MarckusW

Sorry to hear this! I didn't know this was a problem as up until very recently didn't come to the forum unless there was an update or I had an odd problem that I knew someone would have figured out. I had a 2080 when 13 came out and had no problems. This was in a dual xeon. My mouse would freeze up and I would have to restart once a day but this is a known problem with 10 and xeons. Since I was doing nightly CPU RT this was sometimes a problem. I did eliminate the card factor as I put the 2080 in the other tower which is an I7 5960 and had zero problems. I was tired of the mouse problem, the system was ancient and 11 was not going to support xeons so I did an AMD 5950 build and used the 2080. (btw, I drive 2 10 bit 28" monitors and a 32" tv with no issues). I had zero problems and eliminated the mouse issue. Late summer 21 I had one of my sons staying with me working on video content so we put the 2080 in the Intel 5960 tower and I picked up a 3080ti for use in the AMD. Zero problems. I did have to use the updated drivers, of course. November I needed to work remotely from Argentina so I took the 2080 there and put it in the Intel 5930 tower we have there. It works great. Now that I am using PBR RT there is no real time difference between the I7 CPUs performance in CA. Another thing of note is as there was a bunch of PR at the 30 series launch about how much better and faster they are. This is definitely true when rendering camera footage from cameras that shoot RAW flavors however in the PBR RT world there is very little difference in pass time, shading and texture between a 2080 and a 3080ti unless you are in a large project. And compared to CPU RT the difference feels like nothing. I am putting that out there for anyone who can get their hands on a 20 series 2070 and up. Even a laptop 2070 will perform reasonably. Kbird1, I see you have a laptop with 2070 super. Do you experience the same problem on the laptop? I have had no problems with the Alienware X15 with a 3070 in win 10 and CA 13.

Prior to my current build and because I have also worked with broadcast cameras and the evolution in digital raw I ran dual xeons cpus and updated videos cards every two or so years. Due to the xeon windows 10 mouse freeze issue that would return after every update and the impending move to 11 which is pretty much end of life for older xeons I did a new build last year. The final build with xeons was with a 2080 which was for working in Davinci Resolve and Adobe products. All this having been said... 1. You can get great PBR Ray Traces on a 2080 so any of you who can find a 2070 or above should jump on it for a cheaper solution. 2. Prior to GPU ray tracing I would set up a series of CPU ray traces on the xeons and run them all night. I always personally preferred at least 30 pass. I needed a digital negative to take into Lightroom, Photoshop and in my case Davinci Resolve as to the tool set is phenomenal if you know how to use it. (None of these with ever give you the result of exporting to a Ray Trace Engine format such as 3DS or DAE and working in Lumion or similar. Although with the advent of 13 and GPU-PBR CA has really up their game. A few more controls... and CA will be a stand alone solution. At least that is my hope.) Back to CPU ray tracing: It is more about cores than processor speed. I used 2 towers: I-7 5960 extreme with 16 virtual cores 3MHz (remember GPU is not being used) and GTX 1070 Dual Xeon 32 virtual cores and 2.6MHz with an RTX 2080 and prior and AMD equal to the 1070. (remember GPU is not being used) What does this mean in real time. 16 x 3 = 48 and 32 x 2.6 = 83.2 When CPU ray tracing those number corresponded to the time needed. It the 16 core took an hour to create an image the 32 core took 35 minutes. I did 1000s of these images and compared to what I can do with PBR with 5000 passes in about 5 minutes on a 3080ti with a finish in lightroom, honestly the old CPU images are ghastly. If you are going to CPU ray trace: The number of lights you have on in the house will slow you down. This means if you are ray tracing a home interior make sure you turn off the lights for all areas of the home you are not ray tracing. If it is a large home or building you can also make a copy of it and remove the parts of the building you are not ray tracing. It is simple math of how much you are crunching. With 32 virtual cores and a fast processor speed you should be able to get a pass in no more than a minute in a house under 2000 sq ft. The larger the house the correspondingly slower it gets. Using a backdrop adds time. Using materials you download as jpegs from a distributer's site and imported as material adds time. Having the terrain turned on adds time. Having a second building in the image adds time. If you want to send me your plan I will run it on the 16 and the current AMD 32 core in CPU RT and see what happens. Here is exactly what you should not do. Full house loaded up with 3D objects, some from CA and others created with jpegs of manufacturers imported as textures with a full terrain, CA winter forest backdrop and a 2nd building on the lot visible through the windows with the backdrop. The PBR ran 5500+- passes as I wasn't paying attention. Around 7 minutes. The 2nd is a CPU ray traces using the same saved camera and lighting at 30 passes which took 40 minutes. Finished in Lightroom. You get to guess which is the GPU and CPU.

Mr Dese, I consider this a Windows 11 problem. It had just been released and it was my error to install it. I know better and I did it anyways. It is very simple when you reverse engineer it. Working fine with 10 and updated rtx drivers, Fails after installing 11. Too simple and maybe not so common now in windows releases but historically rule of thumb if you predate the "personal computer" and drove the clown cars that arrived us to this Tomorrowland.

Off hand I do not believe X11 uses GPU cores. You must do CPU tracing. I opened 11 and drew a simple house and used PBR. A big nothing which was what I expected. CPU came in with 13. Download 13 and see what happens. I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised once you understand setting up the image in PBR.

I am glad there is now a thread on this. I took an Alienware X15 with a 3070 to Argentina to train a couple architects on Chief in November last year. I updated to 11 the day before I left and had an odd crash hours before leaving. While down there it got worse. There were no threads here or in the RTX world about this so I decided it was an 11 conflict with Chief. I did a factory reset back to 10 and reinstalled Chief and everything else. My advice to anyone dealing with this. Go back to 10.

Roland, I think you need to gauge what your clients need. I can get close in Chief and then touch up in Lightroom. My partner in Argentina needs a higher level so goes Chief to Lumion and sometimes Photoshop. My belief is Chief is working on further controls for Ray Tracing so you may wish to put off another engine until we see what happens in 14. This is Chief and LR. The bath rooms are "vanilla" and were meant to get the client to engage, to realize she can see it before it is executed. The kitchen is a lot closer to final design.

Thanks

" I create most of my 3D symbols outside of Chief. " That is what I thought. I called Chief a couple of times last month when they went GPU to understand the PBR ray trace engine as the controls are very simplistic compared to CPU. Tech support told me as much as they could and what they know about the future direction of ray tracing. They told me the RT engine is a different group and he thought they had 3 or 4 people working on it. I asked him to thank them and whomever is moving this ball forward so as to give them encouragement. I suggested they create more 3d objects and enhance the controls and transparency with other existing products. Clearly with the software and hardware you have you are using RT as part of your design and sales. I have a similar back ground of having started as a custom cabinet and furniture shop which became design / build. Our cabinets have always been so detailed that no matter the software I can hand draw faster than I can manipulate the face frames / frameless / boxes to what is wanted... however in about 98 the architect I was using gave me his autocad and what was then ART to play with as he is and was old school. ART renders blew away what I could show clients in Cabinetware and similar programs. Since what I do requires hand draws no matter what I moved to ART and then to Chief. I work in Resolve and Adobe which require more the merrier CPU and GPU cores so have been using CPU RT to enhance design and sales. I have called Chief a number of times over the years to ask that they incorporate GPU. I founded a production company in Argentina which of course pays the bills with commercial photography, commercials etc. I am too lazy to use Photoshop so post in Lightroom. The architects in Argentina I am training on Chief use AutoCad, Sketchup and Lumion to finish. Prior to this upgrade the CPU RTs could not touch what they do. We are simplifying their work flow to be Chief to Lumion. This is a much needed upgrade. Once again "Thanks Chief!" Kevin, great thread!

Kevin, you rocked it. I saw the same thing last night in a set of ray traces. Not as refined as your work. I had wanted to show a client a design change she asked for and did not wish to pound it out on the CPU so PBRed it. I am teaching an architect in Argentina how to use Chief as he is taking the long but beautiful route through Lumion. I am using this house and he has been following along for months. He couldn't believe it was Chief. If they keep going in this direction its a game changer. Definitely cudos to Chief.

Hi Rod, Sorry to hear of your medical down time. I don't post often. I have been a user since ART. If no one steps forward let me know and I will see about taking it on. I am a residential draftsman and have taken over projects in the past at the request of my preferred structural engineer. I am extremely busy but I have been in your shoes. If I were to take it on as mentioned above I have a structural engineer I prefer to use who would be the licensed professional. If Menlo Park for some reason would require an Architect's license due to the scope (I don't know why but the Silicon Valley Cities are what they are) I have a go to as well. Best, Mark Warlick Consultants Los Gatos

And yes, I did create a terrain and did the work using the terrain. I have removed it here for visibility.

Chopsaw, Thank you for responding. Within an hour of posting I found a work around by using the perspective full overview camera and full camera. I was able to pull the corners of the grade beam to the heights I needed and thus get the sloped grade beam. Then over to cross section elevations to corrected the dimensions. Back and forth until I got what I needed. I promptly forgot I had posted a question. I am using X10. Until you asked this question I didn't realize x11 is out. I will download and install it. I first used ART version 4 or 5. It had a blue manual and a usb dongle. It was given to me by my architect who had tried it in the 90s along with Autocad. I tried both and used Chief to create better kitchen bathroom renderings than Cabinetware. This was in 98 or 99, he was in his mid 50s and didn't wish to learn CAD or BIM. About version 7 I gave it back to him and got a license. Fourteen or so years after finding CAD languishing on his shelf I convinced him to renew his license and I helped him lurch into the 20th century for a commercial building project.

Has anyone successfully created a sloped grade beam with piers foundation? This is a somewhat common construction technique on hills in Silicon Valley. Yes, it can be hand drawn. I am looking for a simple way to make Chief see the slope and slope the grade beam. All suggestions are welcome. Thank You