HumbleChief

Do you think there's 'real' way to look at anything in Chief? I think Chief's floor structure paradigm is, in general, quite confusing as the posts in this thread attest. And yes the ceiling above and the floor below are the same thing but build a 2 story structure and spec a ceiling structure for floor 1, and a different floor structure for floor 2. The ceiling structure of floor 1 is completely ignored and the framing is based entirely on the floor structure of floor (level) 2. Logical? Maybe. Why is the ceiling structure of floor 1 ignored? I dunno but if you don't learn that simple but obscure method within Chief then you'll waist a lot of time trying to get both structures the same when it's not needed..

I know you are trying to be helpful as always Yusuf but that's hilarious. Chief does not work logically but I think you might have meant to say try and think like the programmers at Chief think. The (logical?) paradigm Chief uses is to set lower floor ceiling heights by setting the floor heights of the room above. If you want to raise those lower floor ceiling heights, do not try and change those ceiling heights, which might seem logical but not the way Chief works, instead go upstairs and raise the floors of the rooms above. The plan will help of course but that might help you a bit.

AND the newly created layers cannot be deleted like they could before the update.

The new update breaks the ALDO's function like Chop's video and your (Michael) experience shows. I can duplicate the bad behavior with the new update.

No...hmmm wonder if that's the problem? I don't use that feature much from the ALDO so it if stops working with the new update no great loss for me. I'll download when I get a chance and test it.

Pretty sure that check box has no effect anymore and 'Modify All Layers' is set by default - I think - as Dermot stated above - "If you create a new layer in one layer set, it should show up in every other layer set, always."

Curious as to why it worked on my computer as the videos above show? Why was i not able to easily reproduce this behavior? Did I miss something?

Hey Chop, I can see the confusion that happens when adding layers to the ALDO but as I remember the ALDO has always worked (badly) this way. I remember copying a layer and there was nothing that showed up in the ALDO but when checking the Layer Display Options dbx, there it was. I stopped using the ALDO to manage/add/delete Layers for this very reason. I think it should behave as you are expecting it to but it simply does not. I always use the Layer Option dbx to add and manage all my layers because the ALDO was not (for some strange reason) designed to do so efficiently. BTW, I remember X8 not even showing the new layer in the ALDO, especially if copying a layer. One would have to go to the Layer Management dbx to see any new Layer. Very confusing then and confusing now. EDIT: I wonder if something changed over the versions of X8 because it seems to work OK now. Oh well, now I'm confused EDIT AGAIN: Just tried the technique you show and it works as Dermot suggests it should. I bet you have a setting that needs changing?

Jerry try turning all your layers on and see if the lines show. If they do you can then turn on just that layer for your plan view..

I think this is actually one of the great illusions and conundrums regarding Chief today. Of course you need as much CPU etc. that you can afford but the new video cards are little to no better than last generation's cards as far as 3D rendering is concerned. I bought a brand new GTX1080 but wouldn't buy it tomorrow as there was little to no discernable difference between that and my older 780. Waste of money? Probably not but goes counter to what one expects with newer technology. As for getting as much CPU as you can afford again it's not that simple. Some perform better at different tasks in Chief. Do you want to RayTrace? You might need more cores. Do you just want fast performance in everyday tasks? That's might be a combination of cores, Ghz speed, disk and memory performance. Again just not as simple as buying the fastest, best, or whatever adjective you choose. Chief is a complicated beast and behaves in mysterious ways and it doesn't always respond in a logical fashion to better faster, more cores in a CPU or GPU.

Not sure about too much of the technicals but in general the dual setup is great for some tasks like Chief's CPU dependent RayTracing but really not that fast for every day Chief tasks. When I first set it up maximizing RT's was the goal 6 - 8 years ago and it shines in that department but it's complex (2 of everything) power hungry and just plain outdated by today's standards. Don't get me wrong it is VERY serviceable but I really need the fastest stuff out there for larger models and will upgrade as soon as the high end desktop market shows itself a little clearer.

Thanks Perry. I should check and purge my CAD blocks some day, good suggestion.

Interesting and I tend to agree with your premise and even though those number don't seem correct as the both faster i7960 and i7970 show 1388 and 1391 respectively (couldn't find the 920 or the 5690) on this chart, I don't think the numbers invalidate your point regarding singe threaded operations. Here's another tidbit - Chief recommends more cores the better - why? Doesn't negate your theory, which again I think has merit, suggest that faster single threaded chips might be best? Or of course as suggested the fastest chip with the most cores, in that order of preference? https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html BTW I am now running X5690's and they absolutely rip through RayTraces which should be expected. Too bad I don't RT much anymore.

Sounds great Lance. Curious about what drive you chose. Standard SSD or one of the newer m.2's?

Yes Graham, your analysis is correct and of course a new 7700K would be today's best choice but it still doesn't answer the question posed in the OP. I have an older i7 and the dual Xeons and they BOTH perform the same in certain operations. The CPU core speed and the number of cores has no effect. This is demonstrable and I just find that weird. There's something else going on behind the scenes where CPU speed has no effect.and I still wonder why. Is it simply a disk writing operation that can't be bypassed no matter how fast the processor? I am actually very happy with my system still but am curious about how Chief behaves and why out of simple curiosity.

Red slot - is that good or bad? And if it's good how is it good and what operation(s) would it effect? Do you have a good guess? Or where might we find out how things are effected and by what?

...and why doesn't Chief at least throw us bone? Disk operations affect this; CPU operations affect this: GPU operations affect this. If you want faster 'this' then do 'this'. There is obviously a LOT more going on than just CPU for RayTracing and GPU for 3D Rendering as is the common wisdom here.

Same exact setting(s) here.

BUT then you'd only have a limited number of undo's -correct? Us boneheads need our undo's but I'll try with fewer.

This is so confusing for anyone interested in getting good performance from their computer and it's a complete mystery with absolutely no help, hints or advice from the good people at Chief. I posted a plan that takes 5 seconds for any 3D move of the roof planes with my dual Xeon system. Not the fastest but pretty good. I also have an older i7 920, one of the original i7's and the operation is EXACTLY the same on that older, slower computer. I am foolish enough to think that a faster CPU and GPU processor might speed up the operation but both hardware items seem to have virtually no effect on the 3D redraw speed. Instead there are magical settings one must locate, set, reset, experiment, test, retest and MAYBE those setting will speed the operation but throwing more hardware speed at the problem will not. Sorry for the rant but this just seems a bit crazy. Is it just plain dumb to think that more CPU GPU power will speed Chief up? Why doesn't it? Where's the bottle neck? Is there any way to know without investing thousands only to find that the new system did nothing to boost performance? How do we boost performance Chief? Is there simply a wall that Chief hits and once there - too bad too sad - deal with the slowness? Hopefully some of the recent threads can serve as a notice to those who are looking to speed up their systems. First try and identify why the machine is slowing down - not easy but worth the effort. Second try and determine if a faster machine will help - even harder without investing in the faster hardware. So just beware about the false notion that more CPU power will equate to faster Chief performance. Sometimes it might, other times it definitely will not. https://www.dropbox.com/s/gx11twxukxd5zov/NICK CHEN PROPOSED 18.plan?dl=0

Same here

Did not work out Perry. You were correct, the older tech just really can't keep up no matter the muscle installed. System is still really quick and might be a bit 'snappier' feeling but nothing dramatic.

Installed new Xeons and noticed no real change. Did some bonehead benchmarks and no change in the numbers or perceived speed. OC'd to 3.9 Ghz and it ran too hot (100C during RayTracing). Back to stock settings and am done upgrading this hardware. Hope that helps someone in the future.

I have a suspicion that is true but no hard (drive?) data to back it up.

Yeah, couldn't agree more Perry and have explained my, I think, unique situation in a few threads. It will cost me around $2000 or perhaps closer to $4000 if I buy retail to upgrade to a newer system that will get me just a little bit better performance as my system is still pretty fast. Not smokin' fast any more but adequate. So I have instead chosen to invest $300 to see if this machine will last another 2 - 4 years. Could very well be a fools errand as you are suggesting but I am willing to find out. I'll post any results as objectively as I can.