JBradleyConst

OK. Well if it runs at low GPU usage for everyone because that's how the software works then I guess it is what it is. I just wonder why they implemented it that way, Would make for better usability if they just coded it to use as much GPU as the system could give it to render as fast as possible.

No, it's a desktop. So constant power supply and all the power plan settings are set as high as possible. The system shouldn't be throttling itself either for power conservation or for thermal reasons. I'm on X16 Yeah it seems high to me too, however it's chief architect's default value for that setting so I assumed it was a "normal" value not some absurd astronomical figure. I did try setting the value lower at 200 and it's way quicker to complete renderings, but the lighting and reflections are noticeably different.However I feel like it's probably not so much of a difference in quality to make the time saved not worth the compromise. Just ran a test on the same exact view: 2000 max samples = 96.8 seconds 200 max samples = 12.1 seconds However my main concern is still in questions, that the GPU usage while rendering is almost nonexistent, between 5% and 8%. Should this not be higher? Someone suggested that the CA ray tracing might be running through the intel CPU's integrated graphics rather than my dedicated GPU, however I'm fairly sure I disabled that in BIOS when I built the PC, as it doesn't appear in the nvidia control panel as an option and also doesn't appear in windows device manager as a display adapter.

I feel like the rendering speed of the physically based camera is taking longer than it should (or perhaps could?) System specs: i7 12700K @3.6GHz, RTX 3080, 64GB RAM When using physically based rendering, it takes quite some time for it to finish rendering. Samples processed per second when rendering is typically around 20-30 depending on what's in the view. With the default 2000 sample cap it takes like 1.5 minutes for a view to finish rendering. (rendering window = 1127x857) However during that time when it's rendering, my GPU usage is only shown to be around 6% to 8% in task manager. CPU usage is also in the single digits, but I'm thinking that's to be expected since the physically based rendering is GPU based as far as I'm aware. I'm wondering why is the GPU usage so low if the rendering is GPU based? I feel like if it were using more of the the GPU's power, like 80% instead of just 7%, it would complete the renders much faster? Also are there any tweaks that may speed things up, either in CA or perhaps settings in the nvidia control panel?

I'm familiar with the intricacies of drawing & configuring stairs different ways in the software, been using this program since the old days when it required a physical usb hardware key. Hell it must be 20 years now at least. And in all that time this is the first situation I've had where this would have been really useful. I've got a heavily edited & customized set of steps and I need a down version of it in the plan and was just hoping not to have to spend the time doing all the same edits on a new set of steps to do it. Oh well. Not the end of the world I guess.

Is there a way to switch an existing staircase that you've already got in a plan between being an "up" stair and a "down" stair? I thought I had seen a "change up/down" option for stairs at some point in the past, but I'm not sure. I've looked through the right click options and the stairs' dialog box and I'm not seeing anything that does this. Thanks

I need to change the payment method for my license subscriptions, however I'm not seeing an option for that on the chief architect website. Is this something that can only be done by contacting customer support? In fact the website seems to be lacking in pretty much all detail concerning license management, such as showing when your next payments will occur, how much those payments are, etc. These kinds of things should be for the most part mandatory on a website for a subscription based service.

The fact that this issue only occurs when viewing the files in Outlook is leading me to believe it may be a problem with Outlook rather than Chief Architect.

I can confirm that he file extensions are associated with the program. Double clicking the files opens them in CA as it should, and they display with the correct file icons in Windows (as seen in the 2nd image attached to my original post). The icons not being present only occurs within Outlook.

I recently upgraded X10 to X13, and now Chief Architect files (both plans and layouts) no longer display their system icons in MS Outlook (either as attachments or when opening a window to select an attachment). The file icons still display normally when viewing them in windows. Has anyone encountered this or have any ideas on how to make the icons display properly? Or could this be an issue with Outlook rather than with Chief Architect? Any help would be appreciated Thanks

Oh wow, sorry. I thought he was talking about disabling it globally with the GPU's control panel. Yep, that fixed it. Thanks a bunch everyone!

I'm not finding a setting for that anywhere in the ati control panel. Closest I can find is "edge-enhancement" in the video quality settings, but changing that has no effect.

Yes. An HD6870 if I recall correctly. I updated the driver, which was a little old (about a year or so) but it still happens.

Any image I select for the 3D backdrop displays with the wrong colors. Green is purple, blue is yellow/brown, orange is green, etc. I have attached a few images using various backdrops. These are the default backdrop images that come with the program. I added a couple cars so you can see that colors display correctly on rendered objects, it's just the backdrop that is colored incorrectly. Has anyone run into this before? EDIT: full size pics, as attaching them looks to have made them much smaller: http://i.imgur.com/CuBIezP.jpg http://i.imgur.com/7xIHAHB.jpg http://i.imgur.com/VhhkoHE.jpg EDIT 2: this happens on both my office computer and my laptop so it's not isolated to a single computer