Lag, Hangup, Pausing while Deleting Objects or Undo

[Jarr3tt88]

Hello all,

 

Long time Chief user. I'm having some issues with hangups. When I try to delete objects, or undo, my computer will take a couple of seconds to pause before deleting or un-doing. I'm noticing its happening worse on larger files. Definitely slows down my workflow. Computer specs listed below:

 

Using Chief Architect X8

Windows 10

CPU - AMD FX 9095 8-Core 4.7 ghz

Graphics Card - GeForce GTX 960 4GB

Memory - CORSAIR Vengeance LP 32GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

HDD - Seagate BarraCuda Green ST2000DL001 2TB 5900 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive ...

 

I've read about disabling undo, I do not want to do this. With these computer specs, I don't think I should have any issues like this. I do notice that sometimes my fans will get really loud at times, and that is when the CPU gets maximized. Thank you in advance for any help, it is greatly appreciated!

 

[Chopsaw]

You should find that Undo's are faster in X9, but it looks like you are running a pretty fast system for Chief.  Could be a hard drive issue.  What are you running Chief on ?

[Jarr3tt88]

Thank you Chopsaw,

 

Yes I figured the specs I built should have been lightning fast for X8. It generally is for most of my drafting, especially 3D. I spoke with customer support today and he said the same thing about un-dos faster on X9. I'd rather avoid upgrading if I can. I did download the trial of X9 and I had the same issue, however, I am using my 6+ year old computer that the specs are far worse. I will try in my office tomorrow to see if X9 is faster for un-dos. I think my conclusion was the limitations of the Chief Architect program, but I wanted to see if anyone had any other ideas. Its frustrating to be slowed down by the program itself and not a lack of computer processing power.

 

As for your question, I'm not sure what you mean? What am I running chief on?

 

My hard drive is Seagate BarraCuda Green ST2000DL001 2TB 5900 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive ...

 

I use Onedrive to save all my files, it makes them local, but still have cloud access. Does this affect anything?

[Chopsaw]

Did tech ask about your hard drive.  You did not list that in your specs.  Your build looks new but is your hard drive ?  If you are running a M2 SSD you should not notice much lag but it all goes down hill from there.

[Jarr3tt88]

Chopsaw, I edited the post with my HDD, I think you might have missed it. The HDD I got was a refurb, I do not have a SSD. Would getting a SSD help even when using the Onedrive?

 

Customer service did not ask about my HDD.

[Chopsaw]

Yes, I think we have found the issues now.  Not sure which one is slowing you down the most but personally I would use Onedrive only as a backup system and make sure you are running Chief on your own Hard Drive.

 

I would grab a SSD that is large enough for your operating system and Chief and then use your 2TB for archived files and then back those up on Onedrive.

 

Get the fastest SSD setup you can for your current system and and it should help a lot.

[Kahnceptions]

21 hours ago, Chopsaw said:

Yes, I think we have found the issues now.  Not sure which one is slowing you down the most but personally I would use Onedrive only as a backup system and make sure you are running Chief on your own Hard Drive.

 

I would grab a SSD that is large enough for your operating system and Chief and then use your 2TB for archived files and then back those up on Onedrive.

 

Get the fastest SSD setup you can for your current system and and it should help a lot.

(I changed my user name this is Jarr3tt88)

 

I have tried the following, I still have delays with deleting & un-doing

 

I put the file on my desktop instead of Onedrive, no change in delays.

I tried the X9 trial desktop & onedrive folder, no change in delays.

 

I'm willing to try a SSD. Which specs would you recommend? I know nothing about them. I did build this computer myself, I do not know if I could have installed something wrong. My CPU maxes sometimes, and the fan gets really loud, that's also when I get delays/hangups.

 

I don't get why the harddrive would cause the hangups, that's really weird. Thank you for the suggestions Chop, I really appreciate it.

 

 

[Chopsaw]

I think that a SSD should definitely help but you also said a few other things that might be worthwhile looking into first.

 

This is happening with larger files.  How large and do you notice any lag with a brand new file with minimal content.  It might be worth posting a sample to see if the delays are similar on a comparable computer setup or even a slower one like mine.

 

I am unfortunately hardly ever able to max out CPU using Chief other than while Ray Tracing.  So it would also be good to test that on another machine exactly what causes that to happen and if it does the same thing on someone else's computer.

 

As for SSD's it seems that Samsung is worth the extra money and a good place to start for specification and price comparison. What you choose will depend on your budget and expected life of your current system as well as available connections for your motherboard.  You could possibly make use of a 64GB or 128GB drive but once you have it you will probably get impatient with anything that is not on that drive and will only want to use your 2TB 5900RPM as an Archive drive which it should preform fine for.

 

I would suggest starting with a 256 or 500GB drive if you can find room in your budget or larger if money is not an issue.

 

Do a search for SSD on this forum as there have been some worthwhile discussions on the topic as it applies to Chief recently.

[javatom]

Having a lot of 3d views open can really delay some of the features of the program.  An open layout with live feeds can slow things down also.

[Kahnceptions]

You can see if the delay/hangup is on your computer, please find attached two files.

 

The large file is the one I noticed starting to lag with deleting & undo.

The small file is a quick plan I just made. I pasted a couple of things from the large file to see if that might be an issue. The small file has barely any lag/delay when deleting or undo.

 

So it seems larger files are the cause of this delay/hangup for deleting or undo. Interesting.  I didn't notice that before. Now, I'm unsure what is making this file larger. I do have some trimwork, and geo 3D objects. Could it be a corrupt material? Could it be hatching on my custom walls I created?

Test_Large_file.plan

Test Small file.plan

 

5 minutes ago, javatom said:

Having a lot of 3d views open can really delay some of the features of the program.  An open layout with live feeds can slow things down also.

 

I did not have any 3D views or layouts opening when performing the test on both of these files.

[Joe_Carrick]

Do you have the Layout Open?  If so, are you using "Auto Update" for Sections and Elevations?  This can definitely cause the problem you are experiencing.

[Kahnceptions]

Layout was not open. I do not use auto update for elevations. I actually don't even use chief elevations or sections, plans only. I use CAD for everything else.

 

Update - I tried these files on my colleagues computer, he had the same lag/hangups I did, a little worse.

 

His specs -

 

AMD processor 4C+8G, 3.7 gHz

R7 2gb graphics card

16GB memory

 

I'm thinking this might just be a limitation of the chief program. I think its time for them to re-write their coding from 20 years ago. Very frustrating having a fast computer and there is still lag.

[Joe_Carrick]

I believe it may have to do with "Auto Rebuild Framing".  If you had that set to "ON", it may be active even if you subsequently toggle it to "OFF".  When a Door or Window is deleted, the framing rebuild can take time.  "Undo" has to then rebuild it again.

 

It seems that "Wall Framing" is always rebuilt unless you delete all the "Wall Details".  I'm not sure you can do that unless you've deleted all the framing.

[MarkMc]

1 hour ago, Kahnceptions said:

So it seems larger files are the cause of this delay/hangup for deleting or undo. Interesting.  I didn't notice that before. Now, I'm unsure what is making this file larger. I do have some trimwork, and geo 3D objects. Could it be a corrupt material? Could it be hatching on my custom walls I created?

I tried your file,

I also tried a 59mb file of house fairly complicated, and another simpler but with very complicated kitchen at 30 mbs. During the test I had both those files open along with another 7.8mb file that had one cross section and one full camera open, and a 4 mb file, Firefox (one tab for radio), Directory Opus, and Intellect-second Display port monitor and a DisplayLink monitor. Note that none of my plans have terrain or much framing. I turned auto framing off in all.

 

Delete In plan view was almost instantaneous -max was 0.9 seconds in my 59 mb file. in your file delete was 0.5 seconds. Partly depending on the object to be deleted. (Cabinets were slightly faster than windows on yours and my 30 mb file.

Undo in Plan-was about the same. Worst case seemed to hit 1.1 second but was difficult to maintain coordiation with stop watch.

In 3D  - delete on your plan for columns was 0.7 second, window 2.3 seconds. Undo 3 seconds for column and 3.2 for window.

My big plan delete column  hit 0.09, undo column delete 4.1, Delete window (mulled with custom millwork above and below casings multiple textures) hit 3.7 seconds and undo was the 4.1

The most complicated objects I could find in the 20 MB plan took less than a second to delete and up to 2.5 seconds to undo-most objects were just over a second for undo.

 

I  had auto framing turned off in your file for the above numbers, was a slight difference in 3D little in plan.

 

[MarkMc]

Oh I completely forgot why I looked at this thread again-duh.

I noticed in the conversation you had with Chopsaw that you placed the file on the desktop. Are you referring to the plan file?
My understanding is that the plan file (or any file type you open) primarily resides in RAM and/or in the page file where actions are written. The page file is always on the Primary Drive (C:) The plan file can live anywhere and it will not make a noticeable difference except for opening it to begin with.

OTOH-Chiefs DATA files, in particular the UNDO folder and the Archive folder NEED to be on the primary dirve -C:

We have experienced slow downs and issue when on one machine I inadvertently moved them to the D: drive. I certainly would not place them in the cloud except to sync with.

Then again I have no idea (not qualified) why your CPU is maxing.

[Chopsaw]

Downloaded and ran some of the same tests as Mark and got results consistent with his only a little slower but all within about 1 second.

Likely consistent with my older slower single SSD (Samsung PM830) or maybe RAM but I think undo's have to be read off the hard drive and that is why they are a little slow.  I tested in X9 as I am assuming Mark did also.

 

Curious what your colleagues computer has for a hard drive and how it compares to yours and also how your time lag numbers compare to Mark's.

 

Also extremely curious what sequence of commands you used to max out your CPU on this plan file as deleting and then undoing a main roof plane only caused a short CPU spike to 82% for me.

 

From what I could see your plan file size seems consistent with what I am used to and did not find any obvious issues.

[Kbird1]

It's possible your 2TB HD is on it's way out, and stalling (micro stutters) while "seeking" ...they are Cheap these days.... buy another like the WD RED 2TB Drive ( a Black is faster if you have the Budget) and Clone your drive ASAP in case it fails , Then RMA the Refurb Drive, if Possible and use it to Mirror (backup) the new Drive when the RMA comes back assuming you still have Warranty.

 

I good Samsung 850 SSD  in 256 or 500GB should suit your needs for installing Win10 and your Programs and should be Compatible with that older MB. and give you a nice Speed boost over all.

 

They have found a bug in the other slowness thread , though I don't think it is related to your issue , but just in case see post 20 here

 

KB 

[Kahnceptions]

17 hours ago, Joe_Carrick said:

I believe it may have to do with "Auto Rebuild Framing".  If you had that set to "ON", it may be active even if you subsequently toggle it to "OFF".  When a Door or Window is deleted, the framing rebuild can take time.  "Undo" has to then rebuild it again.

 

It seems that "Wall Framing" is always rebuilt unless you delete all the "Wall Details".  I'm not sure you can do that unless you've deleted all the framing.

 

17 hours ago, MarkMc said:

I tried your file,

I also tried a 59mb file of house fairly complicated, and another simpler but with very complicated kitchen at 30 mbs. During the test I had both those files open along with another 7.8mb file that had one cross section and one full camera open, and a 4 mb file, Firefox (one tab for radio), Directory Opus, and Intellect-second Display port monitor and a DisplayLink monitor. Note that none of my plans have terrain or much framing. I turned auto framing off in all.

 

Delete In plan view was almost instantaneous -max was 0.9 seconds in my 59 mb file. in your file delete was 0.5 seconds. Partly depending on the object to be deleted. (Cabinets were slightly faster than windows on yours and my 30 mb file.

Undo in Plan-was about the same. Worst case seemed to hit 1.1 second but was difficult to maintain coordiation with stop watch.

In 3D  - delete on your plan for columns was 0.7 second, window 2.3 seconds. Undo 3 seconds for column and 3.2 for window.

My big plan delete column  hit 0.09, undo column delete 4.1, Delete window (mulled with custom millwork above and below casings multiple textures) hit 3.7 seconds and undo was the 4.1

The most complicated objects I could find in the 20 MB plan took less than a second to delete and up to 2.5 seconds to undo-most objects were just over a second for undo.

 

I  had auto framing turned off in your file for the above numbers, was a slight difference in 3D little in plan.

 

 

BINGO! Thank you guys, I just tested the two files with the auto framing uncheked, and the deleting/undo speed was way better. Still slightly slow, but this is more acceptable. So the smaller file was instantaneous for delete/undo, and the larger file took longer to process. I hope Chief can look into this problem and help create a solution for the issue. I tested both files on Onedrive & desktop file, both performed the same to me. Not sure how to keep the file sizes down, the "larger" file barely has any info in there, I think that's a normal size house 4,500sf.

 

Side note, walls took longer to process than cabinets or plumbing fixtures when deleting/undo.

 

 

17 hours ago, MarkMc said:

Oh I completely forgot why I looked at this thread again-duh.

I noticed in the conversation you had with Chopsaw that you placed the file on the desktop. Are you referring to the plan file?
My understanding is that the plan file (or any file type you open) primarily resides in RAM and/or in the page file where actions are written. The page file is always on the Primary Drive (C:) The plan file can live anywhere and it will not make a noticeable difference except for opening it to begin with.

OTOH-Chiefs DATA files, in particular the UNDO folder and the Archive folder NEED to be on the primary dirve -C:

We have experienced slow downs and issue when on one machine I inadvertently moved them to the D: drive. I certainly would not place them in the cloud except to sync with.

Then again I have no idea (not qualified) why your CPU is maxing.

 

Yes the plan file I put on the desktop vs using the file in the normal location of my Onedrive folder (local) I prefer to work off Onedrive than moving files local and back to onedrive at the end of the day. I work on multiple projects everyday, I can't keep track of what I would need to save back to the cloud. The CPU maxing, I might have mispoke (see below answer)

 

13 hours ago, Chopsaw said:

Downloaded and ran some of the same tests as Mark and got results consistent with his only a little slower but all within about 1 second.

Likely consistent with my older slower single SSD (Samsung PM830) or maybe RAM but I think undo's have to be read off the hard drive and that is why they are a little slow.  I tested in X9 as I am assuming Mark did also.

 

Curious what your colleagues computer has for a hard drive and how it compares to yours and also how your time lag numbers compare to Mark's.

 

Also extremely curious what sequence of commands you used to max out your CPU on this plan file as deleting and then undoing a main roof plane only caused a short CPU spike to 82% for me.

 

From what I could see your plan file size seems consistent with what I am used to and did not find any obvious issues.

 

Chop, I might have misspoke about the CPU maxing. What was maxing was the speed, which is 4.7 gHz. My CPU Utilization was about 32% when zooming around the file and deleting/undoing. When I have some time, I will try to get times for the delete/undo on my computer and his. I will try these files on X9 again, but I didn't see a difference in X8 to X9 with the framing still checked, I doubt the unchecked auto framing would be much faster on X9. Unless if the SSD really has a large impact. I am extremely interested in this method, and if I don't get a SSD for this computer, I will definitely invest in one for my next computer build shortly in a few months. I'm hesitant to do the switch over of the OS by myself to the SSD. I was debating on which CPU/GPU, but the main issue was the deleting/undo speed, I thought the CPU needed to be better, I guess not, so I'd like to keep these specs which is a computer that is half the price. I was leaning towards the Ryzen 7 1800x 8 core 3.6 gHz $400 vs AMD FX-9590 8 core 4.7gHz $140

 

11 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

It's possible your 2TB HD is on it's way out, and stalling (micro stutters) while "seeking" ...they are Cheap these days.... buy another like the WD RED 2TB Drive ( a Black is faster if you have the Budget) and Clone your drive ASAP in case it fails , Then RMA the Refurb Drive, if Possible and use it to Mirror (backup) the new Drive when the RMA comes back assuming you still have Warranty.

 

Samsung 850 SSD  in 256 or 500GB should suit your needs for installing Win10 and your Programs and should be Compatible with that older MB. and give you a nice Speed boost over all.

 

They have found a bug in the other slowness thread , though I don't think it is related to your issue , but just in case see post 20 here

 

KB 

 

I think the HDD is fine, but for Chief, it looks like moving forward I should invest in a SSD. I looked into the SSD Samsung 850 evo, 250GB for $105 500GB for $164.

 

With this info found, its disappointing that I have to turn off features to make the program usable. That shouldn't be necessary. I hope that with future versions/updates, they can fix this issue for computers that are far beyond their recommended specs.

 

Thank you everyone for the help!

[MarkMc]

1 hour ago, Kahnceptions said:

Yes the plan file I put on the desktop vs using the file in the normal location of my Onedrive folder (local) I prefer to work off Onedrive than moving files local and back to onedrive at the end of the day. I work on multiple projects everyday, I can't keep track of what I would need to save back to the cloud. The CPU maxing, I might have mispoke (see below answer)

Is your Chief Data on One Drive or the C drive -that is the issue, location of plan file matters little.

[Kahnceptions]

4 minutes ago, MarkMc said:

Is your Chief Data on One Drive or the C drive -that is the issue, location of plan file matters little.

 C drive, all my programs are on the HDD. My working files are on the onedrive.

[MarkMc]

24 minutes ago, Kahnceptions said:

 C drive, all my programs are on the HDD. My working files are on the onedrive.

OK, was just wondering-I moved the my documents folder once on the older machine and didn't realize that it would also move the Chief Data files and slowed things down till I put them back. Those are the only ones that matter with and SSD AFAIK.

[Kahnceptions]

Ah, ok. Thank you Mark, I really appreciate the help! It still lags a little, but I guess I have to live with it until other versions come out. I will experiment with X9 more, but I'd rather not have to spend $700 if I don't have to.

 

I gotta research how to keep the file sizes down.

[Kbird1]

6 hours ago, Kahnceptions said:

I think the HDD is fine, but for Chief, it looks like moving forward I should invest in a SSD. I looked into the SSD Samsung 850 evo, 250GB for $105 500GB for $164.

 

With this info found, its disappointing that I have to turn off features to make the program usable. That shouldn't be necessary. I hope that with future versions/updates, they can fix this issue for computers that are far beyond their recommended specs.

 

Thank you everyone for the help!

 

I got a Samsung 850 128GB originally then a 256GB 2 yrs ago and now wish I had gotten the 500GB , so I can install everything too it and just use my 2TB HD as a Data Drive for backups only.

 

There was issues with Undo and Temp folders a few Years ago , not being on C:\  (SSD) so I made directories in the Root of C:\ Drive as seen below , My Documents and thus Data Folder are on the HD as it is currently 44gb on its own....( needs a big clean out :))

 

KB

 

[Kahnceptions]

Ok I will definitely get the 500GB SSD then. Thank you!

[Chopsaw]

3 hours ago, Kahnceptions said:

I think the HDD is fine, but for Chief, it looks like moving forward I should invest in a SSD. I looked into the SSD Samsung 850 evo, 250GB for $105 500GB for $164.

 

With this info found, its disappointing that I have to turn off features to make the program usable. That shouldn't be necessary. I hope that with future versions/updates, they can fix this issue for computers that are far beyond their recommended specs.

 

The extra $59 is definitely worth it but if you are replacing your motherboard shortly you should look at the 960 series in M.2 that is faster.

 

Also when I first tested your plan file in X9 I did not notice that Mark had turned off auto wall framing and then I did that and retested and really did not notice any significant difference.