CA Stress Testing Results

[TheKitchenAbode]

2 minutes ago, glennw said:

 

Graham,

Thanks for all your hard work and making the results available to us all.

I thought I would load this file on my relatively low spec mac to see how it compares with Larry's times.

I tested the same operations and got greatly different (shorter) times - I have included Larry's times in brackets:

Zoom 2 seconds (8-17)

Select slab 4 seconds (13)

Move edge 4 seconds 14)

Close file instant (12)

 

How could you explain these differences?

 

Thanks for running the test. The main thing to know is what the processor model is in your iMac.

[glennw]

Graham,

I have a 3.5GHz intel i5

[TheKitchenAbode]

4 minutes ago, glennw said:

Graham,

I have a 3.5GHz intel i5

 

Thanks Glen. I'm also wondering if your Radeon Pro 575 is helping out here. The other consideration is that the Mac OS and the drivers for the mouse could be more efficient than those on a PC at handling these types of operations. Will do a little research.

[HumbleChief]

The Xeons in my system have proven to be very fast at very few tasks, and very slow at many others. They are designed for heavy work loads over extended periods of time using multiple threads and cores like RayTracing can utilize but for everyday tasks they are just not a good choice. Plus they are now quite old. Where once they were termed a near super computer they are simply an old door stop technology today.

[glennw]

Graham,

I was really surprised to see such a huge difference between Larry's results and mine.

I haven't heard it mentioned yet, but I recall that the number of 3D views open can influence redraw times.

Have you done any testing along those lines?

 

I would be interested to see if D Scott gets similar results on his mac.

Scott?  

[TheKitchenAbode]

1 hour ago, glennw said:

Graham,

I was really surprised to see such a huge difference between Larry's results and mine.

I haven't heard it mentioned yet, but I recall that the number of 3D views open can influence redraw times.

Have you done any testing along those lines?

 

I would be interested to see if D Scott gets similar results on his mac.

Scott?  

 

In general I think we should be cautious at this time concerning the differences from a definitive perspective. When one is running this particular test we do not know what other programs the tester may have running at the same time which could skew the results somewhat. We also do not have a well defined means to determine precisely when one decides that their system has completed the task. As you suggest, it would be interesting to hear from other Mac users to see if there is a trend towards better performance versus Windows based pc's. It would also be interesting to hear from users with cad based cards such as Quadro to see  if there is any noticeable difference.

[joey_martin]

I'm confused. What in the world is all of this about? I have been using Chief for close to 12 years (?!?) and have ALWAYS gone to Best Buy and grabbed a new HP off the shelf and add a GForce card if needed. What in the world is all this extensive testing for? I have never...I repeat NEVER had an issue with my OTC HP computers. 

 

Does any of this apply to average small office designing homes and creating ConDocs?

[TheKitchenAbode]

4 minutes ago, joey_martin said:

I'm confused. What in the world is all of this about? I have been using Chief for close to 12 years (?!?) and have ALWAYS gone to Best Buy and grabbed a new HP off the shelf and add a GForce card if needed. What in the world is all this extensive testing for? I have never...I repeat NEVER had an issue with my OTC HP computers. 

 

Does any of this apply to average small office designing homes and creating ConDocs?

 

This is relevant to those of us who's plans reach a level of complexity that causes some type of lag that starts to interfere with our ability to work fluidly in CA. The stress testing is an attempt to identify what is actually going on and hopefully provide some direction as to how one may best overcome this.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Glenn - I think I have found a potential reason for some of the differences. The time to zoom in and out is dependent upon how large the poly-solid is to begin with. If I use the magnify icons, right tool bar, and repeatedly reduce the image it gets faster and faster. If on the other hand I repeatedly increase the size it gets slower and slower. To standardize this I suggest that once the plan is loaded one first selects the full screen icon and then records the time to reduce it by one magnification. Then resets it back to full screen and then record the time to increase it by one magnification. This should make the results more comparable.

 

On my Spectra 360 the times are as follows.

 

Reduce one magnification from full screen - 6 seconds

Increase one magnification from full screen - 14 seconds

[BillMc]

My times are just about identical to Glen's in working with the plan. In a 3D overview, spinning etc is instant. (Signature shows computer spec's).

[glennw]

57 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Reduce one magnification from full screen - 6 seconds

Increase one magnification from full screen - 14 seconds

Graham,

Zoom out 2 seconds

Zoom in 5 seconds

[TheKitchenAbode]

7 hours ago, BillMc said:

My times are just about identical to Glen's in working with the plan. In a 3D overview, spinning etc is instant. (Signature shows computer spec's).

 

Thanks Bill, yes the 3d camera views are instant in this one, just lags in plan view.

[TheKitchenAbode]

7 hours ago, glennw said:

Graham,

Zoom out 2 seconds

Zoom in 5 seconds

 

Thanks once again. I checked back a few posts and Chris reported similar results ( 2 - 4 second lag) on his Mac Mini.

[Chrisb222]

31 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

Thanks once again. I checked back a few posts and Chris reported similar results ( 2 - 4 second lag) on his Mac Mini.

 

Right. I tested it again after seeing Larry's results, and did a few more operations like his. They all executed in the 2 to 6 second range. As I stated earlier, this is with a 2014 era $700 i5 Mac Mini using CPU based Intel graphics driving two 24" monitors.

[TheKitchenAbode]

11 minutes ago, Chrisb222 said:

 

Right. I tested it again after seeing Larry's results, and did a few more operations like his. They all executed in the 2 to 6 second range. As I stated earlier, this is with a 2014 era $700 i5 Mac Mini using CPU based Intel graphics driving two 24" monitors.

 

Really appreciate you responding to this. Might be a bit premature but looks like Macs might have the edge on this one. I will soon upload another stress test model that will explore some different operations outside of just panning and zooming.

[TheKitchenAbode]

12 hours ago, HumbleChief said:

The Xeons in my system have proven to a very fast at very few tasks, and very slow at many others. They are designed for heavy work loads over extended periods of time using multiple threads and cores like RayTracing can utilize but for everyday tasks they are just not a good choice. Plus they are now quite old. Where once they were termed a near super computer they are simply an old door stop technology today.

 

Absolutely, they have the reliability to operate 24/7 maxed out which is a very critical requirement for server application. Also, up until the last few years they were the only way one could obtain a high number of cores. Today we have consumer grade single unit processors that have core counts of 30 or more at considerable lower cost than going the Xeon route. Again, Xeons are powerful processors and extremely reliable, just not sure that due to the types of processes in CA they are the most effective choice for the majority of users.

[Ridge_Runner]

17 hours ago, glennw said:

Graham,

Thanks for all your hard work and making the results available to us all.

I thought I would load this file on my relatively low spec mac to see how it compares with Larry's times.

I tested the same operations and got greatly different (shorter) times - I have included Larry's times in brackets:

Zoom 2 seconds (8-17)

Select slab 4 seconds (13)

Move edge 4 seconds 14)

Close file instant (12)

Sorry, Graham; should have done this when you asked for it.

My system (copied Glenn's numbers):

Zoom 2 seconds (8-17) 3 seconds

Select slab 4 seconds (13) 3 seconds

Move edge 4 seconds 14) 3 seconds

Close file instant (12) instant

 

Additional times:

open plan - 3 seconds

dimension slab in plan - 3 seconds

undo dimension - 2 seconds

pan with mouse - 4 seconds

open camera - instant

rotate in standard view - instant

rotate in vector view - instant

close camera - 3 seconds

open elevation camera - instant

pan, move, zoom, select slab, dimension slab in elevation - instant

close elevation camera - 3 seconds

 

Hope these help.

[Ridge_Runner]

Per Graham's second request:

 

open plan.

press full screen icon - 4 seconds

press reduce icon - 2 seconds

press full screen icon - 4 seconds

press increase icon - 4-5 seconds

 

Thanks for your time on this Graham.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Thank you to those who provided their results on the P-solid stress test.

 

I have compiled the results in an Excel worksheet.

 

Due to the limited number of results, it's not particle to analyze this too deeply, however it can clearly be seen so far that regardless of system configuration the results do not vary as one would have normally anticipated. For example, a system with an Intel HD integrated chip did not perform really any less than one with an RTX 2080 Ti which is technically almost 3,000 times faster. This also appeared to be true when comparing cores/threads, a 2/4 CPU appears to perform no less than a 12/24.

 

Please keep in mind that this test is very specific to plan view zooming only and the results should not be extrapolated as being relevant as to overall system performance.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Here's a different stress test model. This one allows you to explore more typical CA functions related to walls, roofs, windows and doors. It should not bog down anyone's system but will run slower so you can see what's going on. Suggest having Task Manger open on the process tab so you can see what component does what at what time. At the bottom of task manger there is a digital clock so you can time your operations.

 

1.) Open Plan.

2.) Open Task Manger, Select Process Tab, Select Options "Always on Top".

2.) Open Standard Camera View, Record Time to Open.

3.) Zoom in on one of the Houses. Should be no problem.

4.) Click on a Wall Surface and Drag up Top Edge up. Record Time to Complete Task.

5.) Hit Undo, Record time to complete task.

6.) Zoom out to see all houses.

7.) Select Build, Roof, Build Roof, Roof, Build Roof Planes, Record Time to Complete Task.

 

What to watch for.

 

1.) The "3D Rebuild" pop up.

2.) In Task Manager Observe the activity levels of the CPU, GPU and Disk Drive, When They are Active and When are Not During the Processing.

3.) Depending on What you do Notice That the full 3D Rebuild only Occurs for Certain Changes.

 

My Results (Alien X51 R3)

 

1.) Open Standard Camera View = 18 seconds.

2.) Drag Wall Surface up = 22 seconds.

3.) Undo Drag Wall Surface up = 22 seconds.

4.) Build Roof Planes = 35 seconds.

 

Parade of Homes 400.plan

[HumbleChief]

1 hour ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Here's a different stress test model. This one allows you to explore more typical CA functions related to walls, roofs, windows and doors. It should not bog down anyone's system but will run slower so you can see what's going on. Suggest having Task Manger open on the process tab so you can see what component does what at what time. At the bottom of task manger there is a digital clock so you can time your operations.

 

1.) Open Plan.

2.) Open Task Manger, Select Process Tab, Select Options "Always on Top".

2.) Open Standard Camera View, Record Time to Open.

3.) Zoom in on one of the Houses. Should be no problem.

4.) Click on a Wall Surface and Drag up Top Edge up. Record Time to Complete Task.

5.) Hit Undo, Record time to complete task.

6.) Zoom out to see all houses.

7.) Select Build, Roof, Build Roof, Roof, Build Roof Planes, Record Time to Complete Task.

 

What to watch for.

 

1.) The "3D Rebuild" pop up.

2.) In Task Manager Observe the activity levels of the CPU, GPU and Disk Drive, When They are Active and When are Not During the Processing.

3.) Depending on What you do Notice That the full 3D Rebuild only Occurs for Certain Changes.

 

My Results (Alien X51 R3)

 

1.) Open Standard Camera View = 18 seconds.

2.) Drag Wall Surface up = 22 seconds.

3.) Undo Drag Wall Surface up = 22 seconds.

4.) Build Roof Planes = 35 seconds.

 

Parade of Homes 400.plan

 

On my laptop.

 

1.) Open Standard Camera View = 18 seconds.       28 sec. reopen with roofs - 41 sec.

2.) Drag Wall Surface up = 22 seconds.      38 sec.

3.) Undo Drag Wall Surface up = 22 seconds.        38 sec

4.) Build Roof Planes = 35 seconds.  18 and 19 sec. rechecked for obvious reasons...

[TheKitchenAbode]

6 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

 

On my laptop.

 

1.) Open Standard Camera View = 18 seconds.       28 sec. reopen with roofs - 41 sec.

2.) Drag Wall Surface up = 22 seconds.      38 sec.

3.) Undo Drag Wall Surface up = 22 seconds.        38 sec

4.) Build Roof Planes = 35 seconds.  18 and 19 sec. rechecked for obvious reasons...

 Thanks Larry.

 

For Item #4 did you do the roof build in plan view or the standard 3D camera view? My posted result is when doing this in the standard 3D camera. If I do this in plan view then the roofs build in 12 seconds.

 

What are your laptop specs?

[HumbleChief]

1 minute ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

 Thanks Larry.

 

For Item #4 did you do the roof build in plan view or the standard 3D camera view? My posted result is when doing this in the standard 3D camera. If I do this in plan view then the roofs build in 12 seconds.

 

What are your laptop specs?

Plan view. Laptop spec's ....

 

Roofs from camera view 1:00

[TheKitchenAbode]

9 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

Plan view. Laptop spec's ....

 Thanks Larry, that explains the result. In plan view the 3D model is not built and therefore the time will be much faster than when one is in the 3D camera view.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Larry, does the laptop have a discrete graphics card or just the Intel HD chip?