Maximum number of entities?

[Aureus]

Hi, guys.

I'd like to hear what is the maximum number of entities (edges and lines) your computer and SU version can handle without making you too much headache?

My machine is rather modest: Intel Pentium Dual CPU E2220 - 2.4 GHz, 3.23 GB of RAM, XP SP3. I use SU 8. Usually (if image textures are not applied) I can work within the range 600,000-1,500,000 entities. When the number is close to one million opening the file takes two-three minutes.

In relation to this - what are your experiences with other 3d modelling programs?

[Jim]

There are other settings like OpenGL and Styles in SketchUp that affect performance. You need to be more specific about what settings you use in order to get useful feedback. Perhaps specify a Style for testing purposes.

[Aureus]

@jim said:

There are other settings like OpenGL and Styles in SketchUp that affect performance. You need to be more specific about what settings you use in order to get useful feedback. Perhaps specify a Style for testing purposes.

I myself mostly work with "Shaded With Textures" but with "Shadows" turned off and simple style without bacground colours. Of course, I switch to other settings if necessary.

[numerobis]

Without knowing which GPU you're using i think switching to an up-to-date system should give you a performance boost. If you compare your CPU to an i7 4770/4790(K) or 4930K:
singlethread performance (Passmark) E2220= 885, 4970K=2682 http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
multithreaded: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html (not really relevant for SU)

I use an overclocked i7 3930K @4,6GHz and a GTX 560 TI 2GB and i can work with models up to a few million polys - BUT this also highly depends on the number of components or groups and what is visible in a frame. More edges/faces in fewer groups should give you higher frame rates, but editing the bigger groups can take forever to react (and will not be really useful in real work). While many smaller groups will be editable but give you lower frame rates.

I did a few tests to measure the frame rates.
This is a scene that consists of 50 groups, each containing ~150.000 entities. The whole scene has ~3.5M faces = 7M polys. The frame rate is measured using Fraps (http://www.fraps.com/download.php). Here is the result:

So i get around 14fps rotating after an initial MUCH slower start when i begin to rotate the cube. But zooming is MUCH slower, maybe 0.5fps and when i open a group to edit it this is barely unusable.

Because you asked about other programs i imported the scene into 3DSmax (2014) and here is the result:

7M polys shaded (nitrous)

The frame rate varies between 25 and 60fps (not sure why), 41fps is an average number. But for rotating and zooming! And the big difference to SU is that there is not this big delay until the frames go up when i start rotating AND i can edit the objects fluently!.

Then i copied (instanced) the 50 objects 4 times and got 28 M polys:

Frame rate between 10 and 30fps and again: i can edit the objects at the same frame rate!

[Aureus]

Hi, numerobis.

So you're under ten milion entities in Sketchup anyway and generally speaking you're doing pretty well with five?

That's not bad actually. One can model a lot of things with that number of entities if a proper way of modelling is applied.

I remember when I first used 3DSMax ten years ago, one experienced guy told me: "Son, you don't put 32 segments for a circle which is in the background of the scene."

[Aureus]

To widen this topic a bit.

Does anyone knows some good and free collection of low-poly trees and bushes? I need it for some landscape/cityscape design.

I have a model of the terrain with streets and several hundred buildings and some extra stuff...And all that makes a model of 800,000 entities. And then I import a tree from a warehouse and - puff - my whole complex model displaying a significant part of the town has 800,000 entities and one sole tree has a milion and half!