TheKitchenAbode

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Posts posted by TheKitchenAbode

  1. 13 hours ago, Renerabbitt said:

    You're the man!!
    It was the 2 linen closets like you mentioned..THANK YOU!!!!

     

    You are very welcome Rene.

     

    Fortunately your plan was not overly complicated so it was not too time consuming to narrow it down.

     

    Cheers,

    Graham

  2. Rene - Runs fine on my Spectra 360, just kidding. Yes it does run slow. Did a quick look and it's somewhere in the interior finishing elements, furniture, cabinets, etc. If I turn those display layers off it runs fine. Might be a model or a very high resolution texture. Will keep exploring if time permits.

  3. Just now, stevenyhof said:

    ok, google is now backing up. I am shutting down Code42 - Thank you for your help!

     

    Great.

     

    The other program was that Audio one. Looks like you have a program called Loom running. I'd turn it off if you don't really need it as it was using almost 7% of your CPU.

  4. 3 minutes ago, stevenyhof said:

    I do you google drive, so I could just connect that

     

    That will do, just make sure there's enough space. Most of these services only provide about 5GB free and if you need more they have paid subscriptions.

     

    I think if you could clean-up your existing system from those resource hogs you will definitely give it some more air to breath. Hey, I ran your plan on my Spectra, it's CPU is about the same as yours and I only have an integrated graphics chip and 8GB or Ram. It was not a problem and I still had my browser, email and excel running at the same time.

    • Like 1
  5. Just now, stevenyhof said:

    Very good. But I also want things backed up online.

     

    That's done from within OneDrive. Just assign the CA Auto Archive folder to OneDrive and it will back it up to the cloud every time it sees a change. OneDrive is very efficient so it's unlikely you will notice a difference. Other users use Google Drive, DropBox and iCloud.

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  6. 2 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

    CA has that type of backup built in. You can specify how often it backs up in the Preference settings. It all takes place in the background, you won't even know it's happening. If you set it to backup say every 10 minutes then you have a set of files that are each 10 minutes apart.

     

    I should have said Auto Archive and it can be set to Archive once an hour. Sorry, got mixed up with Auto Save.

  7. 1 minute ago, stevenyhof said:

    I will look into one drive. Once thing Code 42 does is backup every day - meaning, I can go back to specific days and find a file that was completed to a point on that day. It does not overwrite files, but keeps making new backups each day of files that change. This is also an old service, so maybe OneDrive offers such features.

     

    CA has that type of backup built in. You can specify how often it backs up in the Preference settings. It all takes place in the background, you won't even know it's happening. If you set it to backup say every 10 minutes then you have a set of files that are each 10 minutes apart.

  8. Just now, stevenyhof said:

    I don't even know what the Windows Host Audio is. I can turn off my backup for a time, but that has saved me many times. I think over 11 years, there is just stuff on here running that could just go away with a new computer. Start fresh. Thank you for your help, Graham! 

     

    There are many other backup programs that don't use anywhere near that amount of resources. Why don't you consider using Windows OneDrive for file back-up and just let Windows Defender take care of virus control. A new system will help but if you still have those kinds of programs operating in the background you will be depriving yourself of the new systems potential performance.

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  9. 2 minutes ago, stevenyhof said:

    Here is the list - jumping all over the place - right now CPU is at 51%

     

     

    What's not good there is that Code24 and the Windows Host Audio thing is eating up about 50% of your processor. Under static conditions my CPU only runs around 4%. Do you really need those programs running all the time.

  10. 1 minute ago, stevenyhof said:

    The main thing I see is my backup software, which runs less during the day, but seems to be hogging up resources. I will look into that and see if I can make some changes.

     

     

    If you look at the very top of the chart you will see that your memory usage is 62%, so you still have some free memory. However, not certain what you are running but your CPU is at 87% utilization, it's really working away on something. Your GPU is at 7% so it's not really doing anything. If you click on the main column heading say for the CPU it will reorganize the list to show the higher utilizing programs first.

  11. Just now, stevenyhof said:

    Thank you - I will look into this. I thought my build was about 2 to 3 years old, but now that I think about it, it maybe be like 5 or 6. But, if it is older, maybe best just to get a new computer as I would be up the creek if something happened. I have like 9 jobs I'm juggling now.

     

    When I checked out your CPU model on the Intel site it stated that it was launched in 2011. I think you've gotten your money's worth and it's time to consider an upgrade. This would benefit all of your other programs and allow you to work much smoother in significantly more complex plans than the one you provided. You can test to see how slow things can get if you download one of CA's larger sample plans, Grandview is a good one. Open up a 3D camera, turn on all lights, bloom, reflections and shadows. Make a change to the roof and see how long it takes. Switch the camera from standard to PBR and see how slow it gets.

  12. 7 minutes ago, stevenyhof said:

    I think upgrading to 16GB is going to be the first move I make. Even ADT runs a little slow at times when I have other things open and being worked on. 

     

    You can easily check to see if low ram is the issue. Close all of your other programs including your browser and email so CA is only running. Open up task manger and select the Performance tab, this will show the usage of memory and how much is free. In your plan make some changes and see if your memory is exceeded and see whether the lag still persists. If you still have free memory and the lag is still there then you need to look somewhere else. While you are doing this you can also start opening up your other normal programs and watch to see how your memory consumption changes. Personally I think the main issue is your CPU, it's about 9 years old and a lot has changed over the years.

  13. I had this problem in the past. For some unknown reason some of the file paths under Preferences, General, Folders were not pointing to the correct X12 folder, some were still pointing to my previous X11 folders, make certain to select Show all Program Paths just to make sure. I just changed the folder name and all was good. I can only think that when I upgraded from X11 to X12 that I did not properly migrate things over, likely too excited to try out the new version.

     

    Another thing to watch for, after the catalog is downloaded from your browser there will be displayed at the bottom of your screen an option to open the file. When you select this it will automatically run the catalog installation file, for it to know to install this in X12, X12 must be known in the file associations, I've encountered this were the file association did not have my latest version of CA assigned. You can set file associations in windows settings. The alternative is to go to your download folder, find the downloaded file, right click and choose open with, select X12 and all should be good.

  14. I loaded your plan onto my HP Spectra which has an I5 7200U CPU and integrated graphics chip. I get a bit of lag when making changes in a standard graphics view, maybe 3 seconds if I drag a roof plane, but not long enough for the model rebuild pop-up to show. Even so this seems a bit long given the size/complexity of your plan.

     

    In order to fully check if there is something in the plan that might be causing this you will need to do a full plan back-up and post it versus just your standard plan file.

     

    This type of slowness can be caused by things such as very high resolution textures and high face count models. Your 3D camera settings will also impact on how hard your system has to work, lights, shadows, bloom, reflection and sun follows camera require more processing time.

     

    I did notice in the list of materials that there were some that are identified as SKP, I could not find the model to check it out. Just be careful when downloading SKP models or other 3D models from other sites. There are times when these may have extreme face counts or they may use very high resolution textures which can contribute to slowness.

     

    If your system is the I5 2400 in your signature you should consider an upgrade if you intend to work on complex plans, 8GB of ram is really bare minimum, 16GB would be much better, especially if you are multitasking with other programs while working in CA. Keep in mind that Windows will eat about 4GB of this which means you only have about 4GB left for all your other programs. Not sure about your hard drive, if it is not an MNVe type you should likely upgrade to one. Not really concerned about your GTX 1060 as in your current system it can easily handle anything that your CPU can throw at it, would only have some concern if your 2 monitors are 4K resolution.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  15. I would suggest you focus on the GPU first. Your Ryzen 3700x is a competent CPU. A 2060 super is not likely going to provide a significant improvement, might need to go for a NVidia RTX 2070 super of higher. However, keep in mind that PBR'ing is not just a GPU operation, your CPU will always be involved. The degree of this involvement depends on what you are doing when working within a PBR camera view. Zooming, rotating and panning are more reliant on the GPU to generate a sufficient frame rate so these movements appear as smooth as possible. When you make physical changes/alterations to your model then there are a lot of CPU operations that need to be done before your GPU takes over. It's a challenging balancing act if you are trying to find the performance/benefit/cost sweet spot.

     

    One advantage of trying out the GPU first is that you can always return it if you are not satisfied with it. Upgrading a CPU is far more complex of a procedure as you may have to upgrade your mother board.

  16. 9 hours ago, TomBiggs said:

    Maybe running on a Mac the program works better.  I picked up on this from another Mac user, who seemed to have a more fluid time dong things that were lagging on my rig.

     

    Your observation is valid. These differences are most likely due to how each operating system handles certain functions. Typically, when a software program such as CA is written the coders do not have to write every function/operation in it's entirety. Each operating system has it's own built-in routines and the software coder only needs to provide that routine with the required parameters, the operating system then takes over and executes the operation. For example, in Windows how an individual window is displayed, moved and controlled is handled primarily by Desktop Window Manager, not CA. MAC's have the same type of routines but their OS routines will be coded differently and may at times be more efficient, MAC's have always been known for their smoothness and fluidity, the same goes for their track pads and gestures.

  17. 1 minute ago, Renerabbitt said:

    Graham always appreciate the debate, just offering a different perspective.

     

    Hi Rene, the feeling is mutual.

     

    My comments are directed primarily towards the average CA user. Your workflow is highly involved and definitely places an extreme demand on your hardware components. Your approach to squeezing out every bit of performance makes sense. You also use in your workflow other highly demanding software packages which place special demands on system resources and must also be taken into account. Your CA plans often include very complex custom symbols and very high resolution textures which as we know will really stress out CA compared to just using CA's standard library catalog symbols and textures. Special circumstance demand special treatment.

     

    Cheers

     

     

  18. 3 hours ago, Thad58 said:

    Anyone see a problem with this one?

     

    Technically speaking No.

     

    However, you are now looking at a system that is almost double the price, is this within your clients budget? Much of the discussion in this forum concerning hardware revolves around the issue as to how much benefit does CA derive when one configures a system using the highest end components over one that is configured using more mid level components. For example, that RTX 2080 super is a fantastic graphics card, but can CA take advantage of it's full potential. Personally, unless a user's workflow involves extensive use of CA's PBR(Physical Based Rendering) then there is likely little to gain over say an RTX 2070 which is considerable less costly. Do you really need that level of storage capability. CA's files are not very large, complex plan files are rarely more than 80 - 100MB, if you where to generate 1 plan a day for an entire year that would equate to about 40GB of storage. Get the fastest 512GB or 1TB MVNe drive as your primary boot and then if necessary use a less expensive SSD for archiving. System backing up should not really be done on the same system, use a cloud based service or a separate remote storage device.

     

    4K displays are beautiful but it really is overkill on a 17" display. You will likely need to use scaling so menu's and icons are not too small, somewhat defeats the 4K resolution. Also generating 4K graphics is more demanding on the graphics card than say a 2K resolution display. 4K really only starts to shine on much larger sized monitors.

     

    Concerning dedicated video card memory. The only time CA uses significant amounts of this type of memory is when PBR'ing, all other window/camera view types consume relatively low dedicated graphics memory. Unused memory here is of no benefit so consider carefully as to whether there is a justifiable need to have more than 6GB.

     

    Getting the optimum CPU is a bit more complex as the right one is highly dependent upon how the software you are using is coded. Is it primarily single threaded, lightly threaded or fully multi-threaded. Highly multi-threaded software derives the most benefit with high core count CPU's, however single and lightly threaded software cannot take advantage of all of those cores, this type of coding benefits the most from a few very fast cores, maybe 4 - 6. In my assessments CA uses all of these types of coding however, the majority of operations fall into the single or lightly threaded arena. The only significant fully threaded function in CA is the RayTrace renderer, if this is not a desired part of your CA workflow then huge core count is not overly beneficial.

     

    How much system RAM do you really need. From my experience CA is not a Ram Hog, I have 16GB and have never come close to using this up no matter how complex of a plan. The only exception is if I have several complex PBR camera's open and my dedicated GPU memory is exceeded at which time the GPU will start swapping with system memory. As a PBR can consume 3-5 GB depending upon complexity it can eat into the available system memory fairly quickly so if this is important then maybe 32GB would needed.

     

    The other RAM size consideration is whether or not you desire, as others have suggested, using a RAM Disk. If that is the case then bump up from 16GB to 32GB to provide the additional space for this as a RAM Disk will reduce the availability of system memory from all other programs being used. Just keep in mind that anything held within a RAM Disk will be permanently lost if your system crashes or you inadvertently shut it down. Best to only have items in there that have no impact if you loose them. The potential benefit is highly dependent upon how you use and work in CA. For the vast majority of user's I'm not certain there is much to be derived. For example, a fairly large plan might be 82MB, a high performance MNVe drive can load this in about 1/10 of a second, though this might be 10 times faster if it was residing in a RAM Drive, would you really notice the difference. I have no desire to dispute the benefits some users claim to experience, just that in my use of CA I have not been able to as of yet quantify this.

     

    Please keep in mind that my comments relate to CA, you must also take into account the requirements of other software that is regularly used and try to find the best overall performance fit.

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