C3D 2012 RAM speed versus response time

[granite07]

Yesterday I accidentally made a discovery

For the past week after working well the Civil 3D software slowed to a crawl for the sampleLine process. The autocad forum had no help for this specific slowdown and an email to a C3D expert found this is a known issue with no real solution other than to split the drawing into several dozen drawings with xref and shortcuts.

So out of frustration I re-tuned the computer (for this machine we paid the extra cost for unlocked hardware and bios after the experience with my locked HP laptop) - it fixed the slowdown. But, now some of the C3D corridor processes are unusably slow; it looks like C3D has a bi-modal optimal hardware configuration.

For a 4x4GB [16GB] dual dual-channel modules the two opposing settings for the memory are:

1. a fast (CAS) latency of 7 and slower clock speed of 1650Mhz
2. a faster memory speed 1730Mhz and slow CAS of 9 - I assume if I turned the memory up to 2000Mhz there will be continued improvement but an increasingly worse response time.

I am considering purchasing a third memory set for this machine to try and satisfy both a ~1800Mhz memory speed and CAS latency 7 response time:

• the memory I have now is marketed as 2000Mhz CAS 9 - at the above two settings it works for $210 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145325%EF%BB%BF
• the original memory we purchased with this machine, PGV38G1600 1600Mhz CAS 9, never checked what it was actually running at - slow but $146
• proposed memory, 2133Mhz  or 2200Mhz CAS9 detuned to 1800Mhz and a CAS 7 - should satisfy the Civil 3D needs at $240 to $600

What do you think?

[AllenJessup]

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@LeafRider_km wrote:

 I think managers even think anyone can draft / design, problem is you need to know how to use the software and setup projects. I'd say 50% of all users, don't know how to do this properly. (just a hunch).

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The reverse is also true. You need to know how to draft/design as well as how to use the program. The most important thing is that the design work and that the plans convey everything necessary to get the project built correctly and efficiently. Knowing how to use the software is a skill you need to get that done.

With most projects we have a basemap drawing, a drawing with the Surfaces, one with the Alignments and Profiles, one with the Corridors and one with X-sections. Then one we plot from. All this can be adjusted. I try to get enough of an idea of the projects scope to set this up to begin with.

Allen

[granite07]

just for clarity - what size chunks should the C3D model be built in, 250KB?

In other threads I read that an x32 core2 machine locked up at 15MB, I am still pulling at 70MB - so I assume the ideal file size is somewhere in between. Or do I still not understadn the concept correctly?

And adding to what Allen said - you need to know how to 0) draft, 1) design, 2) how to use the program, and 3) how large projects are bult, both from the field and planning perspectives.

[granite07]

I have finally found the last hardware component for a computer that will operate AutoCAD Civil 3D with a few shortcut items, avoiding breaking the model into dozens of 5MB dwg files. To-date, I have found a CPU that overclocks to 4.0Ghz, memory that runs at 1600Mhz with a CAS latency of 7, and a PCIe hardrive that bypasses the SATA controller and is assembled from dual solid state drives in RAID0; all this superhero stuff and did not burn a hole through the floor or break the bank - but I have a 14" shopfan blowing through the open case and a water cooler on the CPU - it runs under load at 38°C idles at 34°C.  

In my opinion,  colder temps are necessary to get the CPU up around 5.0Ghz and the memory clocking at 2000Mhz - then C3D will 'work' - this is it. As a proposed solution to test there is a PC case with water cooling + Phase Change Sub-Zero that runs at -30°C. It is available for $1,000 plus shipping from UK and conversion to US electrical phase.

• http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PC-case-water-cooling-Phase-Change-Sub-Zero-/280750208841?pt=UK_Computing_...
• http://www.overclock.net/artisan-sales-forum/822433-littledevils-pc-case-integrated-phase-change-14....

Do you think autocad will provide research funding if I submit a proposal to them?

[granite07]

To answer the posts that claimed a workflow relying on shortcuts and xrefs is required, this autocad video on C3D performance specifically states that for single users the all-in-one model approach is best. They recognize that for complex 3D models the management of the many files become a problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXZkj4TeNY0&feature=relmfu

The only exception is the sampleLines, one of two examples used in this thread for a big performance hit. They recommend shortcuting the corridor model and alignments separately into a third file specifically for the sampleLines. This is different that what was suggested by the earlier posts - they suggest building the 3D model from numerous files while AutoCAD suggests building the 3D model in one file and then creating a second file for the sampleLines.

To summarize this discussion and my learning in the process - a few xrefs and shortcuts for surfaces and alignments are a good idea and the sampleLines and computeMaterials reports must be made in a separate file.

I am still not clear if the corridor surfaces should be in a seprate file - this would be a small issue since the ACAD primitives are also needed for the 4D mode - these can be xrefed. And, the compositeSurface QTO would be completed in the surfaces file. So with this 3D model plan the 3 quantity takeoff types would be completed in a different file each? What about surface targeting polyLines that are xrefed. And last, edits made to xrefed polyLines and objects.

A bit more complexity but seems manageable - and a better approach than the 100% all-in-one approach I used. I'd like to take my final corridor model and reconfigure it along this plan than retest the runtimes and see the difference. Also, I agree that the 3D model plan is not prominent a topic that new users like myself will pick up on it without first learning from mistakes. I was coached to use the shortcuts but abandoned them after a few alignment profile changes and surface edits because in  my case the upfront the performance difference was minimal compared to the extra work. The performance hit did not show until the quantity takeoff was prepared. The 3D orbit performace with this model has been poor from day one will shortcuts resolve that?

[Cadguru42]

I had a road project a few years ago to do and we had C3D 2008 at the time.  I had placed everything in one drawing, the points, surfaces, alignments, profiles, corridors, and cross sections.  The drawing was around 8MB with the project being around 4,000' long.  Not long compared to what I've seen a lot of people work on.  

I ran into two problems almost immediately.  The first was the performance hit.  Once I had the corridor made, the drawing was slow to respond for almost everything.  I split the drawing into two, one with the points, alignments, and profiles and then a second drawing with the corridor and used DREF's and XREF'd the other drawing into it.  Both drawings combined were around 5.5MB in size, so splitting them up actually saved space.  Not sure why, though.  The performance of the drawings went back to normal.

The second problem I had was that with everything in one drawing, it was a pain to make the cross section drawings because the scale for those were different than the plan and profile.  I couldn't do a single publish of all the sheets because of this.  By separating the corridor from the drawing, that allowed the corridor drawing to have a different scale than the plan & profile drawing and a single publish would work for all sheets.

I've changed how we handle projects from the lessons of that project.  We now have mutliple drawings.  A survey.dwg (points), a proposed.dwg(alignments, profiles, pipe networks), eg.dwg(surface), corridor.dwg, x-section.dwg (sample lines), and sometimes a fg.dwg (surfaces from corridor and eg).  We data shortcut the alignments, profiles, surfaces, pipe networks, and even the view frames as well as use xrefs.  Since we switched to this method, we haven't had a single issue performance-wise with any projects in Civil 3D.  

It's not that complicated to use XREFs and DREFs for a project, no matter how large or small.  The performance gains from doing just that outweigh spending more money on hardware.

[joshuamodglin]

Forest,

The video states that although the all-in-one model approach is "the simplest" and "is only advantageous" in a single user environment, it by no means states that it is the best for single users.

You yourself have recognized the benefits of a workflow that separates the data as a "good idea" which is simply the key. A work flow or best practice is just an idea that needs to be fit to the needs of your 'company'. 

I am glad that you have found that fit.

[granite07]

Yes, you are correct that it does not state it is the best approach for a single user only that it is the 'simplest' approach and not  applicable to multi-user. But, that 'advantageous' in a single user environment claim is either misleading, wrong, or there is more to it. They should not have used 'advantageous' and simply stayed with 'simplest' because it confused me and probably everyone else new to C3D. The term 'workflow' is also confusing for me when applied to the file configuration since I'd expect the term to apply to the sequence function are invoked. But, I have noticed that within the C3D community workflow as a term is used broadly. 

Last, the gist of this post started with hardware and we have wandered into 'workflow' another interesting topic. To cap the hardware discussion - from adjusting the settings and changing some hardware as na example metric the 3D orbit initiation for this 70mb file dropped from 20 second to 10 seconds.

[granite07]

Furthering the memory timing discussion. I purchased an ivy bridge cpu, the memory controller is improved over the sandy bridge, and so supports memory over 1333Mhz. With 8GB DDR3 1866Mhz memory, the 2D wireframe orbit initiation lag is reduced enough that it seems acceptable - I did not measure exactly how much time. Also, with only 4GB C3D did not crash and rotated my 75MB corridor model in realistic view - this would have been a crash with previous systems I used. This is a laptop and desktop ivy bridge builds have 2800Mhz memory available - so whoever builds one of those should be very happy.

From this, I predict that some of the laggyness in C3D is related to memory timings and memory speed. So, with DDR5 around the corner and improved memory controllers, then C3D will soon become a gentle mare.

[wang890]

dude, how have you been?

looks like you are still messsing with the hardware vs software battle. your best bet is ask autodesk why they program it to be so slow.

why you still bother with AMD cpus? i sold all my amd cpu and made some good money on ebay. 9950, 1090t and 1100t

i recently built for a friend 3570k and overclocked to 4.4ghz. civil 3d just flies in there. 2x8gb 1600mhz ram for 60 bucks. where you find your ram so expensive lol.

i have a posting here called corridor slow due to superelevation or something. sometimes bugs cause the software to run slow when you use one function in conjunction with another. hard to predict.

laptop sucks.

oh and don't rotate corridor with object viewer. bad idea. see how 3ds max can rotate anything fast? that is good stuff. not saying autodesk are bad they are good. just the civil 3d team need to have more testing done.

[granite07]

if you plan to use Navisworks then you better go and get back one of your AMD cpus 🙂

THe NWCOUT function ingnortes  polyline breaks so you have to import the corridor model throught he navisworks user interface - my AMD machine brute forces with one thread and the intel cpu tries to do something fancy with 8 virtual cores, and locks up.

The C3D team just needs to develop a partnership with someone like geekBench and let the users post their perfromance using a set of standardized test corridor models

I see that they are taking more time now to publisize workflow and admit that they forgot to program the workflow into their solution, I asked at a webnar what machine they were using, how many people worked on the presentation material, and how long it took - and they decined to comment.

[wang890]

amd is faster than intel on something really?

i went home tortured my 3930k oc'ed to 5.0ghz. stable for like 20 minutes, then playing with civil 3d got blue screen. already at 1.608v. temp is only 70 though. not worth it. 4.5ghz is 1.368v only and 3.8ghz is 1.28v. good processor though.

2013 corridor is much faster than 2012. at least after delete superelevation corridor is ok. even with superelevation it is not bad like in 2012. wait for 2014 and get company to upgrade.

lucky you to play with computer hardware everyday. my dream job. right now just building computers for friends for free. so much planning because they are on budget and want to play games lol.

[granite07]

yes, playing with computer hardware was fun, but that phase of my experiment is over and now I get to play with c++ everyday - I have had 2013 installedfor awhile but only use it to browse the corridor model. This week I need to update a large design change with a retaining wall so i will see the performance difference from the 2012 version