Hardware recommendations
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Alright, got my new toy!
http://www.sonystyle.com.cn/products/vaio/e4_15.htm
a really good looking thing
it is Sony Vaio EB4
i-5 560 2.6 Ghz turbo to 3.2 Ghz.
RAM 4 Gb, GPU - ATI Mobility Radeon
HD5650 1Gb
nice full keyboard and 1920x1080p screen.
Performs nice and smooth. No issues with ATI card.
(I did have to purchase the mate film for the screen, so I can kill the glossy effect the laptop came with. It was $50 extra - but it works rather well. Also I upgraded to 4Gb RAM right away (original system had 2Gb) + Windows 7 Ultimate (64bit) so I can change the System original language to English.The only serious compromise was the backlit keyboard. This model doesn't have it
Total demage $1260 (in Shanghai, here the hardware is a bit more pricey than back in US)
However, the funny part is that on the SU hardware speed test
(http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=20076&p=302554&hilit=speed+test#p302554)
it performs about the same as my 5 year old Dell laptop (2.13 Ghz pentium, 4Gb, nVidia...512Mb) 60+ f/sbut the old thing is clunky and does't have full keyboard and weighs a ton.
Well, by this I can sort of justify the money spent.I guess after all the research I did and actually getting the thing it is fare to say that Vaio EB4 is the best value for the money for an architect designer. (considering that SU is your bread and butter. where PhotoShop, Gaming, video editing and Revit are supplementary)
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pls pls pls
i7 2600 3.40 + 16gb + nvidia GeForce GT430 = lot of problems with textures/shadows working on my big projects.
What is the best GPU for my sketchup-workstation? should i go for a fx series? -
@firfirikis said:
pls pls pls
i7 2600 3.40 + 16gb + nvidia GeForce GT430 = lot of problems with textures/shadows working on my big projects.
What is the best GPU for my sketchup-workstation? should i go for a fx series?Have you updated the drivers? They can often make a big difference.
Also, what problems? (Just so that people don't recommend hardware for something hardware can't fix.) -
yeap, the drivers are the latest ones!
the probs are that when i orbit the project i have the texture-lag (textures appear 2-3 secs later). You can imagine what happens with shadows ''on'''... what can i do??? will that problem be fixed with a GPU with opengl hardware? -
How large are your textures?
How large is your model? (number of faces and edges?)The effect you see is a feature in SketchUp in order to maintain performance when orbiting, textures edges effects and shadows will be progressively turned of - eventually geometry will be displayed by their bounding box.
Note that edge effects takes at least as much toll on your hardware as shadows.
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faces:50701
edges:16302
the size of textures? what does it means? -
By pixels. Like extremely large texture files (thousands of pixels) can drive SU crazy when there are a lot of them and max texture size is checked.
The poly count does no seem to be large IF you also checked "show nested components" on the top of the statistics window.
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ΟΟΟPS!!!
i ve just clicked on the nested components...
edges : 1.683.524
faces : 633.283
do i have to worry????!!!!
the texture size is the standard su texture size (su stone, su bricks, etc etc...) -
@firfirikis said:
ΟΟΟPS!!!
i ve just clicked on the nested components...
edges : 1.683.524
faces : 633.283
do i have to worry????!!!!
the texture size is the standard su texture size (su stone, su bricks, etc etc...)With that kind of size you have to expect Shadows, Edge Styles, Textures and Geometry to degrade while orbiting. Save your money. Optimize your model. (Purge, erase unnecessary geometry, reduce detail you don't see.)
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did i reach the limits of su?
you think that there is no GPU wich can handle my job?
what can i do then for my presentation ???!!! -
@firfirikis said:
did i reach the limits of su?
You're pushing it, yes. 500K faces+ is very heavy. I have had some models like that, up to a million or two faces, but it's been either crazy experiments or interior models with lots of high poly furniture.
@firfirikis said:
what can i do then for my presentation ???!!!
@thomthom said:
Optimize your model. (Purge, erase unnecessary geometry, reduce detail you don't see.)
Remove all you don't see in the model. Reduce detail unless you see it up close.
If you need real time performance you must think like game modellers do. -
maybe i should try another gpu (if some friend can give me a quadro) to see what happens...
thank u so much for your comments! -
@firfirikis said:
maybe i should try another gpu (if some friend can give me a quadro) to see what happens...
thank u so much for your comments!I have Quadro FX 3800 (I've had 3500, 3700) and I still see degrading with such models.
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I'd agree with thomthom. GPU helps some, but with sketchup it won't help much.
-Brodie
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ok!!! but if a SU-user (like me) wants to upgrade his gpu what's your advice???
someone talked about the fx1800 and the fx3800.
i cannot understand the diffs of opengl support and opengl hardware... is that true that the opengl hardware of the quadros makes the difference in SU? -
@firfirikis said:
ok!!! but if a SU-user (like me) wants to upgrade his gpu what's your advice???
someone talked about the fx1800 and the fx3800.
i cannot understand the diffs of opengl support and opengl hardware... is that true that the opengl hardware of the quadros makes the difference in SU?You can take a look at this website. It was a test done awhile back (within the past year or so) testing various graphics cards and how they respond within viewports. Be sure and read his conclusions at the bottom.
http://www.cgarchitect.com/news/Reviews/Review076_1.aspThe long and short of it is that although you can pretty well chart on a linear graph how well a graphics card is going to do in a traditional gpu test like cinebench based on it's price and how new the card is, that gets thrown out the window when it comes to viewports. With the SU viewport in particular, what difference there is between cards is very small. My conclusion is that if you use your computer for anything besides SU, you're probably best off basing your card choice on that other function. As long as you get a card that doesn't cause bugs (like ATI cards used to), then you'll be fine.
As for opengl, I think the current version that most cards are supporting is like 4.x or something whereas SU only uses 1.5, as I recall. Point being, if you find a card made within the past 5 years or so, you'll be fine.
-Brodie
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@firfirikis said:
did i reach the limits of su?
I often build SU models like 50-60MB. My PC, although it is 64bit, doesn't even have separate graphic card. It's "on chip".
When I navigate within models like it, I always turn off shadows and sometimes even turn off "use sun for shading" option.
This trick helps me a lot most of the time, however when that is not enough, I turn off textures in "Face Style" (i.e., checking "shaded" or "hidden lines"). BTW I'm totally content with my PC.
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When modelling (and navigating), do not use shadows at all. They are "enough" when you want to make your final presentation (whatever output)..
Use layers to hide parts of the model you are not working on. (Remember; only put grouped geometry/components on layers other than Layer 0).
Finally, there are a couple of plugins that can use sort of "proxy" components (degraded versions of your components). There is TIG's Matrix Proximity plugin that (once set up) will swap three versions of your components depending on scenes or Fredo's Ghost Component plugin for instance.
In this model of mine I also had some 1.2-1.3 million edges and over 300,000 faces but I made it on a single core (2.7 GHz) machine with a video card (Ati X550 or what, I think) that had such a poor support that in the OpenGL settings I did not even have antialiasing options (but at least did not give errors). The whole file is smaller than 7 Mb however (extensive use of components of course).
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@firfirikis said:
ok!!! but if a SU-user (like me) wants to upgrade his gpu what's your advice???
...is that true that the opengl hardware of the quadros makes the difference in SU?no, SU doesn't take advantage of a Quadro FX, go for a fast GeFroce as e.g. GTX 560Ti/570 or maybe 580 if affordable which is much faster than a Quadro FX for the same price.
The highest clocked Core i7-2600 CPU combined with a GeForce GTX580 is currently the fastest system on the market, neither a Xeon CPU nor a (paybale) Quadro FX will show any significant improvement for SU.
If speed with high poly count models is still an issue for you, you might want evaluate over-clocking the CPU if feasible, fo doing this improving the cooling system (better/bigger fan, water cooling) is often helpful.
hth,
Norbert
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