Speeding up X1

[Allen Brown]

From another forum, wanted to pass along. Likely not news to everyone, but just as likely will help someone as it did me.

Ever since I started running X1, the program has been quite slow. For example, as I move my mouse around the screen in plan mode, my cross-hairs lag behind my cursor substantially. It is not so bad in vector full overview, if moving my mouse around with "move camera with mouse" is selected, there's not much delay. Just generally working in X1 seems to be quite slower than 10.

I am running a Sony VIAO with 1 Gig ram. Would bumping that to 2 Gig fix it? I rather know for sure before spending the $80.

I just got a huge improvement; I went into preferences>general, and removed the check mark next to double buffer drawing. I know this has probably been mentioned before, but the first time I have done it.

My next question is, what is double buffer drawing, and what am I missing out on when it's not checked? If it is an option, there must be a reason.

[Dan Park]

Double Buffer drawing means the image is drawn off screen then the whole image is pasted to screen. When you turn this off you get more flickering.

We would also like to see if the machines being affected can be fixed by lowering hardware accelleration by one notch. We cannot reproduce this problem in house but know that a hand full of users are experiencing this issue.

[Allen Brown]

can be fixed by lowering hardware accelleration by one notch

Dan, I'd be happy to give it a try, can you give me some instruction on how to?

[Dan Park]

Right click your desktop and choose properties. I think it's the settings tab on the properties dialog that has an advanced option. In the advanced settings go to troubleshoot and there is a hardware accelleration slider. Move it down a notch at a time and see if it makes a difference.

Thanks,

[Allen Brown]

I have tried the two different hardware settings, with and without double buffering checked, and can't seem to visually notice a difference. However, just unchecking the double buffering made a substantial difference. In refreshing elevation views, I could see a difference in the way it redrew, (double buffering did it all in the background, then displayed the elevation all at once...unchecked drew it on screen one panel at a time) but the time frame seemed to be identical.

I believe I will leave it unchecked, and hardware acceleration down a notch, and consider it improved.

Good luck Louis

[Alex-Berkeley]

Possible Graphic Card issue?

[gpickren]

Is this related to the fact that the orbit camera tool in vector views is essentially useless once you have any detailing in the plan. For example, the Riverstone sample plan recalculates repeatedly as the program tries to rotate the model. Does this do this for everyone? If so, I am amazed it was released with this tool for it might as well be a crash because you can only stop it by pressing ESC. Otherwise, you could sit there forever watching it recalculate as it tries to move.

[perryh]

GPICKREN, you are correct with that. Too slow.

[Allen Brown]

Glen,

When I open that plan, go to vector full overview, and rotate with mouse, it takes 7 seconds per view. Definitely not fast enough, but not what I would call crash mode, and I don't run into the problem of having to hit escape to stop it.

If I go to low detail, it is just under 1 second per redraw.

[gpickren]

Allen, how much did you rotate the view? Try rotating it 90 or 180 degrees so you can view another side and tell me how long before the model is finished rotating.

[Allen Brown]

Glen,

What method are you using to rotate 90 deg or 180 deg at once?

[lbuttery]

Back with ver 9.x if you held the ctrl key or shift key, I don't remember which, then Chief would hold off doing the rendering until the moving was completed ?

HTH

Lew

[gpickren]

Allen, I opened the plan and selected the full overview vector camera and an image was generated in about the time you describe. The mouse pointer is now showing the camera orbit symbol. Now, left click on the right side of the image and try to drag it to the left to rotate the vector image to where the right side faces the front and see what happens.

[Allen Brown]

My computer, Riverstone plan, X1, Vector full overview, hold shift button down, hit right arrow 18 times, let up shift button, plan will rotate 180 degrees, takes about 7 seconds once I let go of the shift.

[Allen Brown]

OK Glen, now I see what's going on. If you do that exact thing, and let go of the mouse, it will continue to spin indefinitely. If you do that, but keep the left mouse button held down until the model stops, it will regen 2-3 times until it catches up with your mouse, then stop, at 6-7 seconds per re-draw (for me).