Chief Slowing Down / Lags

[RobUSMC]

Over the past week, I have worked a several plans and it has been the same in each. Each time I have a key stroke, move / open / resize an object, there seems to be a delay with everything.  Scrolling thru the library used to be fast but  now lags. Using the paint brush to change colors on cabinets I was able to paint each cabinet and it kept up with me with no problems. No I paint one cabinet part and wait a second or two before moving to the next.  Has anyone else experienced this issue?  I have a fast PC with a great processor and graphics.  It only lags in Chief and no other program I use

[DavidJPotter]

Call Tech Support, Update your drivers, clean the interior of your case. I assume you are using X9? (X9 is faster than X8)

 

DJP

[RobUSMC]

yes X9,   Added an additional HD a month ago and all was cleaned. If not sure which drivers you are referring to. Nvidia is up to date

[HumbleChief]

With larger plans I get a horrible lag - it seems to strike when the plan file gets to a certain size or complexity then molasses. Have not been able to track it down. Upgraded my video card the other day (Nvidia 1080) with no change. Upgrading my Xeon processors as well to see if that helps but I think I am missing something like a background process or something. Very frustrating as no seems to be able to track down the problem or a solution.

[HumbleChief]

3 hours ago, RobUSMC said:

Over the past week, I have worked a several plans and it has been the same in each. Each time I have a key stroke, move / open / resize an object, there seems to be a delay with everything.  Scrolling thru the library used to be fast but  now lags. Using the paint brush to change colors on cabinets I was able to paint each cabinet and it kept up with me with no problems. No I paint one cabinet part and wait a second or two before moving to the next.  Has anyone else experienced this issue?  I have a fast PC with a great processor and graphics.  It only lags in Chief and no other program I use

If you figure something out PLEASE PLEASE post here 

 

Thanks

[mydog8it]

I've noticed everything slows way down once I add electrical, terrain, and some furniture. I do those in a separate file from my construction sets now. "save as" then add all of that. Or, if I don't need fancy 3D models I use CAD blocks for electrical instead of symbols. If the lot is flat I use a polyline solid for the lot surface/perimeter instead of creating a terrain perimeter. You can also use CAD blocks for outlets and switches, and just put in actual light fixture symbols. That helps, too.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Maybe these new chips from Intel will solve the lag problem.

 

http://hothardware.com/news/intel-brewing-xeon-platinum-monster-with-28-cores-and-56-threads

[Chopsaw]

3 hours ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Maybe these new chips from Intel will solve the lag problem.

 

That will help for ray tracing but chief is still unable to fully utilize multi core systems for regular drawing.  X9 has made some marked improvements but I have put my system up against an impressive dual Xeon setup and beat it hands down even with my now aging processor but the point is that CPU clock speed is the key to smooth and fast functionality in Chief.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Chopsaw - In complete agreement, cores alone are not the only factor. A good CPU test report will demonstrate this when they compare differing software packages with several differing CPU's. With CA I think it has been clearly demonstrated that for Ray Tracing the number of cores is extremely important. For other CA operations it seems to me that CPU speed may be of greater importance, especially if you already have a 4 core or greater CPU.

[Chopsaw]

1 hour ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

With CA I think it has been clearly demonstrated that for Ray Tracing the number of cores is extremely important. For other CA operations it seems to me that CPU speed may be of greater importance, especially if you already have a 4 core or greater CPU.

 

Yes I agree but there is still something that I have not worked out in my challenge against that Dual Xeon that I was referring to because the math still does not work.  It was a 28 core dual Xeon system running at 2.1 GHz which also had a M.2 SSD drive.  So mathematically it should have had no problem blowing me out of the water but even with my mSata SSD handicap I won hands down.  This kind of data make it a difficult decision on finding a system that will excel at both everyday design work and also raytracing.

 

I have also had chief hang up many many times and checked with Task Manager to find that I am only at 12-18% CPU utilization which is essentially a single core for my system.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Chopsaw - Your CPU has 4 hyperthreaded cores giving you 8 logical cores. Your CPU runs at about twice the GHz as the Xeon which from a relative perspective gives you the equivalent of 16 cores. Depending upon the software, as you have seen, those cores are not always used to their max or not all cores are recognized. Another factor can be CPU throttling, as the temp rises most CPU's will throttle back the GHz, this can vary quite a bit between different CPU's and their cooling system. There is no doubt that it's very challenging to determine the right hardware balance for the software you use at a cost point that represents dollars well spent.

[Chopsaw]

6 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Depending upon the software, as you have seen, those cores are not always used to their max or not all cores are recognized.

 

Graham,  You seem to have a good understanding of this topic, hoping that you have shared this knowledge with CA or will find a way to do so, because there seems to be no acknowledgment of this issue from their end.  Not may users have the means to maintain two separate systems which it seems is the only solution currently for maximum performance.

 

I think you finally answered my question from our last discussion back in January : https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/12619-questions-on-pc-cpusgpus-for-number-crunching-i-series-xeon-amd/?do=findComment&comment=108629

 

Hoping CA will invest some more time into this issue for the development of X10.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Chopsaw - Here is a good example.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i7-broadwell-e-6950x-6900k-6850k-6800k,4587-4.html

 

The 6950X has a Cinebench score of 1,800 while my 6700K is barely 900. One would assume that with a 6950X you could expect a 250% performance improvement across the board. But if you look at the test results you will find many instances where my 6700K outperforms the 6950X. It's only when testing programs that are core dependent that the 6950X shows it's real power. I believe that in most circumstances CA other than the Ray Tracer operates more like Microsoft Office and Abobe Photoshop/Illustrator. 

[TheKitchenAbode]

Here is one more very interesting study. It looks at multi-cores and dual Xeons using Photoshop.

 

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Photoshop-CC-Multi-Core-Performance-625/

 

[Chopsaw]

Thanks Graham,  That all seems to support the data that I have.

 

  I might just be dreaming but wouldn't it be great if CA provided some testing data like that for users so they could make a good decision about the expected performance of the software based on their budget.  Even if they were to sub out the task I think it would be worthwhile but it could also be done in house as I am sure they have over a hundred company computers that would all make excellent test platforms since they likely all were purchased at different times for the purpose of running the software at all different levels.

 

If they were to provide a standardized test procedure I am sure that there would be many forum users that would participate and provide test data also.

[HumbleChief]

I think that clock speed and disk speed benefits Chief the most in every day use. An (extreme water cooled) overclocked 6700 or 7700 with the newest fastest solid state drives and fast memory is probably the best bet for every day speed, with, I think, the fastest drives making a huge difference in perceivable speed. A fast video card is nice but the fastest may even be overkill for every day use in Chief.

 

Maybe more cores are better for RayTracing but how could we ever really know? Because Chief said? Heck does anyone even RayTrace anymore? I do on rare occasion but the 3D output is so good I don't bother much any more.

 

I can overclock my Xeons with the motherboard I have but can only get to around 3.0 which is a marked difference from the stock 2.13 ghz but still not a fast clock speed by today's standards. I mentioned I'm getting a couple of new Xeons which run stock at 3.46 ghz so I should see some good speed improvements but I hope it doesn't sound like I am promoting dual Xeons or my system in any way.

 

https://ark.intel.com/products/52576/Intel-Xeon-Processor-X5690-12M-Cache-3_46-GHz-6_40-GTs-Intel-QPI

 

I was lucky enough to come across this system 6 or 7 years ago and it outperformed virtually everything else available at the time for a reasonable $2500 and still keeps up with some modern single chip i7's but I am stuck a bit. It seems the best I can do is get just a little bit better performance for the going rate of $2000 or so. I'm always shopping but can't find a compelling enough reason to upgrade yet. If these new Xeons don't show some drastic improvement I'll be on the upgrade train pretty quickly.

[HumbleChief]

6 hours ago, Chopsaw said:

 

That will help for ray tracing but chief is still unable to fully utilize multi core systems for regular drawing.  X9 has made some marked improvements but I have put my system up against an impressive dual Xeon setup and beat it hands down even with my now aging processor but the point is that CPU clock speed is the key to smooth and fast functionality in Chief.

Curious, beat it at what task? RayTracing? Drawing? How did you test? How can you test regular drawing? Not challenging your findings, and have no doubt about your conclusions just really want to know what you tested and how?

[HumbleChief]

2 hours ago, Chopsaw said:

Thanks Graham,  That all seems to support the data that I have.

 

  I might just be dreaming but wouldn't it be great if CA provided some testing data like that for users so they could make a good decision about the expected performance of the software based on their budget.  Even if they were to sub out the task I think it would be worthwhile but it could also be done in house as I am sure they have over a hundred company computers that would all make excellent test platforms since they likely all were purchased at different times for the purpose of running the software at all different levels.

 

If they were to provide a standardized test procedure I am sure that there would be many forum users that would participate and provide test data also.

This would be nice but this has been tried a hundred times and it just doesn't work. Not that it couldn't if Chief took the time or cared to but every time this has been tried it just doesn't work.

[DavidJPotter]

Big, complicated drawings that contain lots of line entities and 3D faces will always be a little sluggish (that is the rule which applies to all versions). Try to keep your .plan files lean and mean, minimize using symbols that contain high "face counts" to make them more "artistic or realistic" (symbols from 3D warehouse often have unnecessarily high face counts BTW) to minimize that but if you cannot, don't worry about it.

What makes a file "large" is that each pixel or particle of visual elements is plotted digitally using "statements" of each particles "X-Y-Z" coordinate locations which after a while makes a lot of "Zeros and Ones" and it is the accumulation of this verbiage which makes files large in terms of megabytes and requires more computer heavy lifting and time to parse on screen per second. It is simple physics.

Even if you do not own a Super Computer you still can do SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

 

DJP