VisualDandD

It is a carpet (oriental rug) in the middle of room and I have an office chair with poly wheels that can roll from the hardwoods over the carpet if I push my chair back far enough. No static here. Humidity tightly controlled in the house and we are in AC mode now so humidity never would get that low. Remember, running on board vid, it wont crash so everything about the PC is the same. I just unplug the cables out of the vid card and plug in mother board. No crashes. Switched and reset vid card...crashes. Running 3060 in same slot, same power (except it only uses on feed) and no crashes. Totally a vibration thing. Closing a drawer 6 feet away from the PC on a cabinet which sits on the floor. (my wife is not gentile ). Walking across the room or even seen it go out on me when I walked back into the room, blanking out perfectly in sync when my foot went down.

So this will sound funny how I figured this out. I am running my new PC next to my old one in the process of migrating them. I had to run my network cable over the floor. I started to make a connection with the crashing happening when I rolled over the network cable. Ok...only issue was it was plugged into the OTHER computer. So I unhooked it and moved it out of the way. Then I noticed it happened one time when I went to move my seat. So I started the PC and put my hand on the chair and rolled it. I then pressed down on the chair so there was some weight on the wheels. As soon as one of the wheels dropped off the thin rug, BOOM, PC went dead. Then for about a week, I saw everything from when my wife came in my office and the PC crashing perfectly in time with her step. Once when she closed one of my desk drawers next to the printer. But the weird thing was I could bang on the box and not get it to crash. Something about the perfect vibration. So anyway, after swapping slots, and then running w/ onboard, I came to the conclusion it has to be vid card itself. Still no crashes on the 3060. Had chief running 100% of time on an open window. But will be fully working in chief all day tomorrow and will see. I will make sure I go on and off my rug a bunch and try to make as many vibrations as I can

OK...back from food run Driver version 30.0.15.1259 4/20/2022 The 3060 card is plugged in now and I did not have to make any adjustments. I have been leaving chief open in the background, and PC has not crashed. I did have some sleep issues such as you mention. I am using whatever cables I had. Never thought to change them. But ZERO crashing with on board video. (but I cant run chief with the on board) So I am going to continue to run this 3060 and see if I can get it to crash. Again, it was 100% triggered by small vibrations. I know that to be a fact. But sometimes I could bang on the case and nothing. Other times, my wife walking into my office would do it. If I run all day tomorrow running chief and no crashes, then I know it is the card itself.

Just saw this. Gotta run out and pick up some food for the family, but will respond back with some more detail. If I can help out in any way I will! J

Crashing totally triggered by small vibrations. See it most when my wheel of my chair moves over my rug. Started to notice the pattern. Then got it to repeat the behavior many times. So far on 3060 no crashing, but only a few hours running. New build. i9 12900k 1tb GIGABYTE AORUS (PCIe Gen4) NVMe M.2 SSD - Seq R/W: Up to 5000/4400 MB/s, 3TB (3TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 5400RPM HDD (Single Drive) 32GB (16GBx2) DDR5/5200MHz Dual Channel Memory (GIGABYTE AORUS) ASUS PRIME Z690-P WIFI ATX DDR5, Wi-Fi 6, 2.5GbE LAN, 4 PCIE X16, 1PCIE X1, 3X M.2 SATA/PCIE EVGA GeForce RTX™ 3080 Ti 12GB GDDR6X (Ampere) LIAN LI PC-O11 Dynamic ATX Mid-Tower Dual chamber Gaming Case

So I just got a new computer. I spec'd a 3080ti which I was very happy with the performance. Everything was great, except I was having some random crashing issues. I realized it was small vibrations that were the connection of triggering this lock ups. I also set up my stream deck so I could tell if the PC was still working and only the display crashing. EG, I could launch youtube vid and play them and hear the sound. Or launch music. So I confirmed that the PC did in fact still work in the background even though the display went out. I then experimented with just running my on board vid. Not enough graphics to run CHIEF but enough for normal computing. The PC would not crash when running on board. So next step, was I unseated the card and re-installed. Still crashed So next step was to move card to new slot (to rule out mother boad) Still crashed. SO....now I am taking a spare 3060 that I just bought to put in a driving sim rig I have. I just swapped the the 3060. I can see the difference in speed running chief. I am going to do a few benchmarks when I get the chance and then compare with the same exact files and views with the 3080ti. I have very large model where I converted gis top into terrain of an entire lake inlet and converted house to a symbol with terrain and integrated them. Should be a great one to run the test on. I am going to RMA the card so although this is never a test I would run on purpose, I now have the chance to do this so I thought it might be helpful to others. Just installed the 3060 today. So this will take a few weeks I am guessing before I get my replacement 3080ti. So here is a vid of that complex model and time to generate a 3d overview with the 3060. It took 16 seconds

Sold. Yea, been sitting in my office for a while being unused. The post reminded me to do something with it. (my wife will be happy as I seem to accumulate and never sell anything). Been having that issue with cars lately also. Anybody want to buy a car? I am glad as it gone as it will totally take away any temptation to do ANY remodels. FWIW, if any one does them, these are worth their weight in GOLD. I would not hesitate to recommend the product to anyone. Easy and it works. All the time. Never do you find that place where you think....boy I wish I had this picture, or I wish I measured this...etc. No skin in the game now, but for as builts this is really the only tool I would consider if I did it on a regular basis. Just the time savings alone makes it well worth it.

I am posting images of camera here because I could not get them PM and a couple guys reach out to me about the camera. MC250Pro2. I literally used it 4 times. Found a soft side bag that fit it perfectly (rather than the big hard shell cases) Read, very easy to carry Good tripod. https://www.manfrotto.com/us-en/290-xtra-three-section-aluminum-tripod-mt290xta3us/

I have my matterport still. Only used on a few projects. Remodels are just not worth my time. If anyone is interested, I will make someone a great deal. I have the 'pro' w/ a bunch of accessories, tripod, bag.etc. If you do remodels, this is worth its weight in gold.

@Renerabbitt Super nice stuff. Your stuff looks impressive for sure. I like seeing your stuff. I was watching your template you were selling and find your approach very interesting. But our approaches to the software are so very different. Interesting to see the way we approach things. It might be interesting to see the way guys in a vacuum have all developed their stuff. I use a lot of line custom walls that are color and line by layer and those layer sets change in different annotation sets. I never got much into playing with saved plan views, but might explore at some point. But just cool to see your approach. Nice work!

Thanks. My stuff is not rendering either, but the vid card does so much within chief. I use a lot of vector view to do my exterior edits and that can really bog down system at times on large complex plans. I just picked up a 3060 card to throw in my old box because I am going to turn it into our sim box to run our car sim. Currently we steal my sons PC for it with his 3070, We run 3 1440p monitors at 144hz and the 3060 will actually drive them well of the software we run. (mainly asseto corsa) So upgrading my work pc will have some benefits that I can run the car sim as we approach track days for practice now without waiting for my son to get off. So there is double benefit to getting new pc! This is my Son prepping for VIR. He just turned 15, but got to run the full course (in real life) twice as a 14 year old. Not many kids can say that!

I did play with it a little. It might be something I use. Still have not spent a ton of time in 14 as I am still working on getting my defaults the way I want them. Also got rid my Logitech g13 pad and added a stream deck XL for all my chief functions. My son bult me a 60& keyboard and I got a separate hot swap num pad so I could really configure my work area the way I want. My son is into gaming, so he had me try out all these different types of switches...etc. It was fun for both of us. I will dig deeper into X14 when I start working in it full time. Appreciate the comments and insight for sure. @HumbleChiefAs for the 3070, my son has one in his box. I borrowed it a few times to explore some of the RTX features. In TM the 3070 does full ray trace really well. When I fired it up with the 3080 Ti, it was next level. Like amazing. If I could give any advice, the 3080Ti is well worth the leap if you can justify it. I kept my last box for over 6 years. Looking at the cost difference over time I will probably keep this new one, it was a no-brainer. I could not however justify the 3090 as it really is not that much faster.

Few more... Obviously you can see the ariel imagery in a mesh over terrain. If I wanted to really make it look good, I could populate with vegetation, but it serves it's intended purpose.

Mick right? I remember you for sure. Very talented and creative. Kinda went away from forum for a while. Just in the grind and stayed super busy. I spend too much time on car forums and workout ones, but I have always appreciated the talent on here for sure. I do things in weird ways I guess. But self taught everything and 25+ years in construction. Got my start swinging a hammer many years ago, and been involved in all ends of construction. Love design and found my way back here about 12 years ago. Simple life and much more enjoyable. Anyway, this is a project I am working on right now. And how I use renderings. Modern Med. Client has 500k lake lot and worried about views. I overlay GIS date of lake and inlet, mix with site topo and integrate models. Mostly line stuff, but every once in a while I throw some textures on things, but dont want to distract them too much. TM works great for me, and these took me less than 5 min to set up and processed in less than a minute.

I went a few years without staying updated w/ software even though I kept up my SSA. I finally decided to get caught up and figured that a new PC would be in order. (especially to use chief new rendering features, but I needed to do it regardless. Been using Chief since 1997. I remember back to the old Pov-Ray ray trace generators and it goes withou saying that I have seen the evolution of the program. I know a lot of people ask how something performs, so I figure I would post my specs and give feedback. Build. i9 12900k 32gb ddr5 5200mhz RTX3080Ti. (I was waiting for the 3090 cards to come out but they just dont seem worth extra $$ over the 3080Ti so I went with cheap(er) version. 1tb PCIe 5000/4000 MB/s 3tb data drive 6Gb/s So X14 runs very well. The real time ray tracing works as well as one could hope with very little delay in rendering in the image. That said, I am still not going to use it. I noticed pretty quickly that it's quality is not what I would want. Some things are really nice, but way too much garbage and trash elements of it that ruin it for me. Shame as it might be nice to have it integrated but pretty much my reservations were confirmed. Doing things 90% well...sucks frankly. But I have been using TM for a while and Lumion going back to Lum 6. Switched to TM few years back and have not looked back. With the RTX card, it SMOKEs and cranking out images is very easy. I will heat my office up quite nicely in the process but that goes along with it. I dont make a living rendering, but I like the option to do it. I generally dont do 'photo realistic' as I dont think it suits my need for rendering. I do more stylistic to show design themes. So I feel great about the ability of the above spec to run Chief. But disappointed in the built in rendering. I am not surprised and always felt that chief should invest time in making a more functional program for the actual design professionals and const doc/ utility. Have to give props as there are some nice additions, productivity wise, to the software that I appreciate for sure. Dont see myself using their rendering engine. The old jack of all trades, master of none analogy. But overall happy and just about make the full switch over to 14 on next project. Just been migrating my templates and 'annotation sets' (I know they are not called that any more ;). But some nice stuff that will be beneficial for sure.

Thank you! Studio it is! Dread the work of switching everything over, but have to bite the bullet at some point! Excited to check out new version. (despite current SSA) I have not updated since x11

Just upgraded PC. New card w/ 3080ti. Have not even got all software over to the box but the Nvidia driver experience has a option for "game" drivers, or "studio" drivers saying the latter function better with people doing creative work. Any feedback on difference or which one might run better?

Video in unavailable. Would love to see. I know you are super creative and love to see what others do!

So I have been using chief for many years (going back to 98). I have always looked to improve my work flow. I was a very early adopter of 3d mouse. Been using a modified gaming keypad with multiple modes for hotkey macros...etc. I have not done anything different for years. Although I have kept a current SSA, I have not even installed 12,13. Well 12 is installed, but I never even bothered to work in it. I finally am making the upgrade on my pc, so I figured it would be a good time to take a look at improving my workflow as well. My PC is still a week or so from delivery, but specs are: i9 12900k 32gb ddr5 5200mhz PCIe 1tb 5000/4400 3td data drive. (plus I probably have 3 or 4 1tb satas I can throw in. (got a box w/ rear hot swap bays) Only place I cheaped out was vid card. I went with RTX3080Ti. I was waiting for 3090's to come out and numbers were not worth the extra 1000 over the 3080Ti. So I started looking at my input. My son like to game and he builds keyboards. So I had him build me a keyboard (which I picked all the switches I like for feel) You will see I ditched the 10 key. It now sits on my streamdeck XL which is the most POWERFUL upgrade I can imagine beyond the 3d mouse. Just limitless potential. Pretty much unlimited hot keys/ macros and amazing set up abilities. I went with a G9 49" and using Fancy Zones to configure. I have my chief center weighted. Running my Dell UHD in portrail mode (also configured as two monitors when I want w/ fancy zones). All fancy zone shortcuts are programmed into stream deck. I can launch and set to specific areas with a single key press. Really just scratching the surface. My G13 keypad is still on my desk. Need to wait till I set up X13/14 and get all my hotkeys finalized before I retire it. I have the streamdeck all set up to enter feet inch and full calc functions. This has been a lot of fun. Today was my first day working like this. Still waiting to finalize, (new office furniture and desk coming to better work with my new setup and PC. But this is unbelievably productive.

So lots of ways to do it. I have done a bunch of modern homes where the builder still wants to keep conventional roofing. By code we can do that here with 2:12 and double underlayment. For those projects we have used I joist or roof trusses. Roof trusses work best as HVAC runs are easy. Spray foam is pretty much a must. If going high budget, you can just make roofs flat w/ floor truss/ i joist and then install commercial built up roofs. Rally depends on slopes, and overall spans. Also if window headers go right under soffit makes a big structural difference. So very design dependent. I try to 'cheat' that look a lot while still staying in 100% conventional construction.

Never thought of the curved cursor! Been drawing for last 7-8 on my dell 2560x1440 which was bleeding edge back in the day. That was what I was going to make my secondary to the curved but put in portrait mode. I will see how the curved works. Worst case, my son ends up with it (which would make him overjoyed!) But you definitely brought up a good point! Thanks.

Just wanted to say SUPER excited to check it out. I have always kept current SSA and never even installed 13. I was motivated enough that I celebrated with new pc today. i9-12900K 32gb DDR5/5200mhz mem 1tb PCIe 5000/4400mb/s 3tb data drive RTX 3080ti New G9 Odessy 49" curved monitor (and will run my Dell 29" QHD in portrait mode off to the side of the big curved one. (currently run 3 monitors. 2-24 and 1-29) Been so busy last few years never even kept up with new stuff. Figure it is time and PERFECT timing of what looks like a great productivity update! Never worried about Chief rendering since I use Twinmotion and used Lumion in the past till I went back to TM w/ new version. Needless to say excited to check it out.

Ha! I am still working in 11 even though I have maintained current SSA. Been so busy never even went to other versions. Although I did put 12 on my computer. Never even used it

Logitech G600 mouse (lots of programmable buttons Logitech G13 game pad programmable . Full 10 key with feet and inch marks and tons of programmed hot keys. (almost never have to use drop down menus) 3Dconnection 3d mouse. I keep it simple ;). Amazing how eliminating clicks can speed up productivity. I draw twice the amount of work I did a few years ago in same time. Each extra click is a waste

@Kbird1 I am hoping your computer knowledge may help out. So I have fallen down the ray trace and now VR rabbit hole this weekend. I have hooked up my oculus quest to the Twinmotion. I notice that it will export the VR with ray trace selected. BUT the vid card is not fast enough to do the ray tracing. I am using my sons 3070 gaming pc. So I was looking at having a box built, and was going to spec a 3080Ti, but for $500 more, I can get the 3090. Do you think it is worth it. I am wondering if the 3090 will even be able to render fast enough to use the ray trace in VR. If not, the only thing the faster card is really doing is slowing my rendering times (which can all be qued anyway and run over night). So not really needing anything faster than 3070 to be productive. Any thoughts? Might have to wait for the 4000 series cars which are rumored to be 3x faster than 3090, but wont drop till end of 2022 at earliest... Thanks for all the help by the way!