Hardware Guide for X3

[PhoenixConstruction]

Did George get it yet?

It's on its way.

I think he might be waiting until the mortgage is paid off on his first system

Been here 32 years, got no mortgage

[kernsdan]

Thought I would post here as well. How good is this system? What suggestions would you have?

[Allen Brown]

I think he might be waiting until the mortgage is paid off on his first system

[Saint Cyr]

Well it been along time since I had to up date my system. Right now I'm running a Comapaq Evo with 2 GB of memory A big hard drive with an Intel Video card. Its able to run X2 but slow so with design business coming back it looks like I will need to upgrade but my only question is do I go with a PC or change over to a MAC Pro?

So I turned to the Hardware Guide for system requirements for help which is located on Chiefs website.

PC Minimum*
• Windows 7 / Vista / XP
• 2 GHz processor
• 2 GB of Memory
• 8 GB of available hard disk space
• 128 MB video card for Windows 7/XP
• 256 MB video card for Windows Vista (to enable Artistic rendering)
• OpenGL: 2.0
• Internet: High speed for Videos, and Catalog / Library downloads

Recommended

Tips on Buying a New Computer
• Windows 7 / Vista / XP (Windows 7 64 is the best choice, followed by Windows 7 32 and then XP)
• Multi-Core CPU (Celerons are not recommended)
• 4 GB of Memory
• 8 GB of available hard disk space
• A newer NVIDIA or ATI video card supporting OpenGL 2.0 or better with at least 512MB of video memory; more is better


Mac Minimum*
• Mac Book Pro or Mac Pro running Leopard OS or newer with Windows 7/Vista/XP Service Pack 2 running on Boot Camp
• Video Graphics: NVIDIA Graphics with 256 MB dedicated Video RAM
• 2 GHz processor
• 2 GB of Memory
• Mouse, 2 Button
• Internet: High speed for Videos, and Catalog / Library downloads

Recommended

• An Intel Mac meeting or exceeding the PC requirements above running Leopard OS or newer with Vista 64 under Boot Camp

Now my only question is still what should I buy PC or Mac?

Larry
of
Benelli Restoration now Saint Cyr Designs

[lbuttery]

Larry:

while the MAC can run windows/chief it is still a hybrid

I would recommend staying with a PC unless you have other reasons for buying a MAC

the minimum requiements are just that "minimum"
while it will/may run you probably won't enjoy the experience

always try to buy a PC that will still be vibrant 4-5 years down the road

check out the specs on the $2000+ PC's see what they offer and then back down to the next lower level

to save money I focus on getting the best for items that can't easily be upgraded and plan for later upgrades when money/need allows and generally add items externally

pick out a reference system that you wish you could buy
start with Sony, Sager, HP, Dell,Toshiba

I would recommend only getting Nvidia for the video card
but others have issues with their support for dual monitors
I'm using a 37" monitor/tv so that's not an issue for me

also consider getting Win 7 64-bit i7 CPU

pick out a system and send me the specs and I will review it for you

I'm not up on all the latest and greatest but I can do some research


Lew

[Doug Park]

I read some benchmarking information on this new processor and it looks really promising.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/18581/1

At $1000 it is definitely on the bleeding edge so probably something that most of us will wait to step up to. If anyone does try this please share your impressions.

I'm going to push to get one of these in-house for testing of X3.

[Allen Brown]

It has been announced that x3 and beyond will make use of multiple core CPU's, so make that a priority.

[Richard Lamoy]

It has been a long time since I have posted as I have stuck with Chief 10 now for years. It did the job well for a number of years and I saw no reason to keep replacing the computer just to get the latest version of Chief. The Dell 8400 is getting too finicky with the original system load. My plan files are stored on the server on a raid so are generally safe, but the workstation has just gotten too problematic. I have taken the plunge and will soon receive the new computer. I tried to plan for Chief X3 as well as other apps I need to run and thought the additional video card with extra monitors past two would benefit me. The new one is a Dell Precision Workstation T5500 running a quadcore multithreading Xeon 5620 2.40GHz,12M,5.86GT/s processor. It has the capability to add a second processor. It is running Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. Memory is 12GB DDR3 ECC SDRAM Memory,1066MHz and with the extra processor card can go to 48 GB. I know they aren't the best for Chief but it has dual nVidia Quadro 580 cards. There are two terrabyte hard drives mirrored. I'm hoping this system will be adequate to run X3 for a while. Now all I need to do is wait for X3 to be released.

[Bradley Boltz]

Richard,
If you're still using V10, I would highly recommend seeing if you can qualify to get the beta version as soon as possible. So many of the functions and ways of getting from 'A to B' are really different and will require you to master a bit of a learning curve in order to get comfortable and proficient if you have not already experienced x1 or x2.
I had a **** of a time adjusting to the changes and was not very happy with the experience. Definitely get the manual and read the heck out of it or go the tutorial video route. Regards and don't hurt yourself with that powerfull new system of yours!-Brad

It has been a long time since I have posted as I have stuck with Chief 10 now for years. It did the job well for a number of years and I saw no reason to keep replacing the computer just to get the latest version of Chief. The Dell 8400 is getting too finicky with the original system load. My plan files are stored on the server on a raid so are generally safe, but the workstation has just gotten too problematic. I have taken the plunge and will soon receive the new computer. I tried to plan for Chief X3 as well as other apps I need to run and thought the additional video card with extra monitors past two would benefit me. The new one is a Dell Precision Workstation T5500 running a quadcore multithreading Xeon 5620 2.40GHz,12M,5.86GT/s processor. It has the capability to add a second processor. It is running Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. Memory is 12GB DDR3 ECC SDRAM Memory,1066MHz and with the extra processor card can go to 48 GB. I know they aren't the best for Chief but it has dual nVidia Quadro 580 cards. There are two terrabyte hard drives mirrored. I'm hoping this system will be adequate to run X3 for a while. Now all I need to do is wait for X3 to be released.

[Logan.roberts]

Now that X3 is looming large on the horizon, I thought it would be good to post some guidelines for hardware for X3 so that you can make an informed decision if you plan on buying new hardware.

For the most part our system requirements will remain the same as for X2 with the caveat that X3 is designed for multi-core systems.

This means that for a few operations you may see a slight slowdown on single core and single core hyperthreaded hardware. While we will work to keep performance on these systems as fast as possible, our focus now and for the foreseeable future will be on multi-core machines.

To that end the following are my recommendations for X3.

1) More cores is better.

We have some performance optimizations coming in X3 that will utilize as many cores as you can get for some operations. Much of our development work has been done using i7s and other Quad Core hardware. We are pretty sure that some of the new 6 core machines will be an even better choice, but haven't done benchmarking on them yet.

We started focusing on the i7 hardware about a year ago because we figured that by the time X3 shipped it would slip off the bleeding edge and be more affordable. i7 hardware has now moved into the main stream price range. We are even seeing i7 laptops available.

This should make the older Core 2 Duos drop in price quite a bit. For someone that is looking for really cheap hardware that X3 will do good on a Core 2 Duo would be my recommended cheap machine. However, look around older quad cores are available in desktops in the $500 price range.

2) Memory.

X3 will be easier on memory for 3D operations than X2. In some cases this is very significant. Still, if you are getting new hardware more memory is better.

For a new machine I wouldn't get anything with less than 4 GB.

While memory speed still is important, the speed of memory in the multi-core machines is generally improving over time so it is becoming less of factor when looking at hardware.

3) A 64 bit OS is a must have.

Windows 7 64-bit is the best OS to run X3 on. X3 will ship as a 32 bit application.

The main reason to go 64 bit is that your extra memory will be used by the OS and other applications making your system faster when dealing with large models in Chief.

So doug, when its says on the system requirements for chief X2 that the programme was designed for multi-cores that is a incorrect statement????? Beacause that would make sense now that the 4 new computers we got with Quad cores (at chiefs recomendation) are slower than our old ones.

[ECSURFER84]

i am running vista 64, 4gb ram, core two duo 1.8gb, and 8800gts nvidia 512mb

my next machine will be, win7 ultimate, 8-12gb ram, core i7, and an nvidia nForce 740SLI 1gb

gives me quivers, what a sweet machine it will be

[Doug Park]

X2 has some multi-core support. It is however limited which is why I haven't used the term "Designed For Multi-Core" in reference to X2 but have used it in reference to X3 which has significantly more multi-core support. Yes, I know I splitting hairs with the terminology, but we have not made a secret of the limited support for multi-core in X2.

Usually upgrading from say a single core system to a multi-core system will get you a nice boost in performance even for stuff that is single threaded. However, if you went from a fast dual core system to a slower quad core you could be taking a step backwards in performance.

So enough generalities. The real question to ask is what is slower.

If your 3D performance is slower then it might be your video card is the issue or maybe the native drivers were not installed or maybe there is a setting in the video preferences that is different. On my ATI card I need to turn off hardware edge smoothing because it slows things down noticeably.

So spec differences. What did you upgrade to? What were you running before?

It is entirely possible that with some minor tweaking to your system you can improve your performance.

[5ft-20 Designs]

I see that X3 will ship as a 32 bit app. Are there plans to have a 64 bit version?

Where can I find info on what is new in X3?

[lbuttery]

Where can I find info on what is new in X3?

This info is never published until the release occurs

Lew

[Doug Park]

I see that X3 will ship as a 32 bit app. Are there plans to have a 64 bit version?

Where can I find info on what is new in X3?

We are looking into what it will take to do 64 bit for a future version of Chief.

X3 is getting close. Stay tuned.