C3D 2011 Rendering - compared to 3D Studio Max

[Anonymous]

Anyone have experience rendering animations with 2011 (or even 2010)? I just updated to 2011 and rendered a presentation quality image from a previous 2010 file and it actually took longer to render than 2010 - and I'm using Windows 7 64 bit... So I was expecting a noticeable increase in speed due to the 64 bit architecture. Granted, I only have 6 GB of RAM as one of my 2 GB RAM modules failed on me, but still - slower? The results are different too - better in one location (was getting a weird reflection that I couldn't fix in 2010) - that is gone now, but now have some issues at a transition between two glass surfaces... All of this with a 60 MB Tiff file in the background (draped to the surface)... So it took about 20 minutes to render the image - my machine is about 1 year old and is fairly fast.

Anyway - I've done some modeling in 3D Studio Max before but I hate exporting CAD files into it - just wondering if anyone uses C3D for renderings - particularly animations. I can live with the speed for still images, but at 30 fps, an animation will take forever... and if you've done 3D you know any little error and it's the first thing people point out - "what's that!" after you've spent hours getting 99% of it right!

The attached image is the 2011 version....

[Anonymous]

I would expect greater stability not speed from the 64 bit app.

--

John Mayo, PE

Win 7 64, C3D & RD 2010
Core i7 920, 6 GB DDR3
Quadro FX 1700

[c3dlearner]

One of our customer did a test render of a model using 3dmax 32 bit and 64 bit

All settings are the same and on the same computer, old version of 3ds max renders out a scene in 12:09 while 3ds max 2011 does the same scene in 5:42 and going 64 bit is a huge advantage and the customer is using a i7 core on the laptop which means most of the cores are activated in 3DMax 2011 vs only one at a time in previous version.

Then for Civil3D why not better speed and just stability?

Regards,
C3DL

[Anonymous]

3ds Max and other rendering programs are multi-core capable when
rendering a scene.

Civil 3d is will not use multiple cores at the root.

Matthew Anderson, PE


On 5/5/2010 3:12 PM, c3dlearner wrote:
> One of our customer did a test render of a model using 3dmax 32 bit and 64 bit
>
> All settings are the same and on the same computer, old version of 3ds max renders out a scene in 12:09 while 3ds max 2011 does the same scene in 5:42 and going 64 bit is a huge advantage and the customer is using a i7 core on the laptop which means most of the cores are activated in 3DMax 2011 vs only one at a time in previous version.
>
> Then for Civil3D why not better speed and just stability?
>
> Regards,
> C3DL
>

[Anonymous]

I think it is all about using the right tool for the job. Max is a much more powerful rendering tool.

[Anonymous]

Mark,

Have you checked out the Autodesk Visualization Extension? You can pull
your model in from C3D to Max Design. The best of both worlds....

Check it out on Subscription Center.

James Wedding, P.E.
Autodesk, Inc.

[guidobonin]

Matt,

multi core should work also for Civil 3D in rendering:

http://beingcivil.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/01/p4-dual-core-quad-core-oh-my.html


Ciao

Guido Bonin, PhD, PE

www.civil3d.it

Edited by: guidobonin on May 6, 2010 10:12 PM Edited by: guidobonin on May 6, 2010 10:14 PM

[Anonymous]

Rendering, sure. But Civil 3d, at the root does not utilize multiple
cores.

Matthew Anderson, PE


On 5/6/2010 3:15 PM, guidobonin wrote:
> Matt,
>
> multi core should work also for Civil 3D in rendering:
>
> http://beingcivil.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/01/p4-dual-core-quad-core-oh-my.html
>
>
> Ciao
>
> Guido Bonin, PhD, PE
>
> www.civil3d.it
>
> Edited by: guidobonin on May 6, 2010 10:12 PM
>
> Edited by: guidobonin on May 6, 2010 10:14 PM
>

[guidobonin]

Multicore:

yes, the better use of hardware is what we are asking to Autodesk every year, altough we understand how difficult it is to "put the hands" on the AutoCAD core.

On the current release I saw some code optimization that really improve performance (I made a test, side by side on the same machine, 2010 vs 2011, and there was a 4x improvement on file open - 7:03 min vs. 1:47 on 2011): we are still far from using all the cores, but this is probably one of the most important improvements in current release (and all of this started with the porting to 64bit version).

This is probably some good start and we have to encourage Autodesk to keep improving performance and stability (not bad overall, but still there is need for improvements), because it is a kind of development that does not appeal marketing and users looking always for new features (altough we need also many features...).

Ciao

Guido Bonin, PhD, PE

www.civil3d.it

[Anonymous]

Guido / Matt,

Excellent observations.  It is also great Autodesk moved Autocad to the 64-bit dimension.  However, the central idea of a 64-bit application is to max the use of the hardware.  I had big expectations from the 64-bit version of Autocad/Civil 3D, but ran into some disappointments when I loaded it in my i7, 8gig mem laptop.  Civil 3d runs slow on a basic rendering I created. I ran a simultaneous test with the same 3D model on a 32-bit system Intel Core 2Duo.  To my dismay my super fast laptop took twice the time to render the model compared to the Core2.   For a moment I thought my system was faulty until I came across your comments.  Now I start to comprehend the reason behind the difference in speed.

Thanks for sheding light on the issue.  I am sure Autodesk wil fix the issue with the upcoming versions (I hope it is soon). 

Harold

[Anonymous]

If I could ask.... what is the model number of the Core 2 Duo (really interested in the clock speed without turbo) and also which i7 core did you do the test on?  Trying to figure out if it's better to run a system that has more base clock speed and with 2 cores vs a lower clock speed with 4 cores (specifically for rendering). 

Just can't get a straight answer on this question and your test was the first that I could find that would do this type of comparison (however, I realize that one test was done on 32bit and the other 64bit). It seems the base clock speed is REALLY important, even for rendering.  The general concensus seems to be that more cores is better for rendering; however, more cores means less base clock speed on i7-600 and i7-700 series cores; from your test, a core 2 duo with I'm assuming a higher base clock speed worked better...