SU upgrade to 8.0.4811 (Maintenance 1)

thomthom · 12 Jan 2011, 23:05

Per Google: "/Largeaddressaware". Does this mean that 64 bit computers can now address bigger files, while 32 bit machines retain the benefit of speed?

Yes - Under 64bit Windows, SU can now address up to 4GB RAM. (I have tried it with a huge render.)

AndrewS · 12 Jan 2011, 23:16

Ken,

@unknownuser said:

I believe when I upgraded from 4 to 5 I lost all my plugins, materials and components. Never had the courage to try again. So, next upgrade I will save a copy of these three directory in another directory, and try your method to install over.

My colleague, Steve, and I were responsible for creating the SketchUp installers for Mac and Windows. I have only been on the SU team for just over three years, so I can't speak to what technologies were in place back in the 4 and 5 days. However, on Windows, for SketchUp 7 and 8, which were built as MSI-based installers using Wix, if you're just installing a minor release (anything where the major version number stays the same, like 7.0 -> 7.1 or 8.0 -> 8.0 maintenance release 1), you should be perfectly safe to run the upgrade in-place. The Windows Installer technology is supposed to be smart enough to replace just the files that differ in your current installation vs. the new installation, without removing extraneous files or replacing directories wholesale.

This does highlight the point that if you've made any modifications to files we provide, those modifications could be lost in an upgrade. However, you should never (99.999% of the time) need to overwrite any of the files we provide for you with your own modifications anyway. If you need to modify something like a LayOut template, copy the file and make a differently named version with your modifications so they can be preserved separate from what we've provided. And, in the cases when it is possible (such as with LayOut templates), store your own files outside of the SketchUp directory structure, just to be on the safe side.

Obviously, with things like plugins, you have no choice but to put the files inside the SketchUp directory, so if it worries you, make a quick backup of the SketchUp directory before proceeding with the upgrade, but do know that we expect it should work without such intervention.

Andrew

AndrewS · 12 Jan 2011, 23:47

@honoluludesktop said:

Per Google: "/Largeaddressaware". Does this mean that 64 bit computers can now address bigger files, while 32 bit machines retain the benefit of speed?

Sort of. In short, the flag will help many people, but don't be surprised if it doesn't improve your specific situation.

For all of the reasons discussed a million times before, migrating SketchUp to compile natively as either 32 or 64-bit is a very difficult and incredibly time-consuming endeavor. However, when we heard about the possibility that the functionality of memory-intensive operations might be improved without going all the way to a 64-bit migration, we jumped at the chance to try it.

Those who brought the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag to our attention touted it as a magical cure-all. Indeed, we had high hopes that it would make a marked impact for those folks who really want to work with much larger files; we invested quite a lot of work in turning that flag on, ensuring we had done it correctly and consistently throughout SketchUp, and testing the results. Unfortunately, in the specific case of compiling and linking it into SketchUp, Style Builder and LayOut, that flag is more snake oil than miracle cure.

I did some pretty extensive testing with large images after we first introduced that flag to our compilation, on both 32-bit and 64-bit machines with Windows XP, Vista and 7, all with varying amounts of RAM from 1 to 12 GB. After all, we also needed to make sure the flag didn't break anything either.

Although I found many cases that showed improvements on 64-bit machines with more RAM than was usable in previous versions of SketchUp, overall, I was disappointed because it didn't make the staggering difference we all expected. Although many of you will find the improvements to your liking, SketchUp is still going to fall short for those of you who want to perform actions that are an order of magnitude beyond what SketchUp has traditionally been able to do, such as exporting 10,000 x 10,000 pixel anti-aliased images.

It is worth noting that in some cases, the threshold for seeing problems varies by the operating system. For instance, I was able to export high-res PDFs from LayOut under Windows 7, which failed on XP. Oddly enough, I even showed such a test case that worked really nicely on a Win 7 machine with 1 GB of RAM, while failing on Win XP with 4 GB RAM. Although we were not able to pursue that issue down to its root cause, we believe that in some cases, the inconsistency is due to differences in the system libraries distributed with each platform, or possibly, in the way the kernel of each OS manages memory. Apparently on Windows 7, even with 1 GB RAM, the memory management for that operation is much better overall than what happens with Windows XP. Strange, but true.

Andrew

John Sayers · 13 Jan 2011, 06:18

GREAT UPGRADE - THANK YOU SKETCHUP

thomthom · 13 Jan 2011, 07:20

@andrews said:

Those who brought the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag to our attention touted it as a magical cure-all. Indeed, we had high hopes that it would make a marked impact for those folks who really want to work with much larger files; we invested quite a lot of work in turning that flag on, ensuring we had done it correctly and consistently throughout SketchUp, and testing the results. Unfortunately, in the specific case of compiling and linking it into SketchUp, Style Builder and LayOut, that flag is more snake oil than miracle cure.

The people who will benefit the most from this are probably render engine users, like me. Some render engines run inside the SU process. Previously you'd be in trouble if you rendered large files as things would crash when memory usage creeped up to 1.8GB. I had found a utility to change the LAA flag in SU8M0 and that had saved me a few times when I had to squeeze out some larger renders. I'm glad it's not LAA out of the box and I don't have to use hacks to enable it. The extra 2GB availible has helped greatly.

Pixero · 13 Jan 2011, 07:38

Wow, I'm impressed. Shadow bug fixed and toolbars and large adress aware too...finally I will consider upgrading to v8.

geomp · 13 Jan 2011, 08:31

I'm impressed! A proper release that appears to solve real problems, I can't wait to try it out!

Thanks,
Paul

rv1974 · 13 Jan 2011, 08:40

For me this point release have more pleasant stuff than v.8 itself.
Thank you google team. I just wonder is it (partly?) a reaction to the cold wave of criticism toward v8?

Panga · 13 Jan 2011, 09:05

I have some issues with this update :

I reduced my Sketchup Window in order to test the toolbars, then maximised the window, go to View > Toolbars > Restore position of toolbars : the position of toolbars is right, but there's many icons which disapeared !! For example, my Sandbox toolbar only show the tow first icons !! And the same thing on many other toolbars.

Anyone encountered the same issue ??

Regards.

thomthom · 13 Jan 2011, 09:07

@panga said:

Anyone encountered the same issue ??

I have experience that. Not sure when/why that happens. Doesn't happen all the time.

alpro · 13 Jan 2011, 09:26

Good job Google, I downloaded the 8 demo when it was first released, didn't see much reason to upgrade, till now. Now if only we could get some better texturing tools........poor Google, it's never enough.

Mike

AlexMozg · 13 Jan 2011, 11:46

The bugs noted by me:
SketchUp 8 Bugs: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=30583

otb designworks · 13 Jan 2011, 13:49

Shadow bug fixed?! Are you kidding me? Is it Christmas all over again?

Seems like a really nice and comprehensive update and that brings joy to my heart.

Thanks to the developers for all their hard work!

valerostudio · 13 Jan 2011, 15:47

Do you need to uninstall and reinstall if you are using 64bit Windows? The older 8.0 is installed in the x86 Program Files. Will this prevent SU from using 64 bit?

Rich O Brien · 13 Jan 2011, 16:05

Your completely safe to install without uninstalling your current version. No plugins, components, materials etc. will be messed around.

Happy Sketching

Vicspa · 13 Jan 2011, 16:07

I just updated, luckily I saved a copy of the plugins folder because it replaced it with the basic one. So all is back to normal.

Rich O Brien · 13 Jan 2011, 16:14

@unknownuser said:

I just updated, luckily I saved a copy of the plugins folder because it replaced it with the basic one. So all is back to normal.

...that is kind of worrying, I didn't experience this but if you've doubts follow Vicspa's advice

Vicspa · 13 Jan 2011, 16:43

If in doubt,....always have a backup ready. It would take me quite some time to replace all the plugins.
Time I'd rather spend practicing SU.

thomthom · 13 Jan 2011, 17:14

@valerostudio said:

Do you need to uninstall and reinstall if you are using 64bit Windows? The older 8.0 is installed in the x86 Program Files. Will this prevent SU from using 64 bit?

SketchUp is not 64bit. It's LargeAddressWare, but it is still 32bit.

bmike · 13 Jan 2011, 18:09

@unknownuser said:

I just updated, luckily I saved a copy of the plugins folder because it replaced it with the basic one. So all is back to normal.

It shouldn't have...
Updated just fine here and my Plugins were intact...