ARCHICAD 19 Reviews

[Laszlo Nagy]

http://www.aecmag.com/software-mainmenu-32/856-review-archicad-19-performance-bim

[Laszlo Nagy]

Well, there is still 20 days left from June.

[Anonymous]

Steve wrote:

I was referring to rendering with ArchiCAD.
My mobile workstation came with a general purpose video card and a
2GB nVIDIA Quadro 4000M for use with processing files that are compatible with GPU processing. I use it with Maxwell Render but ArchiCAD rendering is not taking advantage of it because ArchiCAD is not GPU compatible in that regard. ( as far as I know )

Maxwell is a CPU renderer just like Cinerender, so your GPU will not make your renders go any faster (it does use the GPU for updating multilight, but the actual rendering is plain CPU).

When Maxwell Render is updated to use the GPU for rendering it will also work with Maxwell in ArchiCAD.

Regards Ole

[Anonymous]

I disagree. The proper graphics card allows you to work efficiently in 3D. Navigating complex models requires a lot of GPU power. The more the better.

Matt wrote:

KeesW wrote:
If one does good quality architectural work comprising the usual plans, elevations, sections and some 3D to illustrate proposals without making presentation one's life's work, is it worth paying the extra for high end graphic cards?

It seems to be a common misconception with many ArchiCAD users that a high end graphics card will make a huge difference to the overall performance of ArchiCAD.

From all of the testing our company has done (and there has been a fair bit) the graphics card doesn't make a lot of difference. In my opinion, assuming you aren't doing regular rendering, you are better off saving some money on the graphics card and getting an SSD, followed by a better processor. RAM is also cheap so there's no reason not to have plenty.

We've also found that it's not always the type of graphics card you have but the exact driver version that can make quite a substantial difference. Some driver versions work with ArchiCAD a lot better than others.

[Anonymous]

johnadrian wrote:
"Beta testers have told me that it’s a significant improvement and absolutely screams on Apple’s new Mac Pro, which comes with an Intel Xeon processor with up to 12 cores." ". . . ArchiCAD 19 is the only multi core BIM tool that could justify the purchase of a lovely Mac Pro and make use of the cores on its Xeon processor." Thank you for sharing the article it is a good read

I have one of these machines and we have seen on our converted project to 19 an actual slowdown overall and have not seen any background processing improvements. The worst is the multi story marque, if it is active on plan viewpoint then switching windows brings up spinning beach ball for what seems likes minutes.

Updates of drawings takes longer.

[AndyMcLeod]

Stan wrote:

johnadrian wrote:
"Beta testers have told me that it’s a significant improvement and absolutely screams on Apple’s new Mac Pro, which comes with an Intel Xeon processor with up to 12 cores." ". . . ArchiCAD 19 is the only multi core BIM tool that could justify the purchase of a lovely Mac Pro and make use of the cores on its Xeon processor." Thank you for sharing the article it is a good read

I have one of these machines and we have seen on our converted project to 19 an actual slowdown overall and have not seen any background processing improvements. The worst is the multi story marque, if it is active on plan viewpoint then switching windows brings up spinning beach ball for what seems likes minutes.

Updates of drawings takes longer.

I agree with Stan. Straight out of the box Archicad 19 seems slower than 18 generating windows and updates. I've yet to experiment with it but it is a frustrating start.

[abdelaziz]

disable icon 3d cut, if you work in 2d

[rjwilden]

Getting a slight pause for the black dots to show when selecting anything in the 3D window.
Agree also that nothing is much faster than in 18.

[Katalin Borszeki]

Dear All,
To keep you updated..we have requested a file in this issue to examine what could be going on and received one from Stan Rostas. When looking at the file we were able to pinpoint to a problem at the end of 3d navigation - once the orbit tool is released and the drawing is updating - that we have since corrected and is planned to be part of the next update. However, we are unsure if the slowness that Stan experienced with the file is the same that we have experienced since we didn't get a more detailed desciption from him just yet. Waiting for your input Stan and also the version 18 file that you were comparing to! Thanks much, k

[Anonymous]

Katalin,

I do not have the time to respond in detail because all aspects of ArchiCAD 19 are so slow that I am missing deadlines due to the inability to get things done quickly. What should take a half a day is taking all day. All our users who have migrated their projects are seeing the same issues which span multiple type of computers mostly Mac but even a few Windows 7 computers.

We are seeing no background processing of tabbed views or just views in general, they have to be either rebuild or they update upon opening. We have not experienced any background processing improvements and this on a 12 core Mac Pro.

Just drawing a revision bubble on a layout caused the view to redraw, which sounds minor but if you lose 3-5 second 10 times per layout for 101 layouts over the course of the day it adds up.

Here is a short list of actions that are very slow.

Updating Hotlinks
Updating External Drawings
Plan, Section, Elevation, 3d screen redraws.
Opening dialogs associated with hotlinks modules.
Text and Font Editing, Labels
Favorite Palette.
Trace just crushes screen redraw or other type actions.
Elevations that have hatches or patterns.

As it regards the 18 files they have been long gone. With teamwork after the migration we delete the other files from the other server, why would keep them?

You have the 19 files save back to 18 then see the difference?

There are other aspects of the update that we are leveraging in our use but as performance is not one of them, as a user who can zip around the palettes, menus and dialogs having to sit for 10-15 seconds makes the day a long endeavor.

We hope you figure out what is the performance hit as most of our projects are of this medium size scale, cannot imagine working on a larger project size, would need two computers so we could work on the other during the many wait times.

Best,

[Katalin Borszeki]

We are planning on looking at your computer in a remote session asap to find out what could be causing the problems.