Jeff,
I looked into your charge that the shading mode would make a big difference. Turns out that the system switches the textures off automatically in order to maintain frame rates, so I hope you will accept that working in shaded mode was not done deliberately on my part. The movie shows that it is only slightly slower but certainly still workable when running in texture mode.

I noticed this behaviour (it would also disable shadows temporarily) on the Quadro FX1600 card on my laptop (- which I also mentioned and as far as I know does not cost $1600 - but which you apparently fail to mention in order to make your point.). This makes me wonder if this is not one of the differences between the gaming and Quadro cards intended for technical work. I would asume that losing textures while running a game would not be acceptable (- but that would be speculating!).

This time shaded with textures!

I wish that we could have this discussion on a scientifc basis (based on actual experience, and testing) rather than relying on hearsay and guesswork. I hope that this discussion will help establish the principle that information does not become fact by simply repeating it. If we wish to provide accurate and balanced advice we really need to be responsible enough to verify the information before we post it. To discredit anyone that offers a different experience (which he can actually demonstrate) is frankly unacceptable.

Jeff,

Did I recommend spending $1600? I do not think so.
I'm sorry that you feel that I am trying to 'mislead' anyone by working with shaded mode. Is it not clear to anyone looking at the video that that is the case, and would that not be the most 'efficient' way of working with large models? (- which is what I thought you were advocating.) By 'very least' should I understand that you mean that there are other things which I am not disclosing?

And off-course you could make a movie on your video-card. With the multicore this operation would not affect Sketchup performance which is being processed on another core, which would not be the case on a single processor where both operations would be competing for processing on a single unit - a point I thought I made in my original post.

Despite your suggestion that I have alterior motives, (which is quite offensive actually) I can asure you that my intention on this thread was to help the gentleman identify why he was having difficulty working on the model with the QC. Was my advice not valid and consistent throughout and is it not supported by the video I posted? Did you yourself not request my feedback on this model in your earlier posting?

I think you should rather consider your own underlying motive in posting your last message instead of publicly casting doubt on someone who has offered a valid point of view based on actual experience in context with the original request.

I am sorry if my own experience does not support the popular myth propagated on this forum.

If all else fails and we cant knock this together this year why not arrange a Virtual Base Camp for the Europeans running over a week with webinars from all over?

I believe that the Sketchup-multicore-performance-loss reports are an urban myth not based on actual experience.

Yes SU does not support multi-threading. But most often Sketchup will be used in conjunction with multiple other applications open at the same time and here multi-core machines show a significant advantage over single core machines where the second/third/fourth cores can be used by the other applications while SU does not have to share a single (albeit slightly faster) processor with other applications and even the activities of the OS. The newer Dual/Quad (SANTA ROSA or newer) cores also integrate dynamic accelleration technology that overclocks the first core for single threaded applications:

@unknownuser said:

WIKIPEDIA
The [Centrino] Santa Rosa platform comes with dynamic acceleration technology. It allows single threaded applications to execute faster. When a single threaded application is running the CPU can turn off one of the CPU cores and overclock the active core. In this way the CPU maintains the same Thermal Profile as it would when both cores are active. Santa Rosa performs well as a mobile gaming platform due to its ability to switch between single threaded and multithreaded tasks.[2]. Other power savings come from an Enhanced Sleep state where both the CPU cores and the chipset will power down.

Centrino - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

I use a dual core laptop (HP compaq 8710W 2.2GH proc. with 2G ram) that blows the socks off my old Pentium 3.4 machine with the same RAM. More recently I bought a 2.4 GH Quad core machine that is a lot faster than the laptop using Sketchup and SO quick switching between AutCAD, Excel, Painter and CorelDRAW etc. - all of which I now leave open most of the time while working with SU.

Therefor I believe that the real bottleneck is the graphics card. Previously I used an NVIDEA Geforce 6600. The laptop has a Quadro FX1600 and the QuadCore a Quadro FX4600.

BUY the best one you can afford and dont believe those knocking multiple cores.

While this file is obviously fairly heavy I do not have a problem working in it.(But then maybe it's because I wasted the money on the graphics card...)

But you won't believe me unless you see it for yourself.Quadro FX4600

BEAR IN MIND I WAS RECORDING THE AVI IN THE BACKGROUND WHILE THIS WAS GOING ON.

• Now try doing that on your single core Pentium with a gaming card!

Well Anssi, I actually use this combination of hardware, so I'm not speculating on this or giving second hand advice. I can only reiterate that in my experience a top-end card in conjunction with MC has speeded up my workflow significantly. - But then maybe this is my imagination...

PS: If you do a search you will find that I actually suggested that a benchmark be developed as a SCF community project, but it was pooh-poohed by the other ruby programmers. Maybe I will just have to write one myself if it means that we can eliminate speculative advice about machine performance.

I guess that answers my question.

Well the guy has already 'upgraded' to quadcore and is looking for a way to achieve performance comparable to his older machine - to which I have made my recommendation for a better graphics card based on my actual experience - which has been confirmed by a specialist on the Google forum that the specific card he uses is creating the bottleneck.

If the bloke has to go on the advice given by some here he should do one or a combination of the following:

1.Don't upgrade to multicore for the time being(Too late!)
2.Find a largely redundant & outdated single core Pentium 3GH+ instead and work with a single window session at a time. (!)
3. Wait for sketchup to support multithreading before spending any more money on a graphics card.(Yeah right!)
4. Work with smaller and better organised models than before.(Not always possible.)

In context with his question is this the most helpful response that this forum can offer?

Jeff, your argument obviously does not support multi-threading...
Did anyone say that SU would be faster on Quad - all other things being equal?

What I did suggest is that the performance loss is propbably due to an inferior graphics card rather than the MC processor. This is supported by the response by Pazu to the question on the Google forums.
http://groups.google.com/group/Sketchup-Pro/browse_frm/thread/e1a7e5c20e16c98e/6c661597f33b7c47#6c661597f33b7c47

I suggest to you that waiting for HQ to rewrite the SU code rather than spending money on a good graphics card may not be realistic advice to the initial inquiry.

How many of those offering advice here actually uses a quadcore with a descent graphics card set up to optimise running SU? If not your theoretical input could be misleading to those looking for real information on which to base purchases or system setup.

Jeff,
That is off course what you would expect. But with my Quadcore setup I can run two/three sessions of Sketchup (great for paste-in-place or working on large external referenced component elements with the master model open sepparately) at the same time each on a sepparate core without a bottleneck where everything is calling one processor at the same time, as on my old (faster) Pentium 3.4GH. Also this allows me to save out large images out in one session while still working in another SU session window - something I definitely cannot do on the SC Pentium 3.4GH.

All things considered the Quad setup is (for me) a lot quicker (with a good graphics card) than a single core setup The single-core recommendation ONLY makes sense if you run one sketchup session without any other applications open.

@unknownuser said:

I'm a little worried about their progress. Unless their idea becomes an official part of a Rhino release, I don't think there's much chance of this becoming a professional-grade tool.

It's a sepparate company that develops the plugin so you will be worried forever. In the mean time Ive tried the alpha demo. Looks realy promissing. If they arent greedy when they release, this may be the one for me.

Still in alpha development stage.
http://www.visualarq.com
This may be the one to watch.

Joe,
I used to have the same problems until I switched to importing .pdf's instead.
If you plot to a pdf driver such as Acroplot or Adobe Acrobat the drawing will come in complete with lineweights, dims, text etc. CDR X3 seemed to have some pdf import niggles initially but otherwise I find this is the best the way to go.

Regards
tox

Dont give up mate, you will feel emensely satisfied when you've nailed it.

Get yourself a little book called "The Pocket fat, carbohydrate & fibre counter" by Carol Bateman. You need to understand how many cals your'e consuming every day and target your meals accordingly. Fried foods, piza, mayo, muesli can be killers if your'e trying to diet.
Spend money on the best fruit you cn find and eat a lot of 'in-betweeners' so that you aren't feeling hungry.

Less than 2400cals a day (what you need to sustain yourself) and you're in bussiness. Try for 1400-1600 a day.
An hour of brisk walking will burn away about 200 cals of energy.
Every deficit of 3600cals a week translates into one pound of weight lost.

The Mac/PC debate reminds me a little of the BIM or not-to-BIM discussions I have heard.

While it may be easy for a sole practitioners/small practices to adopt these technolgies things are a lot more complex if you have to multiply the costs of purchase/implementation/retraining in larger organisations. Then there is the question of availability of trained staff when you hit a bottleneck on a large project. I know of one colleague that had to abandon his vectorworks/mac workflow because he struggled getting staff and when he could find them he typically had to pay higher rates.

However seductive these machines are, they will for the time being remain for me a commercialy unviable option.

A while ago UGS (Now owned by Siemens) made their 2D Cad package available for free. It's not a mickey mouse freebie but a mainstream CAD application that may be worth checking out:
http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/velocity/solidedge/free2d/index.shtml

I can only reiterate what has been said before. Sketchup for speed in conjunction with Rhino for complexity works very well indeed. The new exporter does a pretty good job too.

Tom,
One thing that I've learnt over the years is that a specific generation of software runs with a related generation of OS and hardware. That means that ideally one needs to try and upgrade software, OS and (to a lesser extent) hardware in the same cycle (in my case about every two years.) The hassle of trying to run older software on a new machine or OS is just not worth the time in hacking at finding a solution any more. Also any Windows maintenance update holds the danger of 'breaking' the older software.(meaning that it may introduce an incompatibility at an inopportune time,thereby rendering the older software inoperable). I recently upgraded my workstation and even with the same OS I could not get some older commercial software utilities to run on the new machine.

You may find a way for it to work but bear in mind that the software may not have been designed with this environment in mind. As a part time software developer I can tell you that it is very difficult to design software compatibility for future OS and hardware configurations. I personally still run Acad 2002 due to what I consider an unreasonable upgrade policy but have resisted using VISTA for exactly this reason.

In a nutshell I wouldn't waste the time.

I had to choose between this machine and a similar spec HP compag 8710w which is the direct competitor to your machine. In the end the Dell shipment was delayed, my time ran out and I went with the Compaq. Depending on what you used before you can expect a screamer. I am very impressed with the Quadro FX 1600 card (apart from one or two niggles) and it takes everything I can throw at it.

Enjoy your new machine!