Hardware Guide for X3

[dshall]

. i also notice that in my "set affinity" dbx in windows it says chief architect *32". i am running a 64bit os... is x2 only running in 32 bit mode?

Yeah, I think x2 is 32 bit, x3 I believe is 64 bit..... whoops, I better shut up, I am now talking about stuff I know very little about.

If your are x2.... run, do not walk to x3..... I assume you are on SSA, if not, run, do not walk to SSA and get x3.

[adamjedgar]

hehehe, im sorry.
its running terribly slow. it is taking more than twice as long to display a 3d camera view and/or load up the exact same drawing i am running on the old athlon 64 x2 (dont confuse this with chief architect x2) desktop pc.

for example,
on the athlon desktop pc it takes about 5 seconds to display a 3d camera view...
on the brand new laptop, its taking almost 15 seconds(sometimes even longer) to display the exact same drawing 3d camera view!

now what is really confusing me is the following. whilst i was loading the 3d camera view on the laptop i took a "print screen" shot of the task manager (see the image)

1. Chief isnt even using 20% of the available cpu resources. its running really slow but hardly even making the cpu's work! why is that?


2. i also notice that in my "set affinity" dbx in windows it says chief architect *32". i am running a 64bit os... is x2 only running in 32 bit mode?

3. is all this irrelevant and i simply need to change the laptop over to one with with a processor speed over 2.1ghz

[Barton Brown]

hehehe, im sorry.

1. Chief isnt even using 20% of the available cpu resources. its running really slow but hardly even making the cpu's work! why is that?


2. i also notice that in my "set affinity" dbx in windows it says chief architect *32". i am running a 64bit os... is x2 only running in 32 bit mode?

3. is all this irrelevant and i simply need to change the laptop over to one with with a processor speed over 2.1ghz

I should let a Chief expert answer this, but here is what I believe to be correct...

1) While X3 has some sections of code that can utilize multiple cores, some portions are still bound to a single processor - hence the 13% utilization of the CPU (1 out of 8 cores working hard). Portions of the new raytracing functionality can use as many cores as you have available. I just finished installing X3 Beta and am running a raytrace - CPU utilization is pegged at 100% .

2) as Dan and Doug have stated elsewhere, both X2 and X3 are still 32 bit applications. I think I remember some discussion that X4 might break the barrier and be 64 bit...

3) I'm presently running X3 Beta on a Sager i7-820m notebook (1.73 GHz) and performance is acceptable for me. I ran X2 on both desktop and notebook (see my signature) and of course the desktop was faster (probably 2x) - since a resonable portion of X3 and X2 still rely on the speed of a single CPU for a lot of the processing. Doug and Dan have said that X3 has more multiprocessing capability than X2.

One thought/question: what is the rotation speed of your HD? For 3D renders, there could be time spent accessing the HD for things like textures, if you bought a laptop with a 5200RPM HD and your Athlon machine probably has a 7200RPM disk, you will notice the difference in data transfer speed.

[adamjedgar]

hi barton,
thanks for the information.
i actually did some research today on various processors and i am wondering if the amd one is the way to go. they seem to have notebook cpu's capable of running well into the 2 ghz range all the time whereas the intel stuff uses the turbo mode option to automatically boost performance when needed. mine is supposed to turbo boostfrom 1.66 up to 2.8 ghz, but i'll wager my "budgie smugglers" it aint doing that! its performance in comparison to the 3ghz athlon 64x2 doesnt come close to that kind of display time.

i just am astounded that the i7 (which is supposed to be intels top processor) is such a let down. i have always used amd stuff on my desktop machines and found them excellent.

to be honest what has thrown me in this whole thing is what the **** sales guys at chief said with the release of x3. they all said a 64bit os is a must! now i have one, and well...from what some guys are saying, it would seem that chief programmers might have been looking ahead to x4 before they actually fully program chief to run 64bit. if thats the case, i have just spent $1600 on a bloody laptop for nothing! i could have bought a $600 dual core machine that runs at almost 3 ghz and would have been $1000 better off!

i am even wondering if i should have looked at a mac

does chief run on a mac?

[Barton Brown]

i actually did some research today on various processors and i am wondering if the amd one is the way to go. they seem to have notebook cpu's capable of running well into the 2 ghz range all the time whereas the intel stuff uses the turbo mode option to automatically boost performance when needed. mine is supposed to turbo boostfrom 1.66 up to 2.8 ghz, but i'll wager my "budgie smugglers" it aint doing that! its performance in comparison to the 3ghz athlon 64x2 doesnt come close to that kind of display time.

Adam, don't be too cynical of Intel, the turboboost does work. I am running a little freeware application from CPUID called cpu-z (http://www.cpuid.com) that provides some nice detail about how your processor is performing - such things as clock speeds, etc. I was watching it while doing a ray trace in X3 and the core clock speed for my notebook varied from 1.8 GHz all the way up to 2.7 GHz depending upon the demand load (note that right now, with only me typing, the core clock is at 1.2 GHz to save power ). Intel ramps the clock speeds all over the place in order to trade off performance and power consumption (they do this on the desktop CPUs as well - some of this they call Speed Stepping, some is the Turboboost). Now, if the ray trace had made it to utilizing more than one core, the clock speed would have gone down to 1.7 GHz to keep the power dissipation of the CPU within its designed power envelope.

to be honest what has thrown me in this whole thing is what the **** sales guys at chief said with the release of x3. they all said a 64bit os is a must! now i have one, and well...from what some guys are saying, it would seem that chief programmers might have been looking ahead to x4 before they actually fully program chief to run 64bit. if thats the case, i have just spent $1600 on a bloody laptop for nothing! i could have bought a $600 dual core machine that runs at almost 3 ghz and would have been $1000 better off!

Again, don't be too quick to criticize. First of all, most processors are now 64bit and the price of the OS is the same whether it is 32 bit or 64 bit so this shouldn't be much of an issue. BUT, where 64 bit becomes important is allowing the OS to access more than 3 GB of RAM in your computer. A 32 bit OS will only access 3 GB of RAM no matter how much more you have installed. You bought a machine with 8 GB of RAM and I dare say you would have been really ticked off to discover that you could only access 3 GB of it if you had installed a 32bit OS . Note that there is still a 3 GB limit for a 32 bit application, but that is 3 GB PER PROCESS (I think :Sly: ).It turns out that with CA X3 there are times when you can access more than 3 GB of RAM total. For example, the ray tracing appears to spawn a new process which gives it access to 3 GB all to itself. I have 4 GB of RAM in my notebook (cause I was cheap at the time I bought the laptop and didn't figure I needed more ), well today I discovered why I want more... I was experimenting with raytracing on a fairly complicated plan and turned up the number of Caustic photons to 200K and the number of indirect photons to 100K and guess what? I exceeded the 4 GB of RAM on the machine and the raytrace didn't run (although it had run with small numbers of photons). Bottom line - you will want access to your 8 GB of RAM. Be happy you have the RAM and an OS that supports it.

i am even wondering if i should have looked at a mac

does chief run on a mac?

Chief will run on a Mac, but not how you think. You have to run "bootcamp" (?) which basically makes that Mac a dual-boot machine and turns it into a Windows PC. Not sure I see much advantage here unless you do a lot of work on a Mac when it is running the Apple Mac OS.

[Allen42acj]

I just ordered a new PC.
https://www.refurbdepot.com/HP_PAVIL...0F_AY604AA.cfm
One I have has been acting up a bit..

[Barton Brown]

Looks like a winner! I particularly like the price , about 1/2 of what I paid for parts when I assembled my PC last year...

[tlsapp]

The machine I developed X3 on cost us about $1300 to build a year ago.

Doug, do you have your system specifications posted anywhere? I've looked at George's, and would like to know what you are using.

I'm getting ready to attempt my first build, and am gathering info.
Thanks,

[Doug Park]

My system is tuned for software development and intentionally at the lower end of the i7 quad core spectrum. It has a fairly weak video card as well. It is not the system I would build to run Chief on, but does work pretty well. I currently am running 8GB of ram.

Today I would look at one of 6 core systems, a High end gaming card and probably put 12-16 GB of ram in. I might also look at an ssd drive to improve the speed of undo.

The reality is that the system you buy should be tuned for your needs and budget.

[lbuttery]

Leslie:

consider getting USB 3.0 ports, they are new and fast

Lew

[tlsapp]

intentionally at the lower end of the i7 quad core spectrum.

Smart- I'm glad you're not designing it on a machine like George's.

[bendcadgirl]

Thanks, Doug. You make an excellent point about what you are using for development. From your point of view you have to cover the spectrum of what CA users might have at their own desks.

[portrait]

Hello,

I'm a fresh user, and bought a new computer before purchasing X3. I read in the forums that X3 supports multi core systems, but i want to learn that if it supports double processors.
My computer is actually a workstation with a Intel Workstation Board S5520SC(http://www.intel.com/products/workst...c-overview.htm) and double Xeon E5504 quad-core processors on it. Can the software support the eight cores on two different processors? Should i expect a significant improvement? This is important for me because i currently work on a high rise residential building with 38 storeys,so i'll really need a great performance. (By the way, i know that the software has a 30 floors restriction, but this is another issue.)

Thank you very much...

[curbappeal]

Dan, I posted the below info a few days ago and got some good feedback. I have copied it below.... Can you give me your take on this system?

Thanks Rob

_____________________________
I am having Dell build me a new desktop and wanted some input. We are a design build remodeling company and i use X-2 pretty heavy. My current machine is a Intel duo core 186 GHz and has 3 GB ram and is running XP Pro. Below is what i am looking at. Please let me know your thoughts of this system with chief along with all the other daily office applications. Thanks

Dell Studio XPS 9000
Windows 7 Professional, 64bit
Intel® Core™ i7-920 processor (8MB L3 Cache, 2.66GHz)
9GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs
640GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive

ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 (other option from Dell is the Nvidia GTS 240 but the reviews for the ATI says its in a totally different class than the Nvidia) My current PC has the Nvidia GT8800 with 512 memory

16X CD/DVD Burner + Roxio Creator 10 Premier - Ultimate Burn/Authoring

[Doug Park]

As far as Chief is concerned it sees multiple cores the same as it sees multiple CPUs so you should see all the cores working for certain operations, such as ray tracing.