Mark H Posted June 21, 2021 Share Posted June 21, 2021 Hi Everyone, This is my first post so I hope someone can help. I am relatively new to Vectorworks and have been creating 3D landscape models on sloping sites. The vwx file sizes are around 500MB. I am experiencing lots of hanging when rendering or working with site models and so I figured it is time to get a new PC. My existing one is 8 years old - so a little out of date even though it had one of the fastest processors around in its time! I would like some advice on GPU and new graphics cards coming on the market. I have looked through the forum and have found that CPU is the most important factor by far - and to this end I have decided I will go with the new AMD Ryzen 5950 which is 16 core. This seems to be the best on the market for the price point. I will probably start with 32Mb of DDR4 RAM as this seems to be sufficient from what I have read - but can go to 64Mb if that is deemed preferable? My struggle is with the graphics card. My initial thoughts are to go with the new NVidia RTX 3080Ti as this has similar performance to the 3090 but is significantly cheaper - but I can't help wondering if this is still overkill given the comments I have read about VW not using GPU with performance correlated to CPU more than anything else. I do not use any other support applications at this stage - and I am not a gamer. I am using a 32" 4K monitor but that was to see the screen more easily rather than anything else. I keep reading lots of contrasting information on what card will be sufficient. I would like to think that ultimately we will record walk throughs of models and maybe even get into VR - but I have no experience of this to date. The dilemma is made worse because the 3080Ti is hard to source and are mostly on pre -order - so it is tempting to lower the spec to avoid waiting several months as well. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Mark Quote Link to comment
michaelk Posted June 21, 2021 Share Posted June 21, 2021 I can't offer much advice about windows GPUs and CPUs, but I can suggest that you check the number of unnecessary vertices in your DTM. It's amazing what a difference that can make 🙂 . 1 Quote Link to comment
zoomer Posted June 21, 2021 Share Posted June 21, 2021 The Ryzen 5950X is a great choice. The 16 cores won't help in VW in most situations beside RW Rendering only and a very few other things that can run multi-threaded, but these may not be able to use much more than 4 cores ... Nevertheless the 5950X has also one of the fastest single core performance, so it is one of the fastest CPUs for VW in general ! 32 GB RAM is good in most cases. I upgraded to 64 GB once, and it helps me to open the same File in VW and Bricscad at the same time and I do not have to care about open Safari Windows and other Apps in Background. A next PC would get even 128 or more RAM therefore though. As for the GPU, a current fast GPU will help in general. But there are still other Bottlenecks, also on VW side, so throwing faster, expensive Hardware on VW will not always help in all cases or at the level one would expect. Nevertheless, GPU usage in Apps like VW increases more and more over time and especially realtime and GPU rendering like Enscape or Twinmotions will profit from more capable GPUs with "enough" VRAM. And one thing about AMD vs Nvidia GPUs, I had a RTX 2070 8 GB and was pretty happy with it everywhere. I upgraded to a AMD RX 6800 with 16 GB because I thought that it is easier and more reliable for my Linux installations and that I don't really like Nvidias more proprietary development. That did not work out very well for me, lost some Linux installations after the switch, ok my lacking of Linux knowledge, but also on Windows I have more issues with AMD than I had with Nvidia. I doubt that that AMD drivers and overall support are at the same level. Quote Link to comment
Mark H Posted June 22, 2021 Author Share Posted June 22, 2021 Many thanks for your responses. @Michaelk - I had reduced the vertexes on some areas since without doing this VW just crashed out on some curvy lawn areas that I turned into texture beds - there are probably other in the file to be fair but this is what lead me back to thinking I needed to up[grade. @Zoomer - many thanks for your comments as well and glad you agree with the choice of processor. I had also read that AMD cards do not play as nicely as Nvidia because the driver support is better for Nvidia I am told. So I guess the question that still remains is whether the 3080Ti is the right card or whether it would be just as good with something lower spec at this stage. I appreciate that you can never go wrong with more power - but it would be a shame to see it not used. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment
zoomer Posted June 22, 2021 Share Posted June 22, 2021 I don't know any GPU Benchmarks for VW or other GPU Benchmarks that would translate to VW performance. I also do not game and just want a reliable card for CAD and 3D. I set my personal GPU budget around mid range cards. RTX 2070 was a bit on the upper side but new and available at that time. Same for the RX6800. Quote Link to comment
Mark H Posted June 22, 2021 Author Share Posted June 22, 2021 Thanks Zoomer - I should probably do the same wrt budget. Maybe I should speak to support and see where they position their hardware. I will let you know if I get a response. Quote Link to comment
zoomer Posted June 22, 2021 Share Posted June 22, 2021 Or if you can post some of your problematic files. Maybe a few different card owners could test by which card performance it will get fluid again.... (if at all) Quote Link to comment
Mark H Posted June 22, 2021 Author Share Posted June 22, 2021 Thanks for the suggestion - but I don't think I am ready to expose my poor VW skills yet 😆 - I need a bit more practice! Quote Link to comment
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