Who said SketchUp doesn't need to be 64 bit?
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@pixero said:
Today I got the proof and I have an image to prove it.
SketchUp ran out of memory.
[attachment=0:n8sxhz9s]<!-- ia0 -->SUoutofmemory.jpg<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:n8sxhz9s]Nuf said.
You can claim it's enough said if you want, but I'll disagree.
Yes, it's true that SketchUp ran out of memory, obviously. The part that isn't clear is how much it was using at the time, and why it ran out. Without more details, it simply isn't possible to know whether it was truly a result of the 32-bit allocation limits.
For instance, it's possible that SketchUp was well below the 32-bit allocation threshold and that other misbehaving apps or a bug in the OS prevented SketchUp from allocating any additional memory when there was still plenty of ceiling available. As an example, there was a leak in the Apple WindowServer process on the Mac a few years back that caused out-of-memory errors with SketchUp 8 if the user remained logged in for too long without a reboot. Severe memory fragmentation and poor management by the OS can cause this problem as well; if SketchUp were to ask for too large a chunk of memory to be serviced in a contiguous allocation, a failure would result. Finally, it's also possible that SketchUp ran out of memory due to a memory leak in SketchUp that caused it to chew up all of the 32-bit mapped memory incorrectly. Of course such an issue would clearly be a bug in SketchUp that we'd need to address, but while it's true 64 bits worth of memory would help, there's no guarantee it wouldn't simply run out again after exhausting the whole machine memory (which for most people is what, maybe double what they can access via 32-bit, particularly considering that SketchUp is compiled for large address awareness).
It's absolutely possible you hit the 32-bit ceiling and that a 64-bit binary would fix it. However, without further details, it is not possible to know the nature of why this problem occurred with any certainty, or to have any clear proof that a 64-bit application would be immune. That's why say it's just not quite "enough said." I'm not trying to be contrary, just scientifically accurate.
For all those insisting a 64-bit SketchUp binary is the holy grail, although I won't go into the details that we engineers have turned blue explaining in the past, I'll add one more data point that I don't think anyone has openly considered. Given the size, complexity, organization and nature of the SketchUp application code, I personally estimate it would take on the order of two to three man years to reliably port it to 64-bit and achieve an equivalent level of reliability from the end product. That means that even if we were to apply our entire SketchUp client engineering team in that endeavor, it's probably a still several months worth of work just to perform the appropriate modifications, say nothing of the testing effort. One must consider that to add 64-bit support would increase our testing surface by at least 2X, taking time away from anything else QA might light to test.
To put this differently, the point is that one must consider whether the production of a 64-bit binary alone provides enough benefit to warrant sacrificing all of the other things that might be accomplished with such effort. Although many SketchUcation users are traditionally very outspoken about their preference for a 64-bit application (even if many of them don't actually understand the full implications), this community is only a drop in the ocean compared to the multiple millions of active SketchUp users in the world, and I very much doubt that anywhere near even 5% of world-wide Pro users would see tangible gains from adding 64-bit support (let alone Make users).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that we should never port to 64-bit; in fact, I have been a long-time proponent of the notion that we should. I'm just pointing out the incredibly high cost of that effort. It's not something to be undertaken lightly.
Andrew
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@unknownuser said:
Although many SketchUcation users are traditionally very outspoken about their preference for a 64-bit application (even if many of them don't actually understand the full implications), this community is only a drop in the ocean compared to the multiple millions of active SketchUp users in the world, and I very much doubt that anywhere near even 5% of world-wide Pro users would see tangible gains from adding 64-bit support (let alone Make users).
Hmmm, I'd like to see this challenged, I believe most people with a computer manufactured this millennium would want it, especially folks that use 3rd party integrated software.
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@andrews said:
Given the size, complexity, organization and nature of the SketchUp application code, I personally estimate it would take on the order of two to three man years to reliably port it to 64-bit and achieve an equivalent level of reliability from the end product. That means that even if we were to apply our entire SketchUp client engineering team in that endeavor, it's probably a still several months worth of work just to perform the appropriate modifications...
Interesting argumentation - how long did it take to implement the revolutionary arc tool or all those fancy additions to layout?
But maybe you're right... x64 will not be very helpful for sketchup without high (or at least higher) poly support and faster saving - files with more than 100MB are almost unworkable with activated autosave.
Btw. it's 2014 now, Win XP x64 is available since 2005...
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Increase just the hard size memory don't resolve some problems of 32 bits with widows 8 ?
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Tracking
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won't it have to go 64bit eventually?
how much longer will OSX support 32bit apps?
like- can you even run a 16bit application on OSX anymore?(real questions-- I don't know)
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@unknownuser said:
To put this differently, the point is that one must consider whether the production of a 64-bit binary alone provides enough benefit to warrant sacrificing all of the other things that might be accomplished with such effort.
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And all the other man-hour eating things being actively pursued, or planned for the immediate future, are...? -
A good point well made. 64 bit can take a flying leap if subD, quads and proper UV mapping is in the works.
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John B. to Andrew-- "as long as you're talking to them fools about 64bit on your own time, i don't give a crap."
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Great to see someone from the core SU team stepping in here...
@andrews said:
...this community is only a drop in the ocean compared to the multiple millions of active SketchUp users in the world, and I very much doubt that anywhere near even 5% of world-wide Pro users would see tangible gains from adding 64-bit support (let alone Make users).
I'd challenge you and claim it's because they know zip about 16bit, 32bit and 64bit software...
You're talking about the average Joe who's using SketchUp similar to how they're using MS Word or Excel...Like everyone else, I'm a user of several programs... I.e. Adobe PhotoShop, Illustrator, etc... etc... not to mention all the MS suits like Word, Excel etc... etc...
However, I've never been part of any of their respective communities...I know huge architectural companies who are using SU professionally on a daily basis, but where no-one are part of either the official SU community nor do they know about the existence of this board...
I'd say that less than 2% of the multiple millions of active SU users in the world cares about joining such communities... Most because they don't know about their existence, some because they don't have the time to get involved, others because of cultural things and others again because of language barriers...
(As an example, I'm quite certain that there's a huge customer base in the Far East, who would never join this board...)
Regardless of the cause, the vast majority just don't know what is possible and what's not... As I mentioned earlier, they're using SU similar to how the average Joe is using Word or Excel...The SCF community has grown to more than 250.000 users... As a software developing company, you should embrace every input you can get from here... Positive as well as negative...
Although the SCF is only a drop in the ocean compared to the multiple millions of active SketchUp users in the world, we are the spokesmen for the silent majority...Solo have a great point with his statement:
@unknownuser said:
...especially folks that use 3rd party integrated software...
Jeff also has a great and very legitimate point:
@unknownuser said:
won't it have to go 64bit eventually?
how much longer will OSX support 32bit apps?
like- can you even run a 16bit application on OSX anymore?I'm not saying that if you take the 64bit route, all issues will get cured, but I really don't understand why you cling to 32bit, when everyone else go the 64bit route...
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We might not represent the bulk of SU users here at SCF, but we sure as hell do a lot to promote it and develop it's capabilities. What would SU be without all the great plugin developers here at SCF?
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@hieru said:
What would SU be without all the great plugin developers here at SCF?
I doubt I'd be using SU if not for the developers here at SCF.
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@andrews said:
To put this differently, the point is that one must consider whether the production of a 64-bit binary alone provides enough benefit to warrant sacrificing all of the other things that might be accomplished with such effort.
Same song and dance -- and you know I bought it, but that was when I though you guys were actually going to do "something" (anything) with the resources saved. However, in light of the fact that you have done essentially nothing for the last 5 years, I would say that all you have shown is that you in fact fully intend to keep doing nothing for as long as you can get away with it.
Meanwhile other applications, applications without nearly the backing you guys have and are also several times more complex than SketchUp, have already done the work and have successfully moved on.
Try selling your misdirection to somebody who is foolish enough to actually buy it.
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I'd love to have a 64 bit version too
I'm very often using tgi3d PhotoScan on projects, and they will often contain up to 70+ 7Mpx photos alongside the model itself. The file may be 350MB+ and SU uses 2GB+ while working. Pretty close to the "border", but only a few times have I encountered that "out of memory" message (knock on wood
!But another problem here is that I would like to send such big image-loaded skp files to Layout, but currently that's not at all possible because Layout slows down so much that it is completely useless. The workaround is to export 2D images (or even screen grabs), which is not quite satisfying.
A solution could be to give us a choice if we want to keep all images inside the file, or just load them when needed? -
May I ask if SU works better on a 32bit machine than on a 64bit machine as a 64bit needs to emulate 32bits which in essence slows it down?
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@solo said:
May I ask if SU works better on a 32bit machine than on a 64bit machine as a 64bit needs to emulate 32bits which in essence slows it down?
can't ask a mac user.. the last two OS releases have been 64bit only.. there is no 32 bit kernel in mountain lion nor mavericks so i can't boot into 32bit even if i wanted to..
also of note (maybe) is that even apple's lesser hardware (phones and tablets) are 64bit now.. obviously, i'm not a developer but from a user pov, they're sending a pretty clear message.. quit making 32bit applications.
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@solo said:
May I ask if SU works better on a 32bit machine than on a 64bit machine as a 64bit needs to emulate 32bits which in essence slows it down?
It is no real "emulation" like a game console emulator (or some virtual machines). The 64bit processor is running in 32bit mode, and since the instruction set of x32 / x64 is not much different and all translation done in hardware (and not software), it shouldn't be noticeable.
Out of 1483 executables on my computer I found 1479 64bit and 4 32bit, but such dump statistics don't worry me at all. If I hadn't looked at such technical things, I would not care about the bitness of my calculator application. But we SCF members seem to care when it affects larger, more complex productivity applications like SketchUp. Maybe SketchUp "just" has plenty of more serious bottlenecks apart from memory limits that need to be fixed first?
That we don't even know? 
Let's imagine SketchUp had an "agenda 2020". How would it look like? I'm pretty sure by then it will be 64 bit. So this investment needs to be done somewhen.
3 man years out of how many engineers, and this is known since how many years? True, there are many new open construction sites, but they must know best when and how to focus their efforts. -
Open question to all the 64 bit band wagon posters herein:
Tell me where you can buy a fully compliant 64 bit system now and if not now when will they be available?
Oops you can not Now why is that??
A hint => You must be able to address that much memory and that size system does not exist and MS limits through SKU OS versions max memory because they can not even test such a large system.
Open comment to Andrew=> SU does not allocate memory and in fact cannot even touch it. It can request memory but only the OS actually allocates physical memory.
So the bottom line is:" You need 64 bits and how much memory do you need with that??" -
I was hoping that Andrew would post another reply here...
Not only a reply to my post, but also to some of the other posts...I've been thinking... (Yes - it happens...
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If the primary obstacle for not making SketchUp 64bit compliant is a matter of limited resources, why don't the management find a solution to eliminate this challenge...??
I mean... What about outsourcing some parts to specialists...??
Perhaps it's not very popular, but there are plenty of very talented developers in i.e. India - and I would assume also in China...In my previous career I was working close with some developers in India and - to my surprise - it actually went very well...
The daily communication was by e-mail and then once a week we had a conference call by Skype...
I will not weary you with the details, but this is just to say that there really is plenty of opportunities...Arguments that you don't have sufficient resources doesn't last...
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