Laptop Spec / Archicad Performance

[griggadee]

Morning Folks,

I use my desktop PC for most of my drawing work and although the performance can always be improved, it generally does the business very well. The main spec for my desktop PC is in my signature below.

However, I have recently purchased this laptop to use whilst travelling:

http://www.johnlewis.com/dell-xps-15-laptop-intel-core-i5-8gb-ram-1tb-hdd-32gb-ssd-15-6-/p2507320

The main spec is as follows:

Intel Core i5-6300HQ Processor
NVIDIA GeForce GTX960M (2GB DDR5) Graphics Card
8gb RAM
1TB Hard Drive + 32GB Solid State Drive
1920 x 1080 Full HD Screen
Windows 10 (64 bit)
ArchiCAD 18

The laptop works well and is fast and responsive for most tasks. However, I have noticed the following issues when I use Archicad:

1) There is a slight millisecond delay when using the wall tool and the beam tool in the 2d window. This occurs when I click my first point for placing the start of the wall/beam and then again when I click the second point to finish it. All other tools seem fine.
2) When using the orbit tool in the 3d window, there appears to be some graphics distortion coming and going randomly. The overall image quality is excellent and it's smooth and sharp to move in orbit, but even if only slightly, should it be distorting at all? The distortion comes in the form of lines across the moving 3d model.
3) Although this seems to vary slightly, just opening a 'new' drawing file from scratch can take up to 2 minutes! This seems crazy long to me, but maybe this is the case on laptops or when using normal hard drives. By comparison, my desktop PC takes approx 15 seconds.

Maybe I am expecting too much (I am a perfectionist by nature), but as a daily professional user, I do not want even a millisecond delay. There is no delay whatsoever when using my desktop PC.

Any feedback or even advice on optimising my graphics card or Archicad would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

fyi -
my mbp, takes about 30 seconds on average to open a file. Your 2 mins seems excessive.

with my mbp 3d modeling is atrocious, slow and painful, and i'm soon to upgrade to something new.

do you have any more details on that SSD your using ?

[henrypootel]

I have a very similarly specced machine and don't have problems, but I have heard of some people reporting issues caused by the nVidia Gamestream tech.
You could try disabling the gamestream service and see if that makes any difference?

[Laszlo Nagy]

It is probably best to just uninstall the GeForce Experience application as that has been known to cause issues with ARCHICAD (maybe that service is part of the GeForce Experience installation).

[griggadee]

Thanks for the input guys.

Funny enough, my brand new laptop has just died on me and is now unable to even boot! Seems to be a BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO issue which is going to require either a complete reinstall of the operating system, or a new laptop! I would think that maybe the issues with performance were related to a far bigger problem than initially thought.

Having just lost days of work, someone at John Lewis / Dell is about to get a serious ear bashing!

I'll give a performance update again once I get a new machine and put Archicad through its paces a little more.

Cheers.

[Anonymous]

I'm looking at new laptop to run arhcicad so this is a very helpful thread! What brand of laptop should I get? What are you guys using?

[griggadee]

Good question!

You can check the spec stated on my earlier post for the i5 Dell that I am about to return and use it as a benchmark. Unfortunately, due to it dying on me, I have no real way of telling if the performance issues were down to a hardware fault as opposed to too low a specification. People on here have actually implied that they run ArchiCAD well on lower spec machines, which I find remarkable.

Once I return my current laptop, I intend to buy this one, which has an all-round improved spec:

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-15-9550-laptop/pd?oc=cnx5512&model_id=xps-15-9550-laptop

After paying the extra money, I hope it performs brilliantly without further issues with lagging and graphics glitches etc. Thing is, it still features an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960m 2GB GDDR5 card instead of the Nvidia Quadro M1000M w/2GB GDDR5 which I can get on a slightly more expensive workstation model, but I really don't know if it's worth it considering the 960m seems to outperform it in almost all categories.

If anyone can tell me whether ArchiCAD performs better on the Quadro over the Geforce then that would also be great!

[Anonymous]

I just bought a METABOX p750DM last week.
it's the bomb. They feature a full DESKTOP CPU. Battery life is not great, they're also heavy, but still portable and powerful.
specs are:
15.6" FHD 1920x1080 IPS WVA Matte 60Hz LED
Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M with 8GB GDDR5 VRAM
Intel Core i7-6700K Processor (8M Cache up to 4.0 GHz)
24GB DDR4 2133MHZ (3 x 8GB)
Samsung 950 Pro 256GB M.2 PCIe SSD
Crucial 250GB MX200 SATA 3 M.2 SSD
No Hard Drive - Optional Upgrade
No Secondary Hard Drive - Optional Upgrade
Intel 8260 AC Dual Band WIFI/BT
No Optical Disc Drive - Optional Upgrade
Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit
2 Year Metabox Platinum Care Onsite Pickup Protection
Standard Metabox Design

2 other IMPORTANT devices ive bought are a razer naga chroma (gaming mouse) these have 19 programmable buttons.
ALSO
a 3D connection- wireless space mouse - THESE ARE FREAKING AMAZING.

http://www.metabox.com.au/store/professional-mobile-workstations

[griggadee]

My god, sounds like a beast! I didn't even think that was possible to have a desktop CPU in a laptop! Shame I can't buy Metabox laptops in the UK or I'd definitely consider one. Don't think I'd be able to afford one though to be honest, considering this is a secondary (travelling) PC for me.

[Anonymous]

They do ship internationally.
I'm very happy with it. Ive been planning a new system for months, contemplated a mid range desktop together with a lower spec mbp. But i think the metabox has the best of both worlds. The down side is battery life, there's nothing better than a mbp for battery life.
But the metabox is just so customizable, espically the drives, dual hdd or ssd or pcie or a combo of both. My only regret is not getting the 17inch model and possibly 4k, as i'm so used to the mbp retina display ratio.