THE BEST CONFIG FOR ARCHICAD 11

[Anonymous]

Hi,

i need some help to choose the best pc configuration for using Archicad 11.
Can you help me ?
Thankyou a lot!

[Anonymous]

Xeon processors.

Lots of RAM (4GB or more)

Good video card (512MB or more)

Big display (I love my 30")

Right now Apple has the best bang for the buck (in the states at least).
The equivalent Dell is 50% more after the "instant rebate" ($4500 vs $3000) and the HP is two thirds higher at $5000.

You can also get the older generation PCs (Xeon 53xx "Woodcrest" rather than the new 54xx "Harpertown") for about $2000, but they are about half the speed from the benchmarks I've seen.

[Anonymous]

why so much RAM?
archicad is 32bit an cannot address more than 2G (and that includes swapping)

[Anonymous]

zucoc wrote:
why so much RAM?
archicad is 32bit an cannot address more than 2G (and that includes swapping)

Absolutly right.
I have 3GB ram with window xp 32bit.
AC shows 2,3GB to use.
The more ram can help the rendering.

[Anonymous]

Archi wrote:

zucoc wrote:
why so much RAM?
archicad is 32bit an cannot address more than 2G (and that includes swapping)

Absolutly right.
I have 3GB ram with window xp 32bit.
AC shows 2,3GB to use.
The more ram can help the rendering.

theoreticaly any 32 bit aplication can use 3GB of RAM (if used with the 3gb switch). But in my experience it will crash when reaching 2~2.3GB.
WHAT ARE YOU RENDERING ? that is using 2.3GB ???

[Anonymous]

It is useful to have more than 2Gb of RAM as ArchiCAD isn't the only program you may have running on your machine at once. If you are doing some hi-res photoshop work at the same time, for example, you can quite easily use up multi gigabytes of RAM no problem. Having an extra 1.25Gb can really help sometimes!

[Anonymous]

I am not expert for hardware.
I can say just my experience with more ram. I had 1GB and updated to 3GB.
There is almost no speed difference.
Just in case of using other program it makes sense.

[Anonymous]

Matthew wrote:
Good video card (512MB or more)

Here I've a question: I'm evaluating to change the graphic card (GF7300 from my MacPro) to avoid the slowdown I get with Virtual Trace on. The best choice should be a Nvidia 8800GT, but I read in more sites that the card has serious issues with core image and some professional Apps, like Motion and others.
In benchmark I found on barefeats, ATI 2600 card beat the nVidia in any professional task (nVidia wins in gaming by a huge margin), so I'm not sure what really is the best choice for Archicad. Unfortunately there aren't benchmark with Archicad, but it seems to me that GF8800 performs better in 3D OpenGL, but loses in 2D operation, and if it's so, I prefer ATI (and cost's 130 euro less). Can you give your opinion?

[Anonymous]

leave the graphic card !
get a faster CPU
and i don't mean core2quad
get a core2duo or core2extreme
higher clock frequecy will help you. more cores won't
because ac11 is not multi threaded. and i gues ac12 won't be either.

and you need fast RAM

the problem with ghosting views in ac11 is that ac is forced to rebuild two views with different layer combinations and then overlay them. if you ghost from project map instead you'll see big improvement in speed even if the project is very complex.
So, as I was saying, it's not the videocard causing lag, it's the CPU/FSB/RAM

[Anonymous]

Interesting- this is a very particular instance of how CPU and GPU work or don't on certain tasks!

The AC techs ought to step in and watch this topic and recreate it as they work on app design improvements for AC12 and above; depending on how they structure the application layer queries, either the program will use the GPU or the CPU and FSB speed over rendering.

On a side note, that means we consumers have some flexiblilty and solutions if we're using older gear (as if often the case in the real world). So arranging your PROJECTS differently for older gear can mean a WORLD of difference than a way it is arranged on new systems.

(On a side note, the project map, and ghosting from it... is that similar/same to hot linking it? I'm a new user and just curious).