CPU cores and Toposolid nodes

[sander.taats]

How many cpu cores does Revit have support for? When I was working with toposolid nodes I noticed that it was going really slow and checked the cpu usage. Apparently it can only use 4 cores even though I have 24 cores availiable. Feels very outdated so are there plans to make some performance improvements anytime soon?

This was with Revit 2024.2, I'm on educational access and evaluating if I want to buy the license when I'm done with studies. Only major complaint I have right now is the speed and it's really slow even though I have a decent computer, getting a better computer wouldn't improve it a lot as it is right now.

[HVAC-Novice]

Some functions are single-threaded, some multi-threaded, some use GPU and some a combination of the above. 

They (allegedly) improve use of multi-cores with each version. 

Your addins also have different needs. I have a lighting plugin (elumtool) and that uses 100% of all my 8 cores during part of the simulation. 

My guess is at this point a CPU with 12-16 cores that clocks to over 5GHz would be a great future-proofing for the future versions. Threadripper may be overkill for Revit alone. 

YMMV.

[sander.taats]

It's insane how slow it is to modify nodes, no idea if it's because I have quite a large area covered of small city center but for every node added or modified it only need to make changes to it's near surroundings and that's only a few nodes. If it needs to regenerate new elevations for all nodes then that would just be silly. It takes several minutes to make any changes for every single node so I have mainly been waiting and watching the "Processing: Regenerating" text.

[HVAC-Novice]

If your application is limited to fully using 4 cores, your best bet is use a CPU with higher clock speed (and possibly fewer cores). Also a newer generation of CPU (higher IPC=instructions per cycle). Your CPU also may be limited by RAM speed (although depending on what TR you have, it may have 4 channel or so).

I also would look at GPU and V-RAM usage. What you are doing may also use GPU in addition to CPU.

I have a cheap GPU with 5GB VRAM and it constantly uses 4GB and GPU hits 100% sometimes. So this holds me back.... 

and yes, Autodesk could do a much better job using multi-threading.... but we can't change that. 

[sander.taats]

My setup is looking like this:

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X (4550 MHz core boost)
Geforce 3090 OC 24 GB VRAM
Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme motherboard
128 GB DDR4 RAM (4 x 32 GB)
2 x 2 TB m.2 Seagate FireCuda 520 HDD for system + working files
2 x 16 TB drives for storage
Corsair AX1600i 1600W PSU
Windows 11 Pro and everything is updated

Having many CPU cores is good for 3D rendering and should be benecicial for Revit as well. I can't have another computer just for fewer core tasks. My computer is 3 years old but I'm waiting for the 5090 GPU to be released before I build a new computer since it will be a quite big investment and then I'll get the newer Threadripper with higher boost for single core tasks. Will probably take another year before that though.

If you look at the image in first post, RAM and GPU were barely used so it's limited by the CPU core usage.

[HVAC-Novice]

I hear you... and that is a pretty formidable PC you probably don't want to replace just for this task. 

The new TR   boost to 5.3 and likely have quite some better IPC. Also 8-channel RAM. but that would be quite some coin for maybe 30% improvement  while the software still lets you down. 

Does your MB have PBO (Performance Boost Overclocking) enabled or other options to OC? With good cooling and just a few cores used, that easily boosts a few hundred MHz over the official boost clock. AMD has a tool to see in Windows what each core actually is running at. that Windows task manager doesn't actually shows you the correct values. For residential CPUs it is called "Ryzen Master".  At home I have a 12-core Ryzen and that easily runs all cores at 5GHz in tasks using all cores with just PBO enabled. That is your best bet with the given hardware. Need a good cooler and well ventilated case and strong VRM on the MB.