Shadows way slower in 08

[Henry D]

In Revit 9.1 I was able to spin my model around with shadows in almost real time. In Revit 08 it takes way longer to generate the shadows. Anyone else notice this?

[blads]

In Revit 9.1 I was able to spin my model around with shadows in almost real time. In Revit 08 it takes way longer to generate the shadows. Anyone else notice this?
I haven't installed it yet (but just about to from my newly arrived DVD) but I suspect it may have something to do with the sytem requirements / recommendations to run Revit 08...

System Requirements:

Intel® Pentium® 4, 1.4 GHz, or equivalent AMD Athlon® processor
Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Enterprise, Business, Premium, or Ultimate; Windows® XP Professional, Home Edition, or Tablet PC Edition (SP1 or later); or Windows® 2000 (SP4)
1 GB RAM
3 GB free disk space
1280x1024 monitor and display adapter capable of 24-bit color
Internet connection for license registration
MS-Mouse compliant pointing device
Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 6.0 or later
System Recommendations:



Intel Core® 2 Duo 2.40 GHz, or equivalent AMD Athlon processor
Windows XP Professional (SP2 or later)
4 GB RAM :shock:
5 GB free disk space
Dedicated video card with hardware support for OpenGL® spec 1.3 or later
Two-button mouse with scroll wheel




hmmm looks like I'll be upgrading the computer soon...

[muttlieb]

In Revit 9.1 I was able to spin my model around with shadows in almost real time. In Revit 08 it takes way longer to generate the shadows. Anyone else notice this?
Did you enable OpenGL? New installations default to OpenGL turned off.

[Chad Smith]

I can confirm the performance drop with shadows, which is now pretty bad and stuttered in 2008 compared to 9.1. But I also find that performance without shadows has increased slightly from 9.1.

I find it interesting that Vista makes it into the minimum specs, but only XP is recommended :lol:.

[muttlieb]

I'm finding performance with shadows slightly improved in 2008. While the model doesn't spin any faster or smoother with shadows on, they at least stay on while spinning the model. With 9.1 the shadows would completely turn off while spinning a model. This is on my home pc with an Asus GeForce 6600. I haven't tried the release version of 2008 on my work pc - with a Quadro FX540 - but my experience with the beta was that performance with shadows was improved. I can also confirm that performance with shadows off is much more smooth and fluid in 2008. What video cards are you running?

[aretap]

I have also notice the slow down - HOWEVER, my graphics card used to be incompatible with Revit and in this newer version "seems" to be compatible. By turning it on my shadows work much better and the whole interface is faster.

Also, when GL is on the shadows stay during rotations, when off the shadows hide during rotation.

[Chad Smith]

...they at least stay on while spinning the model. With 9.1 the shadows would completely turn off while spinning a model.Aahh yes, they do. Be nice to have an option to disable this behaviour. I have a dual head Radeon X600.

[ws]

Subjectively, rotating the model is smoother in 2008.

Shadows stay in view as mentioned and feel faster also - but I'm using a very fast machine.

Overall... very nice 8)

[Henry D]

Did you enable OpenGL? New installations default to OpenGL turned off.
Thank you! ..that was the problem. This is my first upgrade with a video card that actually worked with OpenGL so I never had this issue before. It's very smooth now.

[patricks]

hmmm interesting, I'll report my findings when I get 2008 installed. I'm running 2 dual-core 2.4 GHz Xeon proc's, 4GB RAM, and an FX540 graphics card.

So they recommend 4GB now, is that with that 3GB switch activated, or is that still needed? Does the new Revit make better use of memory now?

[Calvn_Swing]

The limit on RAM was not a limitation of Revit, but rather a limitation of Windows 32 bit operating systems. If you run Revit on XP 64 bit or Vista 64 bit you can use 8 Gigs of Ram, 16 Gigs, the sky is the limit! (Ok, not entirely true, there is a limit, but it is ridiculously high by today's standards. Give me 5 years and I'll want a 128 bit OS to break the next RAM limitation.)

[Les Therrien]

128!!!!

I'm still waiting for my 64bit system to work properly!

[ws]

It seems to say in this blog (para 5) that Revit Architecture will not be 64 bit native until later this year
http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/2007/04/autodesk_produc.html

[Chad Smith]

One extra thing I have noticed (and I could be wrong) is that the views seem to be regenerating even if off screen. Overall, whatever changes they have done to the graphics portion of 2008, really blows.

[Scott D Davis]

One extra thing I have noticed (and I could be wrong) is that the views seem to be regenerating even if off screen. Overall, whatever changes they have done to the graphics portion of 2008, really blows.
I have found graphics to be improved, and faster. Especially with Shadows on (turn Open GL and Overlay Planes on) the models seem to spin faster and regenrate quicker.

[Wes Macaulay]

2008 is about twice as fast as 9.1 with OpenGL enabled. Shadows on or off, on all our computers, all of which use ATI Radeon (by Powercolor) or FireGL cards (by ATI).

Chad's graphics blow in 2008 because his cards and/or drivers aren't compatible with 2008. I wonder how many people gained/lost compatibility with the release of 2008? This really is a major issue.

[Chad Smith]

Late last year, we went to some trouble to find a compatible PC hardware configuration that worked well with Revit 9.1, and then we spent many $$ implementing it. Now in 2008, we find that all that work has been for nothing.
Our graphics are for the most part compatible. With OpenGL on we get good regeneration speeds compared to if it was off, even if it is actually slower than 9.1 when shadows are on. There seems to be a small part which is incompatible, and is causing the instabilities and continuous crashing.

Turning OpenGL off and Overlay planes on, seems to be eliminating the instability, but is FAR from an acceptable solution. I actually prefer to work with the crashes and save often, than work with slow graphics regeneration.