PC Upgrade for CA Performance?

[Design20]

Hello,

 

Working with Chief generally works well, but the programs slows down over time, through the day, till all operations of any type consistently take 2-15+ seconds. Sometimes much longer depending on what it is. (for example, opening the library to select materials or fixtures usually takes 20 seconds and sometimes a couple minutes). If I restart my system, usually the program speeds up a bit, but it's not long before it bogs down again. Seconds may not seem like much, but when 2000 operations are taking 5 seconds on average, this adds almost 3 unnecessary hours that must be billed and push back deliverable times. And with larger than usual projects, of which I have several going on right now, the problem compounds and becomes prohibitively slow.

I say all this as preface because my PC's specs seem well capable of handling Chief, so I'm not sure if a hardware upgrade is going to solve my issue. The components are over 5 years old, however, and I'm no computer whiz but I know that is old for processing components. So I need some advice: does it make sense to invest in a new machine/upgraded parts to improve Chief's performance? Or is there something else I'm doing wrong that could improve performance without hardware upgrades?

My PC's specs:
Processor  |  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700K CPU @ 3.80GHz (3.70 GHz)
Installed RAM  |  64.0 GB
Graphics card  |  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12 GB)
Storage  |  790 GB of 4.55 TB used
System type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

My main drive where I store my Chief Architect project files is a 1TB NVMe SSD, synced to OneDrive
I'm using Premier X17

[JonathanK]

Have you tried a complete wipe of your system, and start with a clean install of Windows and your softwares?

I would say what you have is a good foundation, but you might notice a major improvement by just upgrading a few components as well (if you're tech savvy).  RAM for the redundant processes, video card for the 3D views and those kinds of processing.

If it turns out that you'll need to upgrade power supply and other items, just get a new machine.

[Rpadge]

I believe your video card is the first opportunity to improve performance, but the previous poster is correct, you may need a new power supply (depending on the card). 

[Renerabbitt]

On 6/10/2026 at 6:18 AM, Design20 said:

opening the library to select materials or fixtures usually takes 20 seconds and sometimes a couple minutes

This smells very strongly of a material file with a custom pattern from texture enabled, causing 100s if not thousands of vector lines. I've reported this before and Chief doesnt believe me but a custom pattern from texture can kill a plan or library.
 

[Design20]

Thank you all for your input! I did some more research and talked it through with my boss and we decided to go ahead and get a new machine with better components all the way around. Hopefully that will solve my issue. If I still run into slowness I'll see what I can find out vis á vis my texture files, @Renerabbitt

[PitMan71]

You might try creating a new user account on your computer and opening Chief Architect from that new user profile to see if the issues persist. My guess is that only the necessary catalogs would be installed, which could be a good way to test Rene's theory.

 

I would also recommend starting fresh on the new machine and installing only the catalogs you actually need at first. Once you're confident everything is running smoothly, you can install the rest of your catalog library. I'd hate to see you migrate the existing problems to the new machine. By staging the migration, you'll have a much better chance of identifying the culprit if the issues return.

 

Something to think on anyway. Good luck.

[Renerabbitt]

1 hour ago, Design20 said:

Thank you all for your input! I did some more research and talked it through with my boss and we decided to go ahead and get a new machine with better components all the way around. Hopefully that will solve my issue. If I still run into slowness I'll see what I can find out vis á vis my texture files, @Renerabbitt

A new computer is not going to solve this issue, I have a slower laptop with far more outdated tech and a massive 14gb library and it is outperforming your machine. Trust me, I train 100's of members, you have either some very high poly count models or a series of pattern from texture material files. 
This is sequential read/write dependent and CPU, driven, and your existing CPU and hard drive are on PCI4. You are plenty fast enough, so I guarantee you that this is not a computer issue