Workstations

[Anonymous]

Wow, what a great forum, i just realised this was here.

I have set up standards in our office for the last 5 years, 15 users and am now taking the time to seriously implement a very thorough template and procedural system so will let you know how it goes and hopefully get some advice.

My first port of call is the workstation configuration which could possible be posted in the hardware forum but i think cad managers generally have a big input into the configuration also. Has anyone spec'd new systems lately? Below is the spec i am looking at, any comments are welcome? Some of the spec has come about from peoples comments in the forums, particularly the video card.

Cpu : Pentium D Dual Core 930 3000 Mhz, 2 x 2048k l2 on-die cache,
800 Mhz fsb, socket 775, EM64T & XD (Intel)
Motherboard : Intel D945P chipset, 1s / 1p / 6usb2 port with
4 x SATA, udma & fdd controller on board (PSNLK Intel)
Memory : 2 x 1024m ddr2-533 PC-4200 (Kingston)
Video card : nVidia 512m 7900GTX PCIe video card
Monitor/s : 2 x 17" LG

Are people going with single cpu's or dual core?

[Anonymous]

Mark wrote:
Out of interest were the 2 machines the same configuration, except for the ram?

It was the same machine -- we just added the RAM for the second pair of tests. The PLN and LBK were also identical.

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys for all the new info - It has made me tre-think the configurations that were thought to be "killer" just recently. we upgraded the machine that I use (a Dual 2GHz G5 w/ 4GB of ram and a very fast nVidia 6800) it seems with the current project the machine and opsys along with the current AC creates some real slowdowns in the regeneration of elevations and sections. This seems to be the most draining of all ops. Today a rebuild of all elevs and sections some 20 or so the time was for me painful. Over an hour and a half. The min ram seems to be in the 4GB range but even with this amount, the time of some operations is really slow.

Following Tom Waltz's suggestions on network improvements, we improved the system substantially but it still bogs during some operations - which we hope will be helped by improvements in file size in the next release.

if any of you have other tweaks that can be incorporated, please post them up. We should be considering other improvements in our systems, including upgrades to Intel boxes when AC gets to universal.

Lew Bishop
AC 9 2219US
OS X 10.4.6
Dual 2GHz G5/4GB Ram/nVidia 6800-256 (2) 20" Cinemas

[Anonymous]

I hope I'm posting in the right place. I work for a small firm in England and we have 6 macs currently running Archicad 9. we have a contract with our supplier for upgrades as part of our maintenance contract with them. As Archicad 10 is closing in on us, i am looking for a bit of advice on whether the current workstations we use will be capable of using it. We unfortunately cannot make any hardware upgrades for at least another year.

Workstations all running Mac OSX 10.3.9.

3x IMac G4's 1Ghz. with 768mb PC2100 ram and 64mb Geforce Mx graphics cards.

1x Power PC G4 1.25GHZ (tower case) with 768mb PC2700 ram and 64mb ATi graphics card.

1x Emac G4 1.25ghz with 768mb PC2700 ram and 32mb ATI graphics card.

1x G5 Imac 1.8ghz with 1mb PC3200 ram and 128mb ATI Radeon 9600 graphics card

All computers run Archicad 9 well and only the 3 G4 Imacs slow down with more complex 3D models. Our work covers small projects nothing too taxing, with average files of around 4-10mb and plot books of about 40mb. we rarely do fly throughs or hi-def 3D renders as our client base do not require this.

We run on a simple network and each machine has its own USB dongle wibukey. Our company has also used Archicad since 1990 on a mac and we would still like to stay on the mac fomat, although admitedly i understand PCs alot more.

From the above specs which computers will have a chance of running the new Archicad 10 and what is the recommended specification of machine (for macs) to run it?

Your advice would be much appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Chadwick wrote:
An interesting point about the memory is that right now ArchiCAD can only utilize 2GB of memory max on windows XP. On a mac, it can go up to 4GB. I dont know if this is going to change for future releases of ArchiCAD or not but its definatley something to consider when you would be dropping an addition 300.00 or so for the 4GB or RAM.

I'm not sure how it works for a pc, but the Mac I use 9 on at work (G4 tower 1.25ghz 768ram and 64mb graphics) it has 4GB virtual memory as standard set, Using mem manager on the mac to record usage, even doing a render it hasn't reached past 2.5gb memory usage with a 2 story factory unit with some complex machinery, 3D furniture, billboard people and lighting effects (this has been my most taxing model to date) this is with only 768mb physical memory and 64mb on a graphics card in openGL mode.

[Anonymous]

Chadwick wrote:
...ArchiCAD can only utilize 2GB of memory max on windows XP.

If I'm not mistaken, that's 2GB per program instance. So if you have PlotMaker and ArchiCAD running at the same time, that's two program instances that could use a total of 4GB. Also, if PlotMaker launched ArchiCAD in the background, wouldn't that be two program instances?

The OS itself takes a significant amount of run just to get started. Then there is all the other stuff that might be running: email programs, web browsers, and of course, something to play your tunes.

Based on this, my strategy is to get as much RAM as I can because there are plenty of instances where it all will be used.

[Anonymous]

2 GB is a nice amount but it is not required by default. It depends what size, and how complicated project you are working on. I was working on pretty big residential projects (5000~10000 sqft and up) with a lot of details, and I was able to run 2-3 instances of AC and PM at the same time (with some other software in a background) on a machine with 1 BG of RAM. Big issue is to load only those libraries you really need, especially textures. My current Library is about 4 GB, and I'm not even thinking about loading it at the same time. Good management of libraries, running services, keeping system clean is a key to success." dialog box.

[Thomas Holm]

Organicsabre wrote:
From the above specs which computers will have a chance of running the new Archicad 10 and what is the recommended specification of machine (for macs) to run it?

I've been betatesting Archicad 10 on the hardware that shows in my signature. If there is a difference vs. AC9, my feeling (not scientific) is that Ac10 is more responsive. The internal rendering engine (which is responsible for sections and elevations at leaset, even if you don't use it in the 3D window) has got an overhaul and is absolutely better and I think also faster than before. The OpenGL environment is better with the new Orbit and Explore tools, but that's mostly dependant on your graphics card.

I think that your machines are up to AC10 (even if I'm not sure about the Emac's graphics). However, I would strongly advice to upgrade to OSX 10.4 on the workstations at least (not as necessary on the server). There are several improvements there that Archicad will take advantage of, especially in graphics and networking. I'd also recommend that you upgrade the memory to at least 1GB in all the machines.

That done, I think you have all you need to keep Archicad 10 running well until you can upgrade to the coming Intel workstations!

[Anonymous]

Thank you Thomas for your comments. I have looked into the memory upgrade, but 4 out of the 6 machines can only support max 1 GB and it means replacing the 512 stick with a 768mb one, not an easy job I can tell you. I have had to take apart one of the Imacs when the Harddrive went caput, and to be honest with years of building pc's for myself, this was a new experience!! You wouldn't believe how compact everything is and how it all stacks (i.e. you have to remove the CD drive to get at the Harddisk and motherboard!) it is because of this when i specked my mac 3 years ago i went for the G4 tower, much easier to work on and good expansion aspects. I understand from our suppliers that Archicad 10 is going to integrate plotmaker into the archicad program itself, will this mean it requires more processor and memory power?

My main problem is that I do not run the company, so my hands are not on the purse strings. I think this is quite common to alot of cad managers where you need something to "improve' the system, the hard bit is trying to explain this to the powers that be that it is worth spending the money. At the moment we have 3 of the machines on finance so its difficult to cancel the contract without having to pay off a large amount. This ends in june next year where we can keep the machines. at this point I am looking at replacing 4 of them on the finance deal, as its hard to find £10,000 at once to fund the replacements. I would like to steer the company to pc's, but that is doubtful as the directors use macs at home. The reason for me wanting to go to PC's is I have alot more knowledge of them and also I would be able to build a decent system for alot less than buying a purpose made one.

As for the Intel macs, over the last few months I have been monitoring benchmark tests etc. and they have compared the dual core intel chip with the dual core G5 chip. The G5 chip still beats it hands down in program opening, rendering a short film etc. so no I wouldn't step to the intel version if were keeping with macs, we will be buying "pure mac" as the performance is more stable.

[Thomas Holm]

OK. just skip the memory upgrade then. It's all just a question of priority. As long as you don't run several applications at once, and the projects aren't too big, 768K will probably do.
I'd suggest you get an AC10 time-limited key and test it when it's released.

But don't buy PowerPCMacs now! AC10 will be out in an native Macintel version this year too (probably a couple of months behind the PPC release) and Apple will release new workstations this fall, probably in August and containing the even faster Core2Duo processor. If you can live with what you've got for half a year more, I'd say it's a waste of money to buy PPC now.

[Anonymous]

Well i thought i better let everyone know what i eventually specificied for our workstations after starting this topic. more por PC users. FYI

mBtx midi tower with 400w power supply (Macron Black)
Cpu : Pentium D Dual Core 930 3000 Mhz, 2 x 2048k l2 on-die cache,
800 Mhz fsb, socket 775, EM64T & XD (Intel)
Motherboard : Intel D945P chipset, 1s / 1p / 6usb2 port with
4 x SATA, udma & fdd controller on board (PSNLK Intel)
Memory : 3 x 1024m ddr2-533 PC-4200 (Kingston)
Video card : nVidia 256m FX1500
Monitor/s : 2 x 17" LG

The configuration is very good. I am finding the dual core very handy, having 2 ArchiCADs open or ArchiCAD and Plotmaker open with both of them never slowing down. Even 3-4 ArchiCADs open is very nice, i flick between the applications very east and have one generating elevations and the other drawing in plan.

With the video card, the card is the first workstation card i have bought. It has only just come on the market (at least here) and is the same quality of ones that used to sell for double the price. Costs around AU$950 and a card with similar specs, also nvidia, used to cost $2000. It flys in 3d opengl, i havnt seen it slow yet!, and is the first card i could set to opengl in 2d aswell which runs fairly smooth when you take into account the larger jobs i am working on.

RAM, well.. I have noted differeing opinions on whether ArchiCAD or Plotmaker can use more than 2gb. I have yet to see it go above 2gb when i monitored it. However it is definately used to it full potential in photoshop and other rendering packages. Well worth have 3-4gb i think for such a small price these days.

Lastly the case. Although the case looks are fairly standard it is a very nice case inside, with very good air circulation to keep the computer running full speed without getting hot. Very easy to change components also.

Hope this helps others for future systems.