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    • F Offline
      FIRFIRIKIS
      last edited by

      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?

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      • thomthomT Offline
        thomthom
        last edited by

        @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.)

        Thomas Thomassen — SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
        List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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        • F Offline
          FIRFIRIKIS
          last edited by

          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?

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          • thomthomT Offline
            thomthom
            last edited by

            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.

            Thomas Thomassen — SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
            List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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            • F Offline
              FIRFIRIKIS
              last edited by

              faces:50701
              edges:16302
              the size of textures? what does it means?

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              • GaieusG Offline
                Gaieus
                last edited by

                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.

                Gai...

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                • F Offline
                  FIRFIRIKIS
                  last edited by

                  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...)

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                  • thomthomT Offline
                    thomthom
                    last edited by

                    @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.)

                    Thomas Thomassen — SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                    List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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                    • F Offline
                      FIRFIRIKIS
                      last edited by

                      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 ???!!!

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                      • thomthomT Offline
                        thomthom
                        last edited by

                        @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.

                        Thomas Thomassen — SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                        List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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                        • F Offline
                          FIRFIRIKIS
                          last edited by

                          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!

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                          • thomthomT Offline
                            thomthom
                            last edited by

                            @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.

                            Thomas Thomassen — SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                            List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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                            • brodieB Offline
                              brodie
                              last edited by

                              I'd agree with thomthom. GPU helps some, but with sketchup it won't help much.

                              -Brodie

                              steelblue http://www.steelbluellc.com

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                              • F Offline
                                FIRFIRIKIS
                                last edited by

                                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?

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                                • brodieB Offline
                                  brodie
                                  last edited by

                                  @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.asp

                                  The 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

                                  steelblue http://www.steelbluellc.com

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                                  • takesh hT Offline
                                    takesh h
                                    last edited by

                                    @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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                                    • GaieusG Offline
                                      Gaieus
                                      last edited by

                                      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).

                                      Gai...

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                                      • sketch3d.deS Offline
                                        sketch3d.de
                                        last edited by

                                        @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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                                        • soloS Offline
                                          solo
                                          last edited by

                                          Besides bad modeling (a noobie thing we all guilty of) most folk even experianced modelers do not know when to stop modeling. When is it finished?

                                          http://www.solos-art.com

                                          If you see a toilet in your dreams do not use it.

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                                          • thomthomT Offline
                                            thomthom
                                            last edited by

                                            @solo said:

                                            Besides bad modeling (a noobie thing we all guilty of) most folk even experianced modelers do not know when to stop modeling. When is it finished?

                                            And scale - all to easy to get caught up in details when you pan,orbit and zoom around the model. Working out roughly what your camera positions will be is essential in order to know how much one needs to model.

                                            Thomas Thomassen — SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                                            List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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