topic Re: Best and optimal configuration for ArchiCAD in Installation & update

Best and optimal configuration for ArchiCAD

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 10:45:36 GMT

Hello there and Merry Christmas! We bought recently a new configuration for our office. In my opinion we have something in the middle class of computers:

Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 3.2 GhZ
RAM: 16 GB DDR4
Video card: GeForce GTX 1070 8GB DDR5
HDD: ADATA SX9000NP

I'm really pleased with the configuration, but I'm not sure if this is optimal. We need two computers for renders and two other only for work in ArchiCAD. Could you give me an advice, what configuration will be the best option compared by price and performance. Do we need for every future computer a gaming video card in order to perform good enough? Do we have to spend so much money in order to work smooth in Archicad

I have one other concern. After we both this new configuration, we compared it with our other hardware.

1. Configuration (the new one) with windos 10 pro

2. Thinkstation D20 with windows 10 pro
- processor: Xeon 5675
- RAM: 12GB ECC
- video: Quadro 4000
- SSD

3. Assembled configuration with windows 7 pro
Processor: intel i5 4th generation
Video: AMD 1gb RAM
RAM: 16 GB DDR3
SSD

The new one beat them really hard in the render test...I made a render on exact same project with exact same camera and level detail (final) and the old ones completed in 24-26 minutes, but the new one did the test for 2:20 minutes, which is 10 time faster.
Unfortunately the 2D work is not so different (not so smoother and better than I wanted and expected to be) and I asked my self if we are doing something wrong, because our projects aren't that big...the biggest one from this year is a residential building wit 8000 sq. meter built up area. If our 2D work isn't that good and smooth with this new configuration, what kind of hardware are using the other firms, who are responsible for skyscrapers and projects with 10 time more square meter of information and polygons.

Are we missing something or the 2D work in Archicad isn't so optimized for the hardware? I opened the task manager while I was working on the new configuration and the hardware was hardly loaded and this is the most interesting thing...I was expecting much more from this new configuration or maybe from Archicad. Do you have any idea if they are any solutions for my concerns.

Re: Best and optimal configuration for ArchiCAD

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Jan 2018 18:54:36 GMT

Anyboyd with some solution?

Re: Best and optimal configuration for ArchiCAD

Laszlo Nagy — Mon, 08 Jan 2018 05:50:04 GMT

For rendering the more cores the processor has the faster the render (CineRender in ARCHICAD). This is why the AMD Ryzen is so much faster because it has 8 cores and 16 threads, double of earlier i5 and i7 processors.

For 2D I do not think you need such a powerful gaming card. I bought a 1060 but I think even that is very powerful.
I think if you buy any of the 10xx series, you will be fine, they are all very powerful and will be for years. I think even if you buy a 1050, or a 1050 TI (which has more memory - will be enough for longer), you will be fine. You do not need the most powerful gaming card for ARCHICAD if you do not play games (or even if you play games, the 1050 Ti will be enough for 1080p gaming at highest settings for most games).

The 2D performance should be fine, should be fast, smooth. Check 3 things:
- you have the latest hotfix for ARCHICAD installed
- you have the latest graphics card driver installed
- in the Work Environment\Advanced Redraw Options page, make sure your "2D Drawing hardware Acceleration" is set to "'Full". You can also play with the settings on this page if you still experience slowness, so you may be able to find which setting is causing the slowness (but generally it should not be slow with such a card, even with much more complex models).

Re: Best and optimal configuration for ArchiCAD

agroni — Sat, 24 Feb 2018 18:54:21 GMT

LaszloNagy wrote:
For 2D I do not think you need such a powerful gaming card. I bought a 1060 but I think even that is very powerful.

You are right about the graphic card and the 2D. It is sad that the program cannot use the multiple core to work on 2D. Maybe there is a technical reason for that...or at least I hope

On the other hand, with the 2D Acceleration I have noticed in our huge projects that it helps turning it all the way down. I don't understand the logic behind this step, but it really helps the movement in 2D. Sadly, this 2D Acceleration does not influence the switching of a floor plan (for the first time), therefore it takes up to 20sec for the program to read all the information.

Re: Best and optimal configuration for ArchiCAD

Lingwisyer — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 09:34:57 GMT

Sadly, this 2D Acceleration does not influence the switching of a floor plan (for the first time), therefore it takes up to 20sec for the program to read all the information.

Figure this might be due to the fact that the program needs to cache the new floor plan, so it's less about floating point calculations which is done by your CPU and more about pulling data from where ever it is stored and copying it to your RAM so the bottle neck in this case becomes the HD speed, BUS speed and/or RAM speed.

Ling.

Re: Best and optimal configuration for ArchiCAD

genarch — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 23:33:54 GMT

I have the same complaint about 2D redraws in ArchiCAD. I just bought a new iMac Pro and, while 3D navigation and rendering times are notably faster, the 2D redraws just aren't. It's frustrating!

Re: Best and optimal configuration for ArchiCAD

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 10:14:20 GMT

THe guys from Graphisoft admit that there was a problem with the 2D working and that's why in the presentation of 22 version was said, that it faster then the previous version. I tested it too and there is huge difference

Re: Best and optimal configuration for ArchiCAD

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 23:52:38 GMT

Hello, I'm here just recently ...
Which of the four processors is better for ArchiCAD 22: Intel Core i7 8700, Intel Core i7 8700K, AMD Ryzen 7 2700, AMD Ryzen 7 2700x?
Well, if it's not difficult to write the actual configuration for August 2018 for ArchiCAD 22.
Thank you