X6 Slow On My Laptop

[Jay_on_Cape]

Hello All,

 

  I have started using X6 on my older (2 years) laptop.  The specs are:

Intel Core i5-2450m @ 2.5 ghz

8 gb RAM

Intel HD Graphics 3000 (which I downloaded the latest driver)

 

 I suspect it is the onboard graphics rather than a card correct?

 

 I have undo's set to 5, turned off "automatically build floors and ceilings", have only the floor plan window open etc. yet every time I touch something (a window for example in the attached picture) a series of boxes show up stating it is rebuilding floors etc........and it will take about 5-10 seconds or longer to run through all of the boxes.

 

Is there hope for this machine or is it the graphics?

 

Thanks.

 

[lbuttery]

Jay:

 

I suspect the graphics card also

but don't have enough info to make recommendations

 

the i5 processor may be an issue also as i5 doesn't have hyper-threading

 

also it sound like it has a single core ?

 

most "good" laptops have dual or quad-core

CA has repeatedly stated that the more cores the better

 

8 GB of cpu ram is decent

 

the video card should have its own ram and 1 GB min. is recommended

 

I suspect this laptop is under-powered to run Chief properly

 

Lew

[MPDesign]

Jay,

I would guess that it is the plan size. just a guess.

I had an old HP laptop a few years ago that used to do the same thing. the plan was for a 16000 sf house. 

It had old single core processor at 2.4hz

 onboard graphics is just for 3d views, all the rebuilding is being done by processor. 

 

IMHO if your going to work on a laptop, plan on upgrading every 2 years at a min. program advancements and resource needs will change in this time frame.

[lbuttery]

plan on upgrading every 2 years at a min

 

Michael:

 

this could be 4-5 years if a decently powerful laptop is purchased

 

I always look at the $2000 range and then back down as needed

these days a decent laptop should range from $1200-$1500

 

only spend more if your needs justify it

 

I also concentrate that money on internal specs that can't be changed later

try to get one where the CPU can be upgraded if desired

where ram can be added

get decent HD internally, but plan on adding externals as needed

 

17" screen min., 1080P resolution min.

 

don't skip on the power supply, plan for upgrades

 

personally, I don't care about battery life as I am usually plugged in

 

Lew

[Barton_Brown]

 FYI, the Intel Core i5-2450m @ 2.5 ghz is DUAL core, 4 threads. 

 

So, a couple of debugging thoughts that you might consider...

 

1) Compare the 'rebuild' on different plans - is it just this plan or is it consistently occurring on all plans. Could just be a CA plan issue, not your laptop if it happens on only the one plan.

 

2) if you determine it is not the plan, you could post the plan and ask others to run a test on the plan to see if or how long the rebuild takes. This might give you a handle on the 'horsepower' of your laptop compared to other machines. For example, I have a couple year old laptop with a Core i7-2670QM (quad core, 8 thread) 2.2 GHz that works well.

 

 

[Jay_on_Cape]

MIchael, it is a small plan (2,400 sq. ft).  I don't even have any text, cross sections, elevations or framing done on it.

 

Barton, good suggestion!  I'll transfer it to my desktop and see if it is the plan.  I'm almost certain it is not though.......

 

Lew, the laptop worked fine for X4 and X5.  I don't know if I do enough work on it to upgrade at the moment.  I may wait until windows 9?

[lbuttery]

this is from PC magazine Aug 25, 2014

 

The quick explanation is that all Core i7 CPUs use Hyper-Threading, so a six-core CPU can handle 12 streams, a four-core can handle eight streams, and a dual-core can handle four streams. Core i5 uses Hyper-Threading to make a dual-core CPU act like a four-core one, but if you have a Core i5 processor with four true cores, it won't have Hyper-Threading. For the time being, Core i5 tops out at handling four streams, using four real cores or two cores with Hyper-Threading.

 

very confusing on threads versus hyper-threading

 

Lew

[Doug_Park]

The i5 is pretty low end. The rebuilding 3D model bit is being done entirely on the i5 the graphics processor doesn't get involved until you bring up an elevation or 3D view.

 

The Intel 3000 graphics are on board and pretty slow compared to the latest Intel graphics. Which are still slow compared to what you can get in a desktop video card.

 

I have a MacBook Air with i5 and Intel 4000 graphics. It isn't fast enough for me to want to use it as a primary machine for doing Chief plans on, but is great for being ultra portable.

 

The building of the 3D model indicates that you have a 3D view open somewhere. If you are editing in the floor plan you can probably speed things up a lot by closing down your open elevations and 3D views. 

 

But if your model is as simple as you state the times you are seeing seem high for your hardware. 

 

1) Check your memory usage. If you are running low on free memory this could slow things down a lot.

2) Check for malware. 

3) Clear out the files in your temporary items folder.

4) Defragment your hard disk. 

5) Check to see if another process is chewing up CPU time.

 

Often a reboot can help. If it does then something is probably being a resource hog on your system that needs to be tracked down.

[Jay_on_Cape]

Thanks Doug!!  I checked out the usage of memory and found that mozilla uses more than twice as much memory as the floor plan only view in CA.  It runs better now.  I will make a point of only having CA open on the laptop.