Best hardware upgrade for C3D with Aerial Images

[Reem_Mcconnell]

Hi,
My customer wants to buy a new workstation.
He mainly does 2D work in Civil 3d with aerial imagery in the background. Photos are 10cm resolution.
I'd like to know what's the hardware bottle neck usually for aerial images?
What will make his images load faster in C3D? Is it a faster graphics card? A video card with more video RAM on it? The CPU? The amount of RAM? The speed of RAM? The speed of the SSD?

We'll put a i9-10900 processor in it, so I think that the CPU won't be the bottleneck here. We plan for 32GB of RAM and a Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB NVME SSD.

I mean, if we want his images to load faster and have snappier zoom in and out, where should we invest first? A better graphics card or just more RAM, for example?

[cadtag]

as I understand it, the i9 is better at multithreaded processing than the i7, but the i7 is faster at single thread processing at the same clock speed. Since Autocad is primarily a single threaded application, the i7 is probably a better choice.

AMD is making CPUs with more bang for the buck, so that's definitely something to look at. In the CPU wars, Intel is lagging.

That said, for speed and performance, I would look at Boxx computers -- they seem to outpace pretty much everyone else.

[BlackBox]

I'd like to know what's the hardware bottle neck usually for aerial images?

This is a loaded question; even with the best of the best of the best workstation, your customer may still have the same bottleneck, if that bottleneck is their file server's read/write speed or the network over which it loads the aerials from.

Upgrading the workstation does a lot for the compute side in-application, but you also need to look at the server & network... As example, 32x SAS SSD in RAID 10 will obliterate the fastest PCIe storage read/write on server, and 10G network (or better) switch & cables are pretty reasonable these days.

[Reem_Mcconnell]

the i7 is faster at single thread processing at the same clock speed.

Well actually the 10th and 11th gen i9's have faster single thread processing than i7's : https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

It's true that AMD have a good offering these days. I have a Ryzen 7 4700U in my laptop myself. My client want's to stay with Intel though.

[cadtag]

I'm working a lot with .sid files around Panama City, FL (Post Hurricane Michael) and the coastal ones are very high resolution -- PITA working with them, especially via Remote Desktop, and while I don't have 'real' information, my gut tells me that BB is right about focusing on network speed for imagery rather than getting hung up solely on the desktop part of the performance equation.

[Reem_Mcconnell]

This is a loaded question; even with the best of the best of the best workstation, your customer may still have the same bottleneck, if that bottleneck is their file server's read/write speed or the network over which it loads the aerials from.

You're right. I didn't think of that. He's usually alone. But sometimes he hire someone during the summer. His aerials would be on his own PC, so no bottleneck there. His student would connect over the network though.

He usually link his aerials. Is it possible to integrate the aerials in his C3D file instead? So if he'd move his project files to another PC, the imagery would still be there?

[BlackBox]

You're right. I didn't think of that. He's usually alone. But sometimes he hire someone during the summer. His aerials would be on his own PC, so no bottleneck there. His student would connect over the network though.

He usually link his aerials. Is it possible to integrate the aerials in his C3D file instead? So if he'd move his project files to another PC, the imagery would still be there?

If there is no network/server, or NAS to contend with, then definitely consider using Samsung 970 Pro in lieu of Evo (if single SSD) - a pair in RAID 1 would be even better - just be sure that the aerials are on that disk and not a slower, secondary HDD or SATA SSD, as that would just introduce bottleneck via system bus & lower disk read/write.

Some Civil 3D settings that are often overlooked are:

MAPIOPTIONS Command, General tab, Display Quality == Draft

This is saved to the drawing and can be batch processed via Core Console using this routine and the following Script:

_.imagequality _d
(setvar "FILEDIA" 1)
_.qsave
_.quit

MAPIOPTIONS Command, Memory tab, set Temporary File Location to a folder on fastest drive.

MAPIOPTIONS Command, Memory tab, set Memory Limit to 50-75% of total physical RAM (might consider more than 32 GB in your build)

HTH

[Reem_Mcconnell]

Definitely consider using Samsung 970 Pro in lieu of Evo (if single SSD) - a pair in RAID 1 would be even better.

The ASUS Prime B460-PLUS we've chosen don't support Raid with PCIe. I think that the single PCIe NVMe SSD will be plenty more speedy than the current SATA SSD he's used to.

Some Civil 3D settings that are often overlooked are:

MAPOPTIONS Command, General tab, Display Quality == Draft

That would set the display quality of images to "Draft" and make everything load faster, right? Found this on the subject.

this routine and the following Script:

_.imagequality _d
(setvar "FILEDIA" 1)
_.qsave
_.quit

That code would be to set the display quality to "draft" for all the selected drawings, correct?

MAPOPTIONS Command, Memory tab, set Temporary File Location to a folder on fastest drive.

MAPOPTIONS Command, Memory tab, set Memory Limit to 50-75% of total physical RAM (might consider more than 32 GB in your build)

Those are nice to know also.

Do you really think more than 32GB of RAM would make a difference? Wouldn't it be overkill? The motherboard supports up to 128GB.

[BlackBox]

The ASUS Prime B460-PLUS we've chosen don't support Raid with PCIe. I think that the single PCIe NVMe SSD will be plenty more speedy than the current SATA SSD he's used to.

You specified using a Samsung 970 Evo - that is an NVMe M.2 SSD and not PCIe SSD - M.2 and PCie SSDs are very different.

M.2 SSD is relegated to 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes (each stick), whereas PCIe SSD can consume up to 16x PCIe 3.0 lanes, depending on the number of M.2 SSD it includes, which slot it is plugged into, etc.

That would set the display quality of images to "Draft" and make everything load faster, right? on the subject.

'Make everything load faster' is a bit of an overstatement - suffice it to say that it helps and I've yet to run into a single issue with visual clarity, as compared to a drawing with same aerials set to High display quality, and I use aerials on all of my projects as well.

That code would be to set the display quality to "draft" for all the selected drawings, correct?

That is the code for a Script (.SCR) that the linked SCRM function would apply to a selection of drawings, and would set each drawing to use Draft quality & save the drawing (backup original first, as needed).

SCRM (Script Multiple) is similar to Civil 3D's own BSU (Batch Save Utility) without the limitations of needing acad.exe to be closed first (which is dumb) and it also dynamically uses the active Profile when calling Core Console, which helps with printing, etc.

Those are nice to know also.

These may not be of much help in your current spec for 32 GB RAM.

Do you really think more than 32GB of RAM would make a difference? Wouldn't it be overkill? The motherboard supports up to 128GB.

I do, but I am also entirely biased - which is why all of our workstations include 128 GB RAM for our daily work (see additional info in my signature), in concert with a file server that has 6,550 MB/s read (+50G) / 6,670 MB/s write (+50G) (that's with 12x of the 32x SAS SSDs it can hold in RAID 10, so each pair of disks added makes it faster; 10G network is next), and a workstation configuration that consistently allows me +10,000 MB/s (<-- yes, that's a big B) read/write to local disk:

https://forums.augi.com/showthread.p...=1#post1344619

[Reem_Mcconnell]

You specified using a Samsung 970 Evo - that is an NVMe M.2 SSD and not PCIe SSD - M.2 and PCie SSDs are very different.
M.2 SSD is relegated to 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes (each stick), whereas PCIe SSD can consume up to 16x PCIe 3.0 lanes, depending on the number of M.2 SSD it includes, which slot it is plugged into, etc.

Well what I meant was that the Samsung 970 Evo has a PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe Interface, in a M.2 Form Factor. But I see your point. You probably mean by "PCIe SSD" something like the Asus (http://www.asus.com/Motherboards-Com...16-GEN-4-CARD/) HYPER M.2 X16 GEN 4 Card , Right?

Have you used one of those? One of those with four m.2 SSDs is probably way better than two m.2 directly on the motherboard right?
Not sure if it would help in my case, since the ASUS Prime B460-PLUS ( dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1200/PRIME_B460-PLUS/E16237_PRIME_B460-PLUS_UM_WEB.pdf ) pciex16_2 uses only 4 lanes. pciex16_1 would be taken by the graphics card. Or maybe we could put the graphics card into pciex16_2? Even with only 4 lanes, it would maybe be enough for it to do it's job. Maybe it would be more beneficial to use the pciex16_1 16 lanes for a faster storage solution (which is the bottleneck in most systems)?

These may not be of much help in your current spec for 32 GB RAM.

You mean that for it to be benefical, more than 32GB RAM would be better?

I do, but I am also entirely biased - which is why all of our workstations include 128 GB RAM for our daily work.

128GB, Wow! In what part of your work did you notice the 128GB making an actual difference?

in concert with a file server that has 6,550 MB/s read (+50G) / 6,670 MB/s write (+50G) (that's with 12x of the 32x SAS SSDs it can hold in RAID 10, so each pair of disks added makes it faster;

That server is a beast!

and a workstation configuration that consistently allows me +10,000 MB/s (<-- yes, that's a big B) read/write to local disk

You mean your workstation storage can do 10000MB/s? Is that using a PCIe SSD as mentioned above?