X7 Performance-Crashes?


MarkMc
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I was getting so many crashes with X7 that I've reverted to using X6 until the problem is fixed.  Narrowed the crashes down to my dual graphics not switching correctly, but there may be an additional issue with X7 and the Intel HD graphics.  Anyway, the development team have all my crash data.  Also found that X7 was taking an age to load compared to X6.  When it worked, it seemed to work fine, but the frequncy of crashes on my HP laptop makes it unusable.

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Let our support team know about any problems you have, especially crashes. If you can reproduce the crash that is ideal, but if you can't reproduce the problem let us know anyway.

 

We want to hear about all your issues so that we can fix as many as possible before release.

 

Thanks for looking at the beta.

 

I'm guessing support is getting the data they need from clicking on the "report" button after a crash? I've worked a bit with the beta trial version on a Mac and had a random crash or two when clicking the perspective overview button, but since it was the trial version, I couldn't save the plan to send it in.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just downloaded the NON BETA version of X7 an having major crashes- have been sending in error reports and also on the website with screen shots,  mostly happening when I am in either a camera view or an elevation view and often with both open, happens when a camera is open and I go to display options,  it has happened over 12 times today in 2 different plans, both started in X7 Beta.  I did not have this problem in beta which was the PC version, however, I have just bought a new iMac and I have migrated/imported from a PC to the Mac.

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I was getting so many crashes with X7 that I've reverted to using X6 until the problem is fixed.  Narrowed the crashes down to my dual graphics not switching correctly, but there may be an additional issue with X7 and the Intel HD graphics.  Anyway, the development team have all my crash data.  Also found that X7 was taking an age to load compared to X6.  When it worked, it seemed to work fine, but the frequncy of crashes on my HP laptop makes it unusable.

 

As you mentioned there is an issue with integrated Intel hd graphics. Freezes when you attempt to use Material Definitions when in camera view or elevation. Have run A6 concurrently with no problem. Used an object created in A6 & A7 & also tested both 32 & 64 bit version, updated drivers and did extensive system cleaning. Freezes every time, condition is 100% repeatable. Definitely something has changed or there is a bug in the way A7 deals with these chipsets. Intel HD3000. Will be sending report to Tech.

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Certainly agree that the Intel HD3000 is dated. However with A6 it runs without any problems. It's actually quite fast as long as you are not running shadows and 100% smoothing while moving around, always work with theses turned off and usually in vector view which is even faster. Fortunately this laptop can be upgraded with a dedicated vid card. Just hoping there is a software fix so I won't need to spend any $$$'s.

 

Graham

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I have not had any crashed with X7, and very few with X6.

 

Hi Kevin. As I mentioned in post #29 this appears so far to be a unique situation. A6 is fine and A7 is fine on all of my other systems, they have dedicated vid cards. The one in question has an integrated HD3000 chip set, no dedicated vid card. Despite this shortcoming A6 runs fine it's only A7 that freezes and only when Adjust Material Definitions is used. Not just with the tool but no matter how you call up this function.

 

Graham

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Graham,

 

The problem basically has to do with the older HD Chipsets and the Drivers.  I'm not privy to exactly what change was made in X7 that causes the problem with the older systems - but in the long run having a dedicated gaming video card with a couple of GB on-board memory is definitely worth the expense.

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My problem is NOT an old computer or drivers, my new computer is an iMac 27inch with a dedicated Nividia GeForce GT 755M 1024 MB graphics card, 3.2 GHZ intel core i5, Memory 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3.  

 

Customer support sent an email saying my problem was that I had two graphics cards and that I had to make one the master.  

 

I do not have 2 graphics cards--desktop iMac, not a laptop and even called Apple support to make sure there wasn't something on the motherboard that I didn't know about.  They told me that there is only 1 graphics card in my computer.

 

I have never had a problem like this with Chief and I've been using Chief since Version 8.0.  This is making work miserable.

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We have had poblems with new iMac hardware in the past. It is something we can normally work around. The 755M is a mobile chip, probably to keep the heat requirements down as the iMac is not very good at cooling, so is probably not the best performer. But you should not normally be seeing crashes with it. This sounds like something we would need to try to reproduce. It is theoretically possible that it is faulty hardware. It wouldn't be the first time we have seen video cards fail. But it may also be a faulty driver, which is a lot harder to update on a Mac. I assume you are running Yosemite with the latest OS updates.

 

This sounds like hardware that we should try to investigate.

 

The first thing I would reccomend is to go to the Preferences Panel>Render. In the Troubleshooting section at the bottom under Command flushing try Rarely and Frequently to see if that improves things for you. You may also want to try None. Normally for an NVIDIA card None is the optimal choice.

 

 

The Intel HD graphics have a spotty, but improving history. My laptop has dual HD4600 and an NVIDIA Quadro K1100M. Both seem to perform well.

 

The HD3000 series was the first Intel hardware that started to be OK, but there were some drivers early on that had issues. We are currently looking at an issue with an HD3000 series that we can hopefully correct. There is another issue with a particular driver version that results in a crash all the time that is unfixable without a driver update. Usually with the Intel graphics starting with about the HD3000 newer drivers fix a lot of issues. But not all laptop vendors provide the most recent drivers which complicates life for all of us.

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OK, so to show how easy it is to mess up performance benchmarks. It turns out I was comparing X6 running my NVIDIA card against X7 running the Intel HD4600 graphics. After setting things up correctly, X7 is definitely slightly faster in all the cases I talked about in my previous post.

 

The comparison I did is surprisingly good for the HD4600 though.

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The only issue I had was because of my video card was causing a lot of problems!!!

Running on my NVIDIA card now and everything it peachy!!!

 

Also on a side note:

I changed my ram from 6 to 16 and it did not make my system any better but the hot ticket was to change out my hard drive to a "SOLID STATE" or add a second one just to run your operating system and programs. 10X faster on my computer and solved a lot of problems.

 

Check out my system in my signature. Never has ran so good!

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In post #43 Joeys experience brings to light a most important consideration as we attempt to upgrade our machine for improved performance. Unfortunately, especially if cost is taken into consideration, the bigger is better approach does not always deliver the expected performance gains. For example, increasing ram will only provide a significant benefit if the current level of ram is insufficient, otherwise you just have more unused ram.

 

SSD's are great and by switching to one you will see a big improvement, however this will only impact on very specific functions related to drive read/write operations. The initial computer boot-up and program activation, once the program is loaded into memory the SSD drives benefits are minimal. Essentially an SSD drive is just a memory chip compared to a traditional platter type of mechanical drive. Elimination of the mechanical elements makes them faster when stored information needs to be retrieved.

 

Graham

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Please be aware that this thread was originally started when X7 was still in beta testing.  Since then we have fixed a number of problems that would have resulted in crashes as well as slow downs.  The X7 release should be much better then the beta with regards to both of these issues.

 

If you are still experiencing any crashes or slow downs, please report these problems directly to our tech support team.  They will need to get more information from you regarding your system, what it is you are doing, and the plans you are working with.  Usually, these are not the kind of issues that can be resolved based on random comments made on a forum.

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Please be aware that this thread was originally started when X7 was still in beta testing.  Since then we have fixed a number of problems that would have resulted in crashes as well as slow downs.  The X7 release should be much better then the beta with regards to both of these issues.

 

If you are still experiencing any crashes or slow downs, please report these problems directly to our tech support team.  They will need to get more information from you regarding your system, what it is you are doing, and the plans you are working with.  Usually, these are not the kind of issues that can be resolved based on random comments made on a forum.

 

If I may say so, there are many times where we are not sure if it is a technical issue or technique based issue. Putting our experiences out for general discussion helps in the determination of this. Hopefully this will ensure that Tech Support spends their time on issues that have the greatest probability of being truly deserving of their attention.

 

Graham

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Dermot, I'd sent two plans in from the beta release but errors can't be reproduced. Have gotten 3 assertion errors on new plans, each time selecting custom hood symbols, 2 made in 6, one in 7. I'll contact them again when I'm out from under. But I can't reproduce the crash myself.

I have eliminated most possible software conflict possibilities.

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We have reproduced the graphics related crash in house and believe we have it fixed.

 

The fixed issue affects graphics cards that support a maximum OpenGL version of 3.0 or 3.1.  This includes Intel HD Graphics 2000/3000 (with any driver), Intel HD Graphics 4000 (with outdated drivers), as well as a variety of older ATI/NVIDIA cards.

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