Slow 3D performance using 8.1

[Anonymous]

I am experiencing really poor performance on 3D renderings (particularly Shading mode) as follows:

Mode Initial draw (seconds) Move right (seconds)
------ -------------------------- ------------------------
Block: 4 (almost acceptable) .5 (acceptable)
Wire: 4 (almost acceptable) 2 (sluggish)
Hidden: 6 (sluggish) 3 (very sluggish)
Shade: 105 (unusable) 90 (very unusable)

View is a Generic Axonometry with 3D settings as follows:
3D Engine: Internal Engine
Contours: Draft
Vectoral Hatching: Off
Transparency in Shading: Off
Vectoral Sun Shadows: Off

System is reasonably performant / current:
2 way SMP 1Ghz P3 Xeon with 1GB ram (~512 free)
XP Pro SP1
Archicad 8.1.0 R1 (USA) (1307)
Performance monitor shows both CPU's running about 50% during rendering (~2% when idle).

I don't know how to quantify the project complexity (is there a dialog somewhere that shows how many objects there are or something?) but it's just a 2 story post and beam residence with some furniture and plumbing fixtures represented - not more complex than some of the samples I have seen.

Are others experiencing similar perf problems? Is there a setting I am missing? Is there a FAQ on this somewhere?

thanks,
greg

ps. Ironically my PPU key expired while timing the Shading rendering...sigh

[__archiben]

greg

i am using a mac. they're always light on the RAM (CPU & GPU) - 64MB ATI on this brand new top-of-the-range machine.

your times seem way too slow to me looking at your image there.

what size is your file? if you are willing, i would be glad to give it a try. send me a PM if so and we can arrange to transfer (my e-mail address in the signature there can't accept big files).

as a thought: how far away from the project origin are you? i can see the x,y,z origin in the window there, but is this the user origin or project origin? also sorting out 4850 library loading errors is going to help some - especially if you have duplicates rather than missing parts!

~/archiben

[#3]

greg

try switching off the doors in "elements to view in 3d". i would be interested to know if it makes a difference, as i have had a similar problem with 8.1.
switching off doors immediately had the model constructing fast (~8s) and positively spinning in 3d. i then switched on door type by door type with find & select until two culprits were isolated. one was a sliding door looking similar to yours in the picture. no matter how i change their object settings, so far no improvement - when they're on, go have lunch

regards

dirk le roux

[__archiben]

greg

received your file OK this morning.

the libraries seem a little awry! lots of duplicate names, etc., however i got a <30 second 3D generation with the settings that arrived with the file.

having sorted out the libraries and macros, i turned on all layers, show all in 3D, turned on transparency in shading, and with OpenGL shading got a 15 second 3D generation.


go to File>Library Manager... and remove all the libraries. then add back in the default library from your archiCAD 8.1 folder. you may well find some missing objects with an "80" after the name. try to find them on plan and replace them with the same library part from the "81" library and you should be ready to go. (this is something graphisoft need to work on - version naming for objects - i can see why they originally called new versions by a different name, but i think that now they need to develop these objects so that they can be replaced by newer versions without affecting the content if they were originally placed as older versions. i guess the sub-types and common script structure is heading this way)

i digress. back to the task at hand:
turning off objects in 3D reduced the generation time to <5 seconds. navigation is also quick.

your file is right on the project origin, and there were only 10 duplicates in the whole project (not enough to cause your kind of 3D times). if you want to find duplicates, there is an add-on in your 'goodies' folder: go to Tools>Add-on Manager... and choose "Search for more Add-ons..." from the 'edit list of available add-ons' drop-down tab. navigate to your goodies folder and find the "Check Duplicates" add-on. after clicking OK it will then show in the tool menu.

i suspect that running through the steps above will help, but not really solve your problem. the times i am getting suggest that the culprit is your machine rather than archiCAD. i will look through all of the objects you have in the project later to see if there is one causing the 5 to 15 second leap, but there are quite a few . . .

i'll also e-mail the modified PLA back to you.

laters
~/archiben

[Anonymous]

Ben - thanks so much for your time and your benchmarks - will try to reproduce.

Understood wrt library conflicts - yes i have upgraded Archicad a couple times with this project and seem to have created a rats nest - i will start working on resolving those. Agree versioning is always a problem (reminds me of COM ClassID's....would be nice if Archicad default behaviour was to use version independent identifiers for library parts....but now I really digress!).

I tried to open your archive attachment directly and got 3 missing library elements related to rafters -so 3d rendering is disabled - not sure why these are missing in archive...tried extracting archive to folder, same problem...

Unfortunately i am leaving for vacation tomorrow morning (mauii for 10 days!) so this issue will have to stay unresolved until i get back.

Thanks again - will advise re outcome.

aloha,
greg

[Djordje]

Greg wrote:
Thanks Djordje.

3D Generic Axonometric image with Objects turned off attached.

I still see lots of shrubs around ... try losing it. Also, I see overlapping elements (triangles missing). Did you check duplicates? Look in the stupid Goodies folder for it, as well as Profiler. WHY ?!??!

Is the stuff butting up properly or is it overlapping?

Try to export your model as DXF and don't take a sip of coffee when you see the size ...

I would still reduce the 3D window, let's say 1024 is quite enough.

[Anonymous]

Djordje wrote:
I still see lots of shrubs around ...

Sorry, I attached the wrong screenshot - that is the version with Objects on (Objects off only seems to affect performance nominally anyways).

Dirk wrote:
try switching off the doors in "elements to view in 3d".

Bingo! Just eliminating doors caused initial rendering to drop from 250 to 15 seconds!!!

Nice catch Dirk - thanks a ton - you just made my vacation!

Will embark on general library cleanup and identify which specific door type/behaviour is the offender.

Thanks again everyone - will post a final summary in a couple weeks.

cheers,
greg

[Anonymous]

Greg wrote:
Further this new "noisy fire hazard" video card has absolutely terrible 1024x768 fonts (my preferred resolution) so I have to run it in 1280x1024 which is amazingly crisp except I can barely read the type it's so small.

I think that the more resolution you have the better, especially with CAD. I have mine set to 1600x1200 and I'm even looking to add a second monitor (21" Iiyama) so I'll have loads of space.

If I were you I'd put your resolution upto the maximum your monitor can handle @75Hz> refresh rate.

If fonts are too small you can enlarge them in the Effects tab of [Windows] Display Properties, or infinitely scale them in the Advanced section if you drag the scale/ruler type graphic thing.

HTH

[#9]

Greg wrote:
Bingo! ... thanks a ton - you just made my vacation!

greg

glad to have been of help. BTW, your screen card specs make me suspect you can still improve rendering times by setting opengl to "performance" as opposed to quality ("high performance" doesn't really seem to achieve further gain). reached through "display properties - settings - advanced - click on your adapter driver tab".

of course our shared problem is still not really solved (apart from the comfort of knowing there's nothing wrong with your system). it's difficult to present buildings without doors! i think this is a problem for graphisoft to solve. when you return let's compare notes on which doors are the problem so GS can get cracking! ITMT leave your worries behind and enjoy your holiday!

[__archiben]

Greg wrote:

Djordje wrote:
I still see lots of shrubs around ...

Sorry, I attached the wrong screenshot - that is the version with Objects on (Objects off only seems to affect performance nominally anyways).

Dirk wrote:
try switching off the doors in "elements to view in 3d".

Bingo! Just eliminating doors caused initial rendering to drop from 250 to 15 seconds!!!

very strange!

when i had the file the doors and windows on and off made a very nominal difference to the times. . it was turning the objects only off that really got it to cut down. hmm? i suspect that the library conflicts are to blame for this aspect of things. sorting out duplicates and MACROS helped with initial times for me.

djordje - i turned the shrubs off as the first thing to test - no change. and there were only 10 duplicates (deleting them again made a very little difference). there are a lot of complex library parts in there! running machines, etc...

~/archiben

[#11]

~/archiben wrote:
very strange!

when i had the file the doors and windows on and off made a very nominal difference to the times. . it was turning the objects only off that really got it to cut down.

archiben

i strongly suspect the problem relates to how the system assigns memory use. i have a 256mb nvidia geforce fx5600xt video card and 512mb dual ram. no duplicate parts on my problem file. greg has that 128mb radeon and 1gb ram. on this kind of wire such things should not happen. however we both use ms xp pro and you're on mac 10.x. when i have the doors on in my problem file one can see the system progressively moving to hard disk usage until the slooow generation gets almost permanently lost in HD space. manual manipulation of swap file size helps none.

still i think its a problem graphisoft need to solve re. how certain doors behave on ms xp. once greg is back we can compare and identify the exact doors & send to GS.

sala kahle

dirk le roux