Help understanding AC20 use of hardware

[Anonymous]

Hello,

We are in the process of trying to specify a number of new workstations. We are looking at a decent jump in performance and as such are trying to really get to the bottom of what hardware ArchiCAD uses and when.

We are trying to decipher if ArchiCAD 20 can make use of 2 physical cpu's, each with potentially 10 cores (or 20 cores including hyperthreading).
I understand AC will only use more than one thread(?) for "background processes" although I believe this includes opening/updating sections, elevations, 3D window, details and also panning/zooming/navigating 2D drawings and handling trace references.
This is where in the past we find ourselves waiting around hence the desire to address the CPU issue in our new generation of machines.

We plan to run 128Gb of RAM, with the view that we see a noticeable difference in render time on existing machines with the most RAM in the office. My basic understanding of this is that ArchiCAD/Cinerender does some pre-processing which relies on RAM.

Lastly, we are trying to decide on the benefits of either a Quadro M2000 or M4000. Looking at ArchiCAD bench mark testing there only seems to be a significant jump in performance when running 'large' (10 million polygon) projects. Our current largest projects are at about 5 million but work on the horizon could well hit the 10 million polygon mark.

Just a slight grumble, I have only managed to find information from Graphisoft online that addresses how AC uses cores, multi-processing, hyper-threading etc written in 2012. Is there newer data/explanation for how AC utilises hardware since then that we can use to reliably select and configure new workstations?

[tworks]

I am thinking of investing for a new PC with dual xeon cpu to solve the 'slowness of 2D generating of heavy floorplans'.
Spending 3,5x more money (appr. 1450 euro) on a dual Xeon E5-2630 v4 (40 threads 2.2 GHz)
instead of a single i7-5820 (12 threads 3,3 GHz, 420 euro).
Theoretical that should be 2,2x more cpu-power, right?
According to what I am reading on this forum thread this is not a good idea?

Vahur wrote:
I am talking mostly about ArchiCAD slowness. Yes I compare to AutoCAD as well, but the main target is still ArchiCAD.
My point is that just an average workstation at price ~1500€ is almost equal to insane level workstation costing 5000+ €. You will see almost no diference. It will be just a disappointment. There is no difference if you must wait 10 seconds to complete the operation on ordinary workstation or you must wait 8 seconds on insane workstation. And when 2D geometry coomes into the game, seconds turn into minutes! Is it worth 3500€? You are the one who decides. As for me, I've made my choice.

"You will see almost no diference. It will be just a disappointment."
and
"There is no point to invest into top professional hardware is you are going to work only in ArchiCAD. The cause of its slowness is in software, not hardware."
According to these quotes; Is this a fact and confirmed (by Graphisoft)?

Dan wrote:
Presently we are looking at Xeon E5-2640 v4 - and a motherboard that could potentially accommodate 2 physical CPU's. However at £900 per CPU we really want to be sure whether 2 physical CPU's is going to be of real world benefit.
...
We are trying to decipher if ArchiCAD 20 can make use of 2 physical cpu's, each with potentially 10 cores (or 20 cores including hyperthreading).

I am having the same question as you, Dan. And I was wondering if you are any further and can share your gained wisdome here?

cheers
-------------------------
edited/added:

I read this thread and and another on this forum again.. and I have monitored my ocre activity while working in ArchiCAD... I do understand that the cores most of the times are only used for 10% or so,
but more cores are used at the same time...
so to conclude is that a higher freq core makes not much difference (or has minimal impact) on certain tasks of ArchiCAD (like regenerating heavy floorplans, which is my problem)
i.e. qua core 2,2 compared to quad 3.0....
But more cores might have the better result, coz' more cores will be used then?

So when comparing again:
Spending 3,5x more money (appr. 1450 euro) on a dual Xeon E5-2630 v4 (40 threads 2.2 GHz)
instead of a single i7-5820 (12 threads 3,3 GHz, 420 euro).
Might speed up a lot (regenerating heavy floorplans); 3,3x (40/12)?

added later
I have added a printscreen of the core behaviour while generating heavy floorplan. I have noticed that one core has high workload, and other cores have a small workload.
This might indicate that having many more cores the gain is relatively small coz' the extra cores will add some small amounts.
this examples in numbers (adding % workload); 1x 70%+11x10%=180%
dual Xeon (40 threads); 1x 70%+39x10%=480%.

mmm..? if this calculation makes sense in practice the overall gain is significant after all!

What do you think guys? Does this makes sense or is it an error of thought?

[Anonymous]

TWorks,
A couple of questions to consider before an answer can really be given as you appear to be aiming at the top end and top end performance is a bit like a sports car, can get great performance but requires a significant initial investment and regular maintenance or things start going wrong.
- What size projects are you working on? 10M + polygons? As this will dictate RAM and video card choices.
- Are the files team worked? Shared from a file server? Is the server really up to the task? Do you need to install 10Gb Ethernet?
- How much time are you really waiting for the computer?
- Are you using well scripted objects that do not use project2 commands? Poorly scripted library parts can dramatically slow a project..
Scott

[tworks]

Hi Scott,

thanx for replying...
3Million polygons, no Team work, not from server, waiting almost a minute for generating floorplan...

I know what causes my problem... it is objects that have been morphed.
When I turn that layer off I only have 0,5 Million polygons and it takes 5 seconds to generate the floorplan.
So I have to turn on another layer combination (with these objects off) everytime I need to see the overall floorplan,
then zoom in and turn on the layers again... makes me crazy
So even if I have this workaround... still then.. in a future PC build I want to decimate this problem, because I need this workflow (of morphing objects) in lot of big projects.
(attached you see a hedge object morphed)

cheers, Jeroen

[Laszlo Nagy]

I would recommend that you save those Morph hedges as GDL Objects. You could then even modify its 2D Symbol to a simpler symbol. I think that would dramatically speed up the 2D display of these elements.

I think that main issue with Morphs is that their 2D is a true 3D projection and when there are many complex Morphs this can seriously impact 2D regeneration time. If you use GDL Objects instead, the redraw/regeneration time can be drastically improved.
Of course this does not mean that GRAPHISOFT shouldn't work on drastically improving the performance of the redraw of these elements.

[Erwin Edel]

The 3D projection in floor plan slow down has been around for a while, pretty much since ArchiCAD10 gave us complex profiles. I remember some projects with tiny holes in the complex profile of walls making everything slow down a lot back then. Objects with 3d projected floorplan views slow things down too, same with skylights in roofs/shells.

[tworks]

laszlonagy wrote:
I would recommend that you save those Morph hedges as GDL Objects. ...

Hi laszlonagy,

Yes, I understand that might be a solution in general.

The thing is that I started out with turning objects into morphs,
because I have problems with objects in my workflow (has something to do with texture origins and copied elements; that doe not work with objects).
So if I mkae a gdl again I will have the problem again 😉

It seems for now I have to turn on and off layers all the time
(with the elements that causes the long time waiting).

cheers,

[Anonymous]

Jeroen,
I would look at your workflow as well, if these objects just for 3D visualisations (rendering) I'd look at adding them in rendering application, or if you're using C4D or Octane you could model hedges etc as reasonably simple elements (wall/slab/morph) and use instancing to populate high poly leaves flowers etc over the hedge host element this will render much faster and with higher quality than what you can achieve in ARCHICAD.
Scott

[tworks]

sboydturner wrote:
Jeroen,
I would look at your workflow as well, if these objects just for 3D visualisations (rendering) I'd look at adding them in rendering application, or if you're using C4D or Octane you could model hedges etc as reasonably simple elements (wall/slab/morph) and use instancing to populate high poly leaves flowers etc over the hedge host element this will render much faster and with higher quality than what you can achieve in ARCHICAD.
Scott

Hi,
Thank you for your thoughts. Indeed, that seems logical, but the thing is I had to create this 'heavy' workflow.
1. because I want to have hedges that do not look like simple shapes, but suggest leaves, so I have combined wall and hedge object as well.
2. I do not need change the hedge objects to morphes in regular projects, so then I do not have any problems. But in some housing projects I am visualizing a lot of variation of design and all textures need to be exactly the same (long story why, somI skip that story).
3. objects materials are not affected by setting texture origin and copying them, so I change them to morphs to get the result I want.
4. Instances is a lot of math to do to get a total landscape scene exactly the same 12 times copied in the same pln. So then I would to get the instances in an spreadsheet and add an offset for the total set of instances to get them exactly rhe same. Possible but a lot of work...And it will be a hazzle when changing the hedges in the scene everytime.

So, it seems I am stuck with this clumzy workflow for now, but I need to better that for future.

Cheers,

PS
I am working with ArchiCAD Octanerender plugin.

[Katalin Borszeki]

Hi All,
We have entered this issue as a bug and planning to fix it, however please note that this is a project size fix, not a minor one. As a workaround, as Laszlo Nagy suggested in a previous post, please save Morph elements as GDL Object and simplify their 2d projection.
Best, k