So what's in 6.4.112?

gata

A great wealth of computer maintenance articles and other factoids are over at http://aumha.org/articles.htm. All his resources/forums/etc are still in the process of being updated for Vista. One place to start is Computer Health http://aumha.org/a/health.htm . On that same page is a link to Parasite Fight - yet another cause of mysterious problems. Some of the utilities for that fight will also help unclutter a system.

And I encounter some computer repair techs who dislike Norton products, saying they can needlessly junk up a system and just be another cause of problems.

tim

@fbartels said:

Well all of us running OS X 10.4.11 can upload to the 3d-warehouse again. That's a much appreciated fix.

Unfortunately the same doesn't appear to be the case for my OSX 10.5.1 iMac. I just tried uploading a simple model with a strange partial result.

a) the warehouse window was very slow to appear and took about a minute before I could type into it.
b) actually uploading produced a progress bar that just displayed the blue barber-pole pattern and sat there. I left it for several minutes but nothing changed. I was able to move the model around though.
c) on checking the warehouse via Safari I noticed that my model seems to be partially there. Instead of the downloading menu showing 'sketchup 6 .skp' it shows 'Collada (.zip)' which means nothing to me. What is Collada? apart from something you put a pina in?
d) attempting to download this 'collada' doesn't produce anything I can make use of.

The model is http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=355c41f107a8ff2cc274799cf1faeca7 in case that helps.

The version of this new SU6Pro shows as 6.4.120, my machine is a new iMac 2.4GHz core2duo with OS X 10.5.1 fully updated, 2Gb ram, etc. I've also noticed some odd hesitations in Pan; previous version did not hesitate if I pressed shift and mouse-middle-button to Pan, this one hesitates for about a second before moving the view. Oh, it also happens if I just use the Pan tool.

CraigD

Hi Tim,

Collada is a 3D interchange format that can be opened in Google Earth (.dae file format): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collada

You should see your model as downloadable in .skp, .kmz, and .dae (Collada) formats. I don't think the upload went through completely. Please try again.

The SketchUp version is correct at 6.4.120.

I'm not sure why you're seeing any hesitations....do you have Fast Feedback and Hardware Acceleration on? Check your Open GL preferences in SketchUp: SketchUp > Preferences > Open GL

Let me know if this helps!

Thanks,

 - CraigD

tim

@craigd said:

Collada is a 3D interchange format that can be opened in Google Earth (.dae file format): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collada

OK...

@craigd said:

You should see your model as downloadable in .skp, .kmz, and .dae (Collada) formats. I don't think the upload went through completely. Please try again.

No improvement I'm afraid. I do have console log showing a lot of lines like this -
Dec 18 18:24:36 tim-rowledges-imac [0x0-0x63063].com.google.sketchuppro[2830]: SketchUp(2830,0xa0159f60) malloc: *** error for object 0xa039b6d8: Non-aligned pointer being freed
Dec 18 18:24:36 tim-rowledges-imac [0x0-0x63063].com.google.sketchuppro[2830]: *** set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug

and later ...
Dec 18 18:25:44 tim-rowledges-imac SketchUp[2830]: shareWithGoogleEarthCommunity
Dec 18 18:25:48 tim-rowledges-imac [0x0-0x63063].com.google.sketchuppro[2830]: adding: doc.kml (deflated 60%)
Dec 18 18:25:48 tim-rowledges-imac [0x0-0x63063].com.google.sketchuppro[2830]: adding: models/
Dec 18 18:25:48 tim-rowledges-imac [0x0-0x63063].com.google.sketchuppro[2830]: (stored 0%)
Dec 18 18:25:48 tim-rowledges-imac [0x0-0x63063].com.google.sketchuppro[2830]: adding: models/skpfile.dae
Dec 18 18:25:48 tim-rowledges-imac [0x0-0x63063].com.google.sketchuppro[2830]: (deflated 82%)
Dec 18 18:25:48 tim-rowledges-imac [0x0-0x63063].com.google.sketchuppro[2830]: adding: images/
Dec

and the last few that appear are -
Dec 18 18:27:36 tim-rowledges-imac [0x0-0x63063].com.google.sketchuppro[2830]: adding: textures.txt
Dec 18 18:27:36 tim-rowledges-imac [0x0-0x63063].com.google.sketchuppro[2830]: (deflated 39%)
Dec 18 18:27:36 tim-rowledges-imac SketchUp[2830]: KMZ21 export success
Dec 18 18:27:36 tim-rowledges-imac [0x0-0x63063].com.google.sketchuppro[2830]: adding: skpfile.kmz21
Dec 18 18:27:36 tim-rowledges-imac [0x0-0x63063].com.google.sketchuppro[2830]: (deflated 1%)

I guess the lack of something saying 'export success' after that might be an indication of some problem
And again, only the 'collada' version is on the warehouse list.

@craigd said:

The SketchUp version is correct at 6.4.120.

I'm not sure why you're seeing any hesitations....do you have Fast Feedback and Hardware Acceleration on? Check your Open GL preferences in SketchUp: SketchUp > Preferences > Open GL

Yup, both are on. One improvement of the iMac over my MacBook is that fast feedback actually works.

Jackson

I must admit I'm disappointed that the "shadow settings saved in scenes get reset between sessions" bug still hasn't been fixed. This drives me nuts every time I reopen an SU file having to go to every page, adjust the shadow settings up by 1 hr, then down by 1hr (to fix the bug), then update the page.... KNOWING that as soon as I close that session I'll have to do the same again.... and no it's not machine dependant. I'm surprised everyone hasn't been kicking up about this.

Apart from that, it's good to see 2007 dwgs supported now.

TriciaS

@unknownuser said:

@tim said:

No improvement I'm afraid. I do have console log showing a lot of lines like this -

Hi Tim,

I forwarded your log on to the Developers to see if it gives them some clues. Thanks for providing it.

Are you seeing the same problem on every model you try to upload to the warehouse? What if you take a simple box, paint it with a few textures and upload it?

Thanks in advance,

Tricia

tomsdesk

So still hoping for an answer from the "@last" crew to my questions:

What specific hardware is now recommended as "sweet" for SU6?

Why the button response slowdown from SU5 to SU6 if it's not hardware related?

Brad, Craig, Tricia...you out there still?

bellwells

Like you Tom, I only use SU5. I installed the new version of 6 and gave it a ride and still think 5 is as least as fast or faster.

Edit: Yesterday, I converted a v5 model to a v6 and today discovered the file size had doubled. I purged and purged and finally got it down to the proper weight. This is why the model seemed so sluggish. So now, I have to say that V6 is probably faster than V5.

tomsdesk

Ron, didn't work...file size went down 50k (nothing to purge) and the wait time to go to xray went from 10sec to 14sec. I'm disgusted max now.

TriciaS

Hello everyone,

Jackson - regarding the "shadow settings saved in scenes get reset between sessions". What location do you have set on the Model Info > Location tab? I'm looking at a model right now that shows the issue trying to figure this one out. The model has a location of Scharendijke, Netherlands. In this model, if I look at the sunrise and sunset times, they are wrong. Do you see the same thing in your model? And I'm experiencing the same symptoms as it seems you are experiencing... I can reset the shadow fixing the sunrise/sunset times for the current session, but after saving the model and reopening it, the times/shadows are incorrect again. What is frustrating though is that I can't recreate the issue from scratch to figure out how those sunrise/sunset times got messed up...

Tom - does the slowdown you are seeing occur on all of your models?

Thanks,

Tricia

Jackson

Tricia,

Thanks for replying- almost all my model locations are set to Edinburgh, Scotland (UK). I've just checked and three models which are displaying this bug have North Angles of 190°, 0° and 25. I'm pretty sure all my skp files display this bug, but not all of them have scenes saved with shadows. I'd be happy to email them to you.

Regards,

TriciaS

@jackson said:

Tricia,

Thanks for replying- almost all my model locations are set to Edinburgh, Scotland (UK). I've just checked and three models which are displaying this bug have North Angles of 190°, 0° and 25. I'm pretty sure all my skp files display this bug, but not all of them have scenes saved with shadows. I'd be happy to email them to you.

Regards,

Thanks Jackson .... I'll probably take you up on your offer.

Since I last posted, looks like one of the developers has an idea of what the issue may be. Having your model will help prove the proposed fix is a good one.

Best,

Tricia

tomsdesk

Tricia...yes, all models that have any lag going from "materials" to "xray" take 20-40% longer in SU6. Same with other button punching changes and tool selections. SU6 sometimes seems faster orbiting...but studying what happens I notice the delay before going to a really fast wireframe and the delay after to get the faces back adds up to as long or longer than SU5.

Bruce...before and after task manager screen captures:

http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/sas/SketchUp/ended-before.jpg

http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/sas/SketchUp/ended.jpg

Set SU priority to high (couldn't find anything about affinity or cores...?): SU5 actually got slower (from 5 to 7sec), SU6 remained the same 13-14sec to change to "xray". I have 10gig available on a 30gig HD, recently ran ad-aware, but was connected to the internet...?

What's next? (Thanks a bunch for this BTW...from the bottom of my angst filled heart!)

tomsdesk

Is an Inspiron 9300 one with 286 hardware? (1.6gig Pentium M, 128meg ATI Radeon Mobility 300, 2gig ram) Turning off 24 processes (55 down to 31) did drop CPU usage from 5% to 2%...? Still want the file, thanks?

Another general comment I'll add is that a 2meg+ file of geometry only seems to run faster than a 2meg+ file that has components. EDIT: :~p of course it does...nevermind!

TriciaS

Tom,

I'd like to see that model too.

Just checking a few things which may seem obvious, but I don't want to assume:

when you are comparing SU5 and SU6, do you have Hardware acceleration turned on in both versions (Preferences > OpenGL)
do you have the same snappy dialogs (e.g. Component browser, Entity info etc) open in both versions?

Thanks,

Tricia

Phil Rader AIA

WOW I take a few days break from the group and Blammo a 7 page thread happens. I got the upgrade dialog today but I did not upgrade. I guess I'll need to read this thread before I press the do it button.

gata

Tom, Are you using many custom materials? That relatively low video RAM caught my eye. I used to have Radeon cards. Going from 128 MB to 512 MB caused a noticeable improvement. Not earth-shattering by any degree, but definitely noticeable: movement was spiffier, there were less dropping into wire-frame and loss of a few images when orbiting.

Your custom materials reportedly rely more on videocard memory than system RAM.

Back to general maintenance, a nice little free utility program is called CCleaner - C stands for crap, so I naturally like it. It just deletes accumulating crap, like system logs, cookies, assorted temp files, etc, from one convenient location. And under Option/Cookies it allows you to manage what cookies you would like to always keep around (like the cookie from this forum).

pmiller

Tom,

If my recollection is correct....
In the release notes for V5 and V4 (which I can no longer find) I seem to remember @Last listing non-compliant video cards or not recommended video cards --- amomg them was the ATI radeon mobility. Plus I seem to recall that V6 is more demanding of VCs with regard to OpenGL compliance (this might explain what you are seeing). Unfortunately the V6 release notes don't contain such info and I cannot, for the life of me, find where I stored the old notes. Maybe someone at Google can shed light on this or correct my recollection if I am wrong.

tomsdesk

gata...no, no custom materials: just a bunch of components, including some 1-2meg antique cars from the warehouse. Just dug deeper into the hardware req's on the SU6 site and saw for the first time the 512meg video line...oops.

Paul...can't find my "readme" file either (burned it to a CD that's in that "place" where I won't loose it but can never find it :`) but the tech notes in the SU5 help sections says the ATI Rage Mobility isn't complient...doesn't mention the Radeon?

Dumber than dumb...I just pushed these thoughts to driver searching again and this time didn't use my Dell service tag number (just the model and card name) and found a 2005 ATI driver 9 months newer than the one installed on my machine...go figure?

Anyway, didn't help...damn it?
Thanks, though.

So I'm convinced my budget for a new machine needs to expand to include a 512 quadro FX and at least a 2.2 processer (if I want to notice the difference between it and my 1.6?). As will the time to wait for it.

Anybody know the straight poop on whether 4gig of ram is any better than 3gig...I mean, can XP Pro even use that much? Also, cache memory...2meg, 4meg, more?

linea

I haven't upgraded yet, I read the release notes, I'm concerned by all the issues with Vista and Google Earth. If I don't upgrade now, can I wait for the next release and then still smoothly upgrade?