HumbleChief

Looking at that chart $300 will get a GTX780 or a GTX970, both plenty fast for Chief. And I don't believe that Chief utilizes SLI either so dual cards won't benefit you either. There's a temptation, when the budget allows, to get more, bigger and faster no matter how the software application uses that technology. How the software uses that technology is the key. Perhaps there's a Chief model large enough that requires (4) GTX Titan X's run in dual SLI but I don't think the money spent would be justified, in Chief. On the other hand merely possessing the biggest and fastest of anything can be, in and of itself, quite a noble (albeit pricey) goal.

The single most important consideration with any hardware purchase is to know your software. According to the Chief tech guys Chief will utilize a gaming card better than a CAD card like the Quadro4000 - save your money - and remember 'rendering' is a term Chief uses for its 3D views which can be rotated etc. That function will utilize the video card. Also remember what Doug just posted "My read on the Titan vs the 980 is why spend all the extra money for marginally better performance." Ray Tracing which in Chief terms will take the 'rendered' view and trace the light rays if you will, uses 100% CPU so the world's fastest video card won't help with Ray Tracing. The world's fastest video card won't help 'rendering' in Chief beyond a certain point either so get a really good video card and spend your savings elsewhere.

VERY helpful Doug, Thanks for clarifying.

Maybe you don't have to. http://www.screencast.com/t/HMonPy6aEE

Thanks Graham, Didn't know they had a dual CPU bench mark chart

Sure does IMHO.

I have a 780 and I see no appreciable slow downs with any rendering movement full shadows etc. I'm not sure I would spend much extra for the extra muscle that's designed to run the world's fastest games. Chief is pretty demanding but there's that diminishing returns thing again.

Now this would be a great question for the tech guys at CA, and probably one that's very difficult to answer. "With almost identical throughput (10,472 - 2630 8 core and 10,047 - 2620 6 core) what effect, how much of a speed increase, will the additional cores of the 2630 have on CA Ray Tracing speed?" I would really like to know.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

It's not like haven't taken any stance. CA has clearly stated that gaming cards tend to work better than CAD cards for rendering. More/faster cores are better for RT's. But within those stances are subtleties that have to be recognized or you'll spend a lot of money for very little or no performance gain. I told my guy I wanted RT power and told him what that meant for my software - all CPU, all the time. He chose a fast set of processors to serve that purpose. If someone wants to do fast RT'ing it will still require all CPU all the time and faster more cores is better according to CA.

Yeah I see that. Wonder what he ends up doing?

Couldn't agree more. It is indeed a complete pain.

Nice of you to help out. I think I'm seeing that he already has the plan sent to Layout and needs to print portions of that to 8.5 x 11. My suggestion won't work in that case but still might be easy to resend to a few new 8.5 x 11 sheets? We'll see.

Curious - is there a reason that the suggestion I posted will not work? Genuinely curious.

This should work fine. Just set up a Layout sheet at 8.5 x 11 and send the entire plan to Layout then crop the Layout window to match the sheet. http://www.screencast.com/t/iKqq3EEN

Not all Xeons perform better than i7's and I don't think Doug intended to imply such a thing. Check the passmark chart linked above. Those relative performances are probably a good indication of the Ray Trace performance you can expect. There are other factors of course. I was told that dual Xeons have a strange capacity to perform more than twice as fast as a single processor because of their internal architecture but that's a bit beyond my pay grade. Again I think if you stuck with that chart and bought as much throughput as you can afford you'd be good for Ray Tracing. Also remember Xeons can suck the power. I have 2 energy efficient processors that were chosen for that purpose as well.

I have a MB that uses dual Xeons. The processors are not that fast but the EVGA MB allows overclocking of the Xeons to max the throughput. The person who built this computer (I usually do all my own) measured the throughput (in gigaflops) of the 2 overclocked Xeons versus the fastest i7 that was available at the time and the 2 Xeons were better performers. They were NOT better without the slight OC. I went with this set up to quicken my RT times and it's about twice as fast as my older i7 OC'd to about 3.4 hz. Now no doubt the newer i7's would be faster than my current dual Xeon setup. All this is to get to the point that if you use Xeons, find a way to measure throughput versus the newer i7s. Without that info you may not improve your RT performance and spend a LOT of money doing so..

Welcome to the club. I downloaded your plan and it looks pretty good to me. What specific problem are you (do you think you are) having? And why do you want the model correct? For a 3D presentation? For an accurate section with all framing its proper location? Other? I'm asking because it looks like you are pretty much there for your 3D presentation. Sections and framing are another matter that may require more manual work or a manually drawn section to CAD.

Yes

I liked "Red Científica Peruana"

Re-draw the wall. Post the plan.

Not much help with the rotate key but acronyms can make me crazy sometimes. What's an rcp? And because it's an rcp does that make needing the 90 degrees hot key more necessary? http://www.abbreviations.com/rcp

Looks like Chief might be building that second floor wall as an attic wall using the material from the wall below. Can you select the second floor wall and change its material? And sometimes just redrawing walls will fix stuff too.

There's nothing wrong with the approach you're taking. You can use floor 0 for the garage as you clearly illustrate, or you can use floor 1, not important. Sometimes floor 1 will give you some more options than floor 0 and if the garage is on floor 1 then you can add a foundation on floor 0. If the garage is already on floor 0 then where does the foundation for the garage go? - if you need one? Another thing to consider is which floor plans you want to show on the same level. If you want to see the garage and another floor on the same level in floor plan (for whatever reason) then obviously the two areas have to be on the same floor level.

Like both the tip and the suggestion it go to the tips forum.