Hardware Guide for X3

[Tim Sorrentino]

I have a Dell Precision M6400 with a 2.53GHz Quad-Core Intel CPU, 8GB of RAM and a Quadro FX3700M Video Card that has 1GB of VRAM. I started with Vista 64-bit and just upgraded to Windows 7 64-Bit and wish I could tell you that I get blazing fast performance from all of this expensive hardware and software. I don't notice any performance improvements with Windows 7 in any respect whatsoever and X2 renderings still take measurable amounts of time to build. Unfortunately I'm limited to a laptop platform so that I can take the "show" on the road and it's frustrating when I creating drawings and almost embarassed when I'm showing prospective customers renderviews as they look at the ceiling by the time I'm on to the third renderview and they're just sitting and waiting for the drawing to complete. Hopefully X3 code will optimized and enhanced to perform faster renderview builds. Can't change out CPUs and Video Cards on laptops....that's called buying a new laptop. I've monitored my CPU and memory usage and found that my memory has rarely even approached the 4GB mark. So if I had it to do over again (and I probably will have to in a year or two), I'd go for the most powerful CPU with 4GB of RAM and make sure that the particular laptop model had the provision for increasing the memory. With regard to the Video Card; it's hard to say if a lesser card would perform as well so I would stick with the best video card available in whatever model you choose. Hope this helps.

[thorn]

That would seem to be a good system………. Is it new? Are you comparing your rendering times to a previous system or are you saying you haven’t notice any speed improvements just going from Vista to Windows 7?

[baljamin]

U can update XP to Vista.

[brian vickery]

In the past week, I upgraded to a Mac 2.66 512gb core i5 with 8mb ram. Installed win 7 and am having nothing but problems with X2 not recognizing and allowing me to open files. It works one day and then it does nto work the next. I have reinstalled each day and it continually uses emerg transfers!
What are the improvments to the X3 architecture that make it happier and easier to run on MAC.

[Doug Park]

This is atypical of the general experience of running Windows 7 under boot camp.

Are you running under boot camp or are you using a virtual machine such as parallels or VMWare?

We don't support running Chief under any virtual machine on any platform because of compatibility issues with hardware.

You would probably be best served by contacting our support team. They may be able to get you pointed in the right direction a lot quicker.

[dparsley]

Basically in same boat as Tim, I Have 2.66 dull core intel with 3gig of memory running on windows xp 32 bit with FX 1500 Nvidia quadro, 256 m. Got new system in past month, 2.8 intel I-7 quad core,6 gig of ram on windows 7 64 bit pro.(pro allowed virtual pc thank goodness) Had to up grade two programs to work on 64 bit and then had to install vertual pc to run older programs and printers to be able to work. Ati 4550 vidio card 256 meg came with system. Approximately $1300.00 spent. I absolute see no deference!! what a waste of money, should have waited till chief went to 64bit. Changed vidio card to the quadro ,still no diferance. Advise,stick with what you have unless it is less than a duel core and less than 3gig.

[lbuttery]

David:

you may want to contact tech support as they might be able to suggest various optimizations ???

they are closed on weekends

Lew

[Marc Kleinmann]

Hi all;
I'm a new Chief architect user and am in the process of purchasing a new computer. I am currently runnning an older model iMac with a core duo processor and will either upgrade to a dell pc with i5 or i7 or the new 27" iMac with i5 or i7. Now to my question: Is there considerable and worthwile difference between the performance enhancements for Chief Architect for those 2 processors? CA will be the only software I run that will require any heavy processing power. Also - could you please explain the exact reason why it is not recommended to run CA under VM or parallels?

Thx in advance,
Marc

[lbuttery]

Marc:

try some searches on "virtual" and the CA staff (Doug/Dan) have given their reasons and opinions about using virtual machines

Bottom line - while it may work it probably won't work well

Lew

[Doug Park]

David,

A couple of thoughts on speed.

1) Running under a virtual machine will most likely not give you any OpenGL video acceleration.

2) Make sure you install the video card drivers from the vendor. I've never seen Microsoft install a driver for a video card that has OpenGL acceleration.

The more cores will have a much greater effect on speed in X3. For X2 you should see some improvement in speed over a dual core. However, it all depends on what you are doing. If you were getting 10-15 frames per second drawing on your dual core 20-30 frame per second drawing on a i7 won't seem faster. On the other hand if you were getting 1-2 frames per second 2-4 frames per second should be noticeably faster, but will still seem slow.

I't important to put numbers on the timing as perception of speed can lead you to incorrect conclusions.

I don't know exactly what the speed multiplier would be between the two systems but it is probably closer to 2X than 10X.


Marc,

I would recommend the i7 over the i5, but the specs are starting to get hard to generalize to that now given there are so many different configurations of each being shipped.

We don't support virtual machines because they don't support hardware well. For example most virtual machines don't support any hardware acceleration on video cards. Parallels is one that does, but we have seen numerous issues of it crashing.

Also, we see issues with mouse drivers.

Getting hardware locks configured to work can also be an issue.

In general the VM will not provide full access to your hardware, it will run with less memory, etc. making it difficult to support and your software will run slower on it. In some cases it will be significantly slower.

[StephenHolt1]

I currently have a 256 video card on my Dell Precision T3400. While meeting with a client and showing him his project, my SD view locked up and told me My video card was out of memory. Dell suggested I sak you what video card you would recommend and how big?
Stephen Holt

[dparsley]

Doug I don't run chief under the virtual machine, just printers and software of old stuf I have.

[Doug Park]

I currently have a 256 video card on my Dell Precision T3400. While meeting with a client and showing him his project, my SD view locked up and told me My video card was out of memory. Dell suggested I sak you what video card you would recommend and how big?
Stephen Holt

Chief has a open ended top end. In other words you can build a model that will swamp any video card. Or you can be more cautious with the elements that you put in it to keep within the memory available. There are many posts here on ChiefTalk that discuss how to minimize the memory that you need.

X3 will be more efficient in it's use of video card memory.

Generally a 512MB video card should handle most models. However, if you put a lot of detailed 3D elements into the model you may need to go up from there.

[Allen Brown]

...Is now available: INtel Core I7 980X Extreme Edition, 6 Core Processor

[Francois]

Did George get it yet?