset

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                          • C Offline
                            caddict
                            last edited by

                            For the record, I have just had to retire my 600MHz Toshiba laptop from active service.

                            With its 128MB memory and 11GB harddrive running Windows 2000 and with an on-board video chip, it bravely powered SU6 through many a client presentation. (Granted, the model would often break up into wireframe if view changes were too rapid)

                            Now that I have shifted to SU7, and SU6 cannot open models made in version 6, when I tried to install SU7 on the old girl, I was met with the fatal message "Operating System not Supported".

                            So there you go. Progress. Still, she had to go sometime.

                            Although I am thinking that I could easily revert back to SU6 without really noticing, seeing that version 7 was hardly a quantum leap.

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                            • plot-parisP Offline
                              plot-paris
                              last edited by

                              well, at least now you have an excuse to buy a monster! (may I suggest something like the 18.1" screen
                              Acer Aspire 8920, that weighs 4.8 kg and hardly deserves the title of 'laptop'?) ๐Ÿ˜„

                              acer-aspire-8920.jpg

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                              • C Offline
                                caddict
                                last edited by

                                I've started saving already

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                                • T Offline
                                  tomasz
                                  last edited by

                                  @plot-paris said:

                                  well, at least now you have an excuse to buy a monster! (may I suggest something like the 18.1" screen
                                  Acer Aspire 8920, that weighs 4.8 kg and hardly deserves the title of 'laptop'?) ๐Ÿ˜„

                                  [attachment=0:3anrpjzn]<!-- ia0 -->acer-aspire-8920.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:3anrpjzn]

                                  I am also looking for a laptop suitable for SU. You can buy cheaper and not so heavy Acer with same or probably better graphics card. It won't be 18" screen, but who wants to carry a 5kg and/or kill a flying-by bird with a swing of a screen.

                                  Author of [Thea Render for SketchUp](http://www.thearender.com/sketchup)

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                                  • plot-parisP Offline
                                    plot-paris
                                    last edited by

                                    I do! I do!!! and as a matter of fact, I am writing this with the bespoken beast on my lap, listening to 'Air' by Johann Sebastian Bach from it's in-built 5.1 Cinematic Surround Sound speaker system (with subwoofer - in a laptop!).

                                    (and, admittedly, my shoulders are still sore from carying it during my travel from London to the south of Germany two days ago ๐Ÿ˜‰ )

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                                    • AnssiA Offline
                                      Anssi
                                      last edited by

                                      Jakob,

                                      Does it make much noise? I have an older 17" Acer Aspire, and i am otherwise quite fond of it, but it churns away like a bulldozer (not quite but...). I envy my daughter's IMac-it has no fans at all!

                                      Anssi

                                      securi adversus homines, securi adversus deos rem difficillimam adsecuti sunt, ut illis ne voto quidem opus esset

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                                      • plot-parisP Offline
                                        plot-paris
                                        last edited by

                                        it definitely has a fan running, especially when running renders of course. but I think it is not too loud - and for it's monstrous size appropriate ๐Ÿ˜‰

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                                        • EddyNLE Offline
                                          EddyNL
                                          last edited by

                                          Guys,

                                          I've got this museum piece:

                                          AMD Sempron 2400+
                                          1,75 Ghz, 512 MB
                                          ASUS Radeon 9600 128MB

                                          I'm looking to buy a new desktop because I can't run any large SU models.
                                          What's the most important issue for 3d performance like SketchUp and Kerky?

                                          • Dual core? RAM? Or the videocard?
                                          • Any suggestions?

                                          Thanks, Ward

                                          viewtopic.php?f=271&t=11903 Modelling my city for Google Earth!

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                                          • R Offline
                                            remus
                                            last edited by

                                            For sketchup you want a fast clock speed (number of cores doesnt effect SU performance.) Good processors to look at are the intel core 2 duo and if your feeling up to a bit of overclocking, the intel core 2 quad. Youll also need a graphics card with decent openGL support, the quadro cards are generally pretty good for this, although a bit pricey.

                                            For kerky you want lots of RAM and a processor with lots of cores, although youll need a 64 bit OS if you want to have more than 4GB of ram.

                                            On balance, id say go with a core 2 quad processor and 4gb of ram. A pretty standard combination thats also pretty powerful.

                                            http://remusrendering.wordpress.com/

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