Hardware Benchmarks and ArchiCAD

[Aaron Bourgoin]

The standard suite of hardware benchmarks don't necessarily tell me - the ArchiCAD user - anything about a machine or it's components as they relate to the use of ArchiCAD. An ArchiCAD benchmark such as teh FRE TI example assess ArchiCAD's performace to equipment after the fact.

What I want to do is assess the suitability of a motherboard, a chipset, and/or a graphics component from published hardware tests.

Tomshardware Guide and Annand Tech - for example - use real product applications, synthetic benchmarks and a host of this that seem pointed at either the "gamer" or the "spreadsheet user.

As ArchiCAD is an application that works as a database, a 3D engine and something that throws 2d vectors up on the screen, can anyone offer suggestions as to which benchmarks should be of particular use in evaluating systems for ArchiCAD use.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

My familiarity with computer games extends only to the incarnations of MYST.

The first 3 chapters of this puzzle solving game were quicktime vr based as I recall. The visual imagery got more stunning as the versions advanced, but the game's inventors insisted on using QTVR because the model-based, real-time engines of the day could not showcase the stunning imagery and world creation inside the game.

The new version apparently changes all that. Haven't seen it yet, but it is apparently model based.

I see a parallel to the evolution of ArchiCAD in that regard. QTVR was a technology invented originally to stitch digital photographs together - not photorealistic renderings.

The very bright folks at Graphisoft understood what QTVR could do in a world where the world was virtual and the hardware was not quite up to workstation snuff. QTVR is great in that you can render photorealistically or even immerse your client inside a sketch-type atmosphere to explore an architectural idea.

But, if the rand brothers are ready to move on to something else, maybe its time we did too.


Still on the hunt for great ArchiCAD tweaks.

Dwight wrote:
But run-of-the-mill cards like the ATI All-In-Wonder X800 XT have 256 Mg RAM and can spin a complex full-screen ArchiCAD OpenGL view quite nicely at consumer prices.

Since ArchiCAD doesn't really support the VPU intensive polygon modeling with shading that the games need, the supreme gaming cards are a bit of a waste.

On the video side of it, the "run-of-the-mill" aspect of the gaming cards is definitely appealing. Its a great argument for ArchiCAD to say that it doesn't require the "workstation" grade video cards that cost almost as much as the software to render and twirl large numbers of polygons.

But I'm sure there are flavours of OpenGL just as there are flavours of everything else. I've even heard it suggested that OpenGL is at the end of its roadmap and that better performance and more realistic real-time rendering is possible with engines and standards designed for the consumer marketplace.

How were you able to determine ArchiCAD's requirements of the VPU are modest. What are the VPU requirements?

Where are there specs published on what ArchiCAD's 3D technologies are (or - if they're archaic - aren't). In gamer's logic if you know what the engine exploits then you customize to that.

I'm reading manuals as I wait for the new machine to arrive. They tell me that the control panel for the card can recall presets on the fly that change the card settings as you launch the application. Apart from sheer trial-and-error, is there a way to anticipate what settings might be best or at the very least the means to better understand the various parameters that can be adjusted? Writing this I recall the great chapter in your book on lighting adjustment and the colour of light. Presented as trial and error I came to the end of the chapter knowing a little bit more about why tweaking the settings is useful. What I didn't understand at the time I incorporated by squinting and copying settings. Bottom line - it got me a bit further ahead than I had been.

ArchiCAD video graphics driver specification Possible? Useful?

oiling my skateboard bearings.

Aaron

PS: Does Graphisoft have any in-house gaming enthusiasts?

[Dwight]

You are right - I am not scientific about this issue.

Looking at the current video card issues, they all address rendering aspects that ArchiCAD doesn't currently address - in OpenGL, anyways.

Shadows and texture mapping sophistication in particular.

That is why I observe that ArchiCAD has modest demands on OpenGL. Currently operating a 128 Mg card at 1200 x 1600 dual displays] reasonably complex models rotate with ease. I've concluded that this is currently enough to operate with - but will report further when the 30" display arrives with the 256 Mg card.

So the real barrier to OpenGL speed for the ArchiCAD user seems to be RAM on the card, not fancy and expensive VPU chips.