Trimble & Sketchup 64 bit
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@pixero said:
If I want a renderer that runs inside SU without the need to export (like with Thea) can it still be 64bit?
Anything that runs inside SketchUp must be 32bit. But the 32bit process can send the data off to a 64bit process. You make the UI be hosted in SU's 32bit process, but make a 64bit background process do the rendering. Like the DR Spawner for instance - it receives the data, processes it, renders, and sends the resulting data back.
@pixero said:
If so, why haven't I've heard of any 3:rd part renderer for SU that works like that?
Don't know - can't answer that one. I could make a wild guess - that's it's easier to just run it inside, and it will work for most models.Just because something is possible doesn't make it easy.
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Thanks for clearifying.
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OK -- I resisted the temptation to post about these issues for quite some time but I'm going to throw an alternate viewpoint out there for those who do develop render engine plugins (which I am doing, but not for SketchUp).
It is not the responsibility of the plugin maker to re-invent the wheel just to have the program perform competitively with comparable software packages. It is in Trimbles best interest (and their responsibility) to make sure Sketchup IS competitive with comparative software packages (and here I'm talking about the Pro version).
For too long the SketchUp dev team have "passed the buck" to the plugin developers to keep the software even remotely usable at the level of other packages. This is a poor model for several reasons, but the most important is because at any point in time Trimble can change its mind and make hundreds/thousands of man-hours of plugin developers time moot by virtue of making changes in the host app.
As a developer I would say that it is unreasonable to expect developers to invest time in creating proprietary solutions that will very likely be made obsolete within a version or two. Whether they like it or not Sketchup will be 64-bit soon or it will be a dinosaur(extinct)... it's as simple as that.
Best,
Jason. -
@nickelessryan said:
I need the program to perform. Its got to run. I have to run a 64 bit machine for other programs. Ergo I need SU to run on a 64 bit platform.
What do you mean? I run 64bit windows 7 and sketchup works just fine. What is the specific problem you are having?
@unknownuser said:
Regardless how much of my system it actually utilizes (I'm not a tech guru, obviously) I just need functionality. It's just not practicable to expect users to not upgrade systems, or to run two machines side by side - most of us do not have this luxury, especially in the workplace environment.
Why would you need to run a system side by side? Can you not run sketchup at all? It may be an installation issue (or graphics hardware as others mentioned)
@unknownuser said:
... help those of us out that are currently finding SU impossible to use.
Can you be specific? -
@jason_maranto said:
It is not the responsibility of the plugin maker to re-invent the wheel just to have the program perform competitively with comparable software packages. It is in Trimbles best interest (and their responsibility) to make sure Sketchup IS competitive with comparative software packages (and here I'm talking about the Pro version).
Still talking about 64bit? What would you have to be re-inventing?
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@solo said:
I do not believe Vray has a studio build/ stand alone version which may be the reason it's limited to 32 bit, on the other hand Thea does have a studio version 64 bit that can be used in the way Thomthom was mentioning.
I use the standalone vray in Blender, and it's pretty f-ing sweet. Proxies, 64bit, working DR, dome light,... the list goes on. If it can be an option in the future to export a scene from vfsu to a "*.vrscene" format, then that scene can be rendered with the standalone.
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@nickelessryan said:
However demands of other programs require newer machines with different specs. Those specs have rendered SU obsolete ... since it won't run. ... I have to run a 64 bit machine for other programs. Ergo I need SU to run on a 64 bit platform.
why should SU not work on a recent machine with W7 x64 as OS?
at least if not using a lame shared video subsystem as e.g. the intel HD graphcis which does not fully/reliably support OpenGL and therefore does not comply with the SU system requirements.
Norbert
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@thomthom said:
Still talking about 64bit? What would you have to be re-inventing?
Yes. A system for transferring data between 32-bit and 64-bit processes -- it's completely not necessary for a plugin author to do this, and SketchUp is one of the only (supposedly professional) programs I know that would even suggest such a thing be created by a plugin author. And, as I already said, this labor would be rendered redundant once SketchUp moves to 64-bit.
Whether 64-bit is needful for SketchUp processes is almost irrelevant -- it is needful for nearly every other software one might use in conjunction with SketchUp... and is already supported as such.This is a roadblock for developers to do their best work, and one of the things that makes SketchUp less powerful than the competition. SketchUp is behind, and only getting further behind by the day.
But even that is irrelevant -- somebody at Trimble will force the dev team to embrace 64-bit and when that happens won't the "32-bit forever" apologist backtracking be fun to watch.
Best,
Jason. -
@thomthom said:
@pixero said:
If I want a renderer that runs inside SU without the need to export (like with Thea) can it still be 64bit?
Anything that runs inside SketchUp must be 32bit. But the 32bit process can send the data off to a 64bit process. You make the UI be hosted in SU's 32bit process, but make a 64bit background process do the rendering. Like the DR Spawner for instance - it receives the data, processes it, renders, and sends the resulting data back.
@pixero said:
If so, why haven't I've heard of any 3:rd part renderer for SU that works like that?
Don't know - can't answer that one. I could make a wild guess - that's it's easier to just run it inside, and it will work for most models.Just because something is possible doesn't make it easy.
so the whole proxy-thing will not be 64 bit? how that will work? i assumed that you can send heavy component to a 64 bit process.. maybe i misunderstood..
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What does that have to do with proxy components? (I'm myself not an expert, but I see us non-experts speculating and drifting away into technical topics which are better addressed by the people who make renderers).
Proxy replacements are probably done by the external renderer process and SketchUp is not involved (no matter whether 32bit/64bit). -
it is absoulutely not my intention to point up what renderer developers should do.
i know mr. doublethom went to see the vray presentation and they were talking about render plugins and memory management, so i know the proxy thing maybe a little off-topic, but i'm just very curious if this will be at least a first step toward an external 64bit rendering process or will still be 32 bit.
i'm not pretendig to be the next "bar-sport-developer" for sure. i'm just asking for information..
best regards
marcello -
@nickelessryan said:
So now I'm running a Dell Precision T1600 with Intel Xeon E31245 @3.3GHz with 8GB RAM.
We have the same Dells here and they do fine. What graphics card do you have in yours? I spec'd the 1GB Nvidia Quadro 600 in our T1600s.
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After reading this thread with great interest over the last week, the 64bit question seems quite emotive, perhaps because it in some way encapsulares the frustration which stems from uncertianty as to the direction Sketchup will take. A vague promise of an update sometime in 2013 does little to ease the dissonence.
Those more confident about a 32bit future seem quite defensive, moverover they also seem to be those closer to the development team, which in its own way can be taken as both reassuring and worrysome - i am sure the ambiguity is not lost on most. I get the distinct impression that for some this is a dicussion we are not meant to having.
Unlike some, I would place compatability and robustness above speed for Sketchup moving foward.
Apart from the discussion there are other indicators, the amount of advertising on here for render engines experesses the most obvious Sketchup functional shortfall, while the odd advertisement for Bonzai3d circles like a vulture awaiting either Sketchups demise or the fallout from all the uncertianty.
Perhaps a robust release of a Luxrender plugin and a plugin organizer as an interum update for both free and paid versions of Sketchup, together with a future roadmap for Sketchup would placate most, certainly me.
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Phillip - I think you're right on the money. With all the uncertainty and incomplete info about the future direction of SU, there is plenty of room for doomsaying and speculation. I guess real answers will only come with the next release of SU. But what is a forum for, but to wring one's collective hands and conjecture emotionally about the future
Andy
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After a 64 bit version released is before users moaning for a multi-threaded version... or high poly-count support... or NURBS modeling... or a Tux/iOS port or...
Also, having x32 and x64 versions doubles the expenditure for maintaining and releasing both versions for Win and OSX... as Free and Pro... and for currently 12 languages:
x32/64 * Win/OSX * Free/Pro * 12 langs = 96 builds (plus Viewer)
Having a 64 bit version only is, with lots of 32 bit Windows still in the field, not feasible, at least in the short term.
jm2cts,
Norbert -
@phillip said:
After reading this thread with great interest over the last week, the 64bit question seems quite emotive, perhaps because it in some way encapsulares the frustration which stems from uncertianty as to the direction Sketchup will take. A vague promise of an update sometime in 2013 does little to ease the dissonence.
Those more confident about a 32bit future seem quite defensive, moverover they also seem to be those closer to the development team, which in its own way can be taken as both reassuring and worrysome - i am sure the ambiguity is not lost on most. I get the distinct impression that for some this is a dicussion we are not meant to having.
Unlike some, I would place compatability and robustness above speed for Sketchup moving foward.
Apart from the discussion there are other indicators, the amount of advertising on here for render engines experesses the most obvious Sketchup functional shortfall, while the odd advertisement for Bonzai3d circles like a vulture awaiting either Sketchups demise or the fallout from all the uncertianty.
Perhaps a robust release of a Luxrender plugin and a plugin organizer as an interum update for both free and paid versions of Sketchup, together with a future roadmap for Sketchup would placate most, certainly me.
I was all in on your post till Bonzai3D, they haven't updated that producy at all in years!
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Probably the deciding factor for SU going 64bit will probably be when Windows comes in only 64bit versions. There's been talk about for a while - some time back it was talked about Windows 8 being only 64bit - but it got postponed.
These 64bit (and multicore) discussions always goes astray - so I'll just repeat one thing: 64bit doesn't make thinks go faster! (It appear to be a common misconception)
And to reiterate Andreas; we're better off asking for the end result instead of getting blind on a guess to what technical solution might achieve that result. Just look at this thread - full of speculations and guesses. Brings us nowhere.
@sketch3d.de said:
Also, having x32 and x64 versions doubles the expenditure for maintaining and releasing
Aye - a pure 64bit release of SU might save development time for new projects - but at the expense of existing products. -
@phillip said:
Those more confident about a 32bit future seem quite defensive, moverover they also seem to be those closer to the development team, which in its own way can be taken as both reassuring and worrysome - i am sure the ambiguity is not lost on most. I get the distinct impression that for some this is a dicussion we are not meant to having.
It's just that for the most of it, the 64bit topic is brought up on the incorrect assumption that it will solve all of SketchUp's problems.
Concrete highlighting of the actual issue is better: Explode is way too slow. Better animation of scenes. More performance to build larger models. (This they (the team) have announced that they're always committed to - but it's an everlasting arms race.)
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I'm also working on a 64bit windows 7 installations on several different computers with different hardware. In some instances I've experienced instability in sketchup that makes the software unusable. It will constantly crash for seemingly random reasons though most commonly when processing polygons such as when exploding a group or when running a plugin that creates polygons. It also tends to do massive amounts of lag when running autosave or when opening files of any size.
Through trial and error I've found that the issue is not directly Sketchup but something to do with multi-core processors on certain motherboards. It may be the bridge or threading technology integrated into the board that's at issue. I've only had this problem on boards using DDR3 PC1333 Ram and Intel processors but the ram and processors involved may or may not be a coincidence.
Generally I've solved this issue on my machines by going into the Windows Task manager, showing processes from all users, finding the sketchup process, right clicking on it and selecting "set affinity" and chosing a single core for processing. This effectively eliminates multi-core processing but Sketchup didn't multi-thread anyway. it means my system specs are over kill for sketchup but it makes sketchup at least usable in the environment.
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