Hardware recommendations

FIRFIRIKIS · 1 Feb 2011, 23:33

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?

brodie · 2 Feb 2011, 04:02

@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

takesh h · 2 Feb 2011, 06:41

@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.

Gaieus · 2 Feb 2011, 08:41

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).

sketch3d.de · 4 Mar 2011, 11:28

@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

solo · 8 Mar 2011, 05:42

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?

thomthom · 8 Mar 2011, 07:32

@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.

rock1 · 20 Jul 2011, 01:51

What is the website where I can view this survey's results?

seanheadrick · 21 Jul 2011, 04:19

i just got the Asus with the i7 processor, 2g nvidia graphics card and oodles of memory. Seems lighting fast to me

jdadesignstudio · 23 Jul 2011, 01:26

Im running an Xi laptop (not sure if anyone has heard of them) and have been very happy with it. Although calling it a laptop is a bit of a quirk as its a big 17" and weighs a ton. It has a 2.83ghz quad core, 8gb ram, and an nvidia geforce 9800m gtx 1gb. It handles all of my models quite well and I have some that are multi-million face models. That being said, I do still use layers to isolate areas that I am currently working on to help performance. Also, if shadows are turned on it slows down considerably.

Thanks for the survey-hope it helps!

Scooter-C · 22 Oct 2011, 21:29

@kevsterman said:

I've been looking at the pcspecialist website and I've come up with the following spec for £1300. Is this good value for money? Will it give me a really fast computer capable of dealing with several intense programmes and the internet all running at the same time without any noticeable slowdown?
<SNIP>
[Your Spec list]
<SNIP>

I'm just so clueless about all this stuff.

======================================
I'm not clueless, but no expert. May I suggest going to TigerDirect.com or get their phone number.
They can put together a base system (or whole System) you can add to.

I've worked with them for 15+ years in building my own machines. I have not had any major problems in delivery or customer service. If any component doesn't work it is replaced. Even in these hard economical times I rely on their advice. I am totally new to SketchUp. I just started in the 3D world, but have been a Misc. Metals Detailer (Draftsman) for 29 years. My machines MUST work, period and significant downtime is not an option. I am on my 3rd Home Built machine (from Tiger) and each one has been an upgrade from the last, because of the component improvements.
I have absolutely no regrets or complaints.

Good luck and
Take Care,
Scooter

Gaieus · 28 Oct 2011, 17:57

Wow, you definitely have space for new toolbars!

sketch3d.de · 31 Oct 2011, 11:30

an interesting post how to speed up SU by using fast styles can be found at the official SU Blog.

Norbert

irwanwr · 4 Dec 2011, 11:17

quite impressing arsenal list. heavy artillery.

danny · 4 Dec 2011, 19:28

Gaieus@ Oh yeah! Three 24"s gives me a lot of room to work with. I really don't work at that resolution, I tend to have SU on the center while watching a movie on the left and surfing the Internet doing research, opening folders to the right monitor.

Thanks irwanwr, it was, wasn't it. I'm afraid that with the new crops of PC games recently my heavy artillery needed some air support so Santa's putting some very cool fire power under my Christmas coconut tree early this year.

I can't wait.

Pg09 · 10 Dec 2011, 19:26

Ok danny, if you don't mind i have completely unrelated questions.
Do you really live in Guam?
What do you do for a living? Something with SU or is it just a hobby?
How is the surf in Guam?

Please ignore my questions if they are too personal, just got curious a bit...

danny · 10 Dec 2011, 23:14

Not at all my friend and yes I do live on Guam in the village of Santa Rita, born and raised. Presently I'm a happy caretaker for my mother. Before that I always worked with public relations agency as a graphic artist.

I discovered SU just before it was bought by Google so I'm a late bloomer. I was getting Adobe overload and when I stumbled on to SU and a whole on world opened up for me...I was hooked ever since, thank you Sketchup.

Because of my schedule I'm in hobby mode at the moment but the future is bright right!

Surfing is great, and your all invited.

Note: As a follow up to my specs, I just recently added an XFX Radeon HD 6990 4GB DDR5 to the mix. BF3 and Skyrim looks so awesome.

danny · 11 Dec 2011, 01:25

Great thread, very informative.

I guess I just want to get my $0.02 in as far as my experience with SU and hardware. I'm an old fart that love to game at times and get into some Photoshop and Illustrator but love to create in 3D models in SU. So about a year ago I built a rig that would let me play and work when I needed to.

Granted I've experienced the glitches early on as I was using ATI cards at the time as a matter of fact I'm still using a ATI/AMD GPU setup to this day. I think since Catalyst 9.5 I have not experience any bugs or glitches in fact it's been very smooth for me. I may not run those mega file like you pro but I've had my share of almost mega file with very smooth navigations.

These are the specs of my old humble play/work rig...

MB: Asus POG Rampage II Extreme
CPU: Intel i7 920 D0 @ 4.2GHz
RAM: Corsair Dominator GT (12GB) 2065mhz
GPU: XFX ATI Radeon HD 6990, 4GB, DDR5 (UPDATED 12-11-11)
Optical Drive: Pioneer BDC-2202B Blu-Ray
HD Primary: Western Digital VelciRaptor 300GB
HD Storage: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB (x4)
OS: Windows 7 64Bit, SketchUp 8 Pro
Monitors: Samsung 245T 24" (x3)

Since I game using Eyefinity technology here is a shot of SketchUp at a resolution of 5760x1200. Even at this resolution SU is very smooth.

Hope you guys like it and if you have any question fire away.

Pg09 · 18 Dec 2011, 11:22

Hey, thanks for the answer - i wasn't around earlier to read it.

I'm very jelly - must be an awesome place to live specially around xmas

Happy Festivus!

irwanwr · 18 Dec 2011, 12:30

it also made me gave it a thought of moving to Guam.
i worked for advertising & printing shops here quite a while.
but never got a chance to save some to get those kind of arsenal.