ArchiCAD 14 3D Window lags significantly compared to v13

[Anonymous]

I just received and installed version 14; we are on subscription now and am currently using v13. I had the same file opened in v13 so that I could do a side-by-side comparison and check out the new shadows, etc.. Navigation in the 3D window in V13 is very quick and smooth; a pleasure really. But v14 is annoyingly "laggy," and I even had the new shadows feature turned off. I double checked the 3D window settings and openGL options in both versions to make sure I was comparing apples-to-apples, and yes, all settings were identical...

I then tried turning various things on and off and moving sliders around in the v14 version, but I still got noticeable, annoying lag. I will post an image showing the settings I currently use in v13 which pose no problem and have not had issues in previous versions. And, here are my hardware specs:

XP 32 bit
2 Gig Ram
Dual Xeon 5130 @ 2.00 Ghz
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3450/4000 SDI

It's puzzling that 3D navigation is so smooth in v13, but is slow and lags in v14. If anyone can offer advice, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,
Foster

[Anonymous]

Hold on, sorry about not checking before I posted, but I see I don't have the latest driver from NVIDIA. Am downloading it now and will see if that solves the issue.

Thanks,
Foster

[Anonymous]

I just installed the latest INVIDIA driver, and the situation has not changed. Version 13 has smooth navigation, and v14 is very clunky and slow (without shadows turned on). Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Foster

[Anonymous]

How complex your models are?

I see you have nice hardware setup but only 2gigs of RAM
it might be the reason...

I have 4 years old computer and have same issues like you do.
These days I am looking for new PC and hope it will solve the problem.

[Anonymous]

Foster wrote:
I just installed the latest INVIDIA driver, and the situation has not changed. Version 13 has smooth navigation, and v14 is very clunky and slow (without shadows turned on). Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Foster

Hi John
Well IMO 14 is slower.
With xp you'll get roughly 1.3 more gigs for 2; (xp maxes at 3.3 roughly), than you already have.
And although you installed newer drivers, the card seems a bit dated, but I'm not sure about that.
The memory in vid card might be low and slower also, and 14 just might be
the feather that for now is too much. I'm hoping 14.1 will speed up a bit myself and that's with a newer setup.
If it was me, with your machine specs, I'd replace the vid card, and go up to "4gigs" of system ram. It might hold you off for a bit and you might just then have a back up machine, which I would never consider being without.

EDITED: For now you might try Contours set to draft, and try turning off Transparency in shading? . Also set a layer combo so that in 3d internal objects are off. Even though you don't see them I think their being calculated.

[Greg Kmethy]

Part of the slowness in ArchiCAD 14 may occur from the advanced model illumination employed in ArchiCAD 14. ArchiCAD 14 now uses Per-Pixel Lighting which gives a much more realistic result. (see image below - on the left is ArchiCAD 13, on the right is ArchiCAD 14) This feature does need more video card power, but according to our tests it causes a slowdown of 20-30% which should not be noticeable if your card is powerful enough. (as long as the frame per sec rate is above 30, you can not really see a speed difference).

[Anonymous]

gkmethy wrote:
....Per-pixel_lighting]Per-Pixel Lighting which gives a much more realistic result....

Thanks for the heads up Gergely.
At least I'm getting something for it, so it's a good thing for me I guess.
On my new machine I don't think it's 20-30% slower,(but maybe 5-10%?), but for those who have yet to upgrade that might be the case.
Maybe for those who can't upgrade right now, the answer might be a switch to turn it off for those who can't upgrade just yet?

[Anonymous]

Yes, thank you very much for the reply Gergely. I did notice that the lighting was somewhat different in version 14. I went to adjust my frame per sec rate under the OpenGL Options, but oddly it will only allow me to enter 25 as a maximum... If I type 30 or more, it just reverts the number to 25. Is this because of a limitation of my Graphics Card, or is it some kind of bug?

I did, by the way, notice an improvement when I adjusted it to 25 from the original setting of 10. It is, however, still "clunky." Also, I did throw 2 more gigs of memory into the computer (effectively 3.25 gigs under XP), and it made no difference whatsoever.

Lastly, Gergely, am I to understand correctly that by selecting a new "recommended" graphics card this problem will completely disappear given my current hardware setup? Or has the testing not been extensive enough to guarantee that? I am quite certain that my current graphics card was "recommended" at some point in time; I guess it's hard to ask for continuity in today's ever-changing and improving hardware reality. I would just like to know before I recommend to the boss that he replace all of our current workstations' graphics cards.

Thank you,
Foster

[Anonymous]

I too found lag issues going from 13 to 14, however I use a 3Dconnexion space navigator and after testing I found that I needed different speed settings using it in 14. Tried to navigate using the keyboard and there were no issues at all, very smooth. So it was the space navigator that was causing the problems.