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Speed up graphics when... CPU limited?

altendky

New member
I am running WF3 on a Dell T7500 with 12GB RAM, an E5640 Xeon (4-cores), and an Nvidia FX580 with 512MB of RAM. I know WF3 isn
 
Turning off the datums while spinning will help your performance.


View > Model Display > de-select the Datum tick box under "Display while reorienting"


I'm sure there are probably a few other tweaks that may help as well.
 
Thanks for the thoughts. I have tried various things to speed up rendering (not photo rendering, just regular 3D) and none have made perceivable differences (including datums being on or off). The work-around is clearly simplified reps (which is what I do, along with just suffering). My concern is that the hardware is in fact capable of performing better and is simply sitting idle because of a bad driver or the like. Or, if it is really a video card perhaps I could buy one myself and get the IS group to allow me to install it. It just doesn't make sense that the going rate on my phone (which I use once every couple weeks) is the same as my video card... which I obviously use 7.9 out of 8 hours a day.
 
Check that Wilfire is using the default Wildfire format
in the Nvidia control panel. Also make sure Transparency
and Smooth lines is off in ProE. Turn quality of edges
and shading down.

You may also want to check that in Windoze
Performance>Visual Effects is set for best performance -
a lot of the fancy stuff robs clock cycles.

Try using GPU-Z to check what the graphics card is doing
- you can check the GPU load.

Overclock the Graphics card and PC.
Edited by: moriarty
 
I recently turned smoothed lines on... and I did flip
back and forth a couple times and didn't notice any
difference in frame rate while spinning. Even after
simplified reps many models are still down below 5fps,
even 1-2fps. Small assemblies and individual parts can
be quite smooth.

I did try GPU-Z awhile back and the GPU usage never read
anything except 20% (seemed like either a bug fixing the
usage at 20% or a bug reading the usage resulting in a
false 20%). Didn't matter if I was spinning or not. I
may have even closed Pro/E. Since then, admin rights
were removed from my account (apparently I wasn't
supposed to have them to begin with) and now GPU-Z gives
some permission error. I should probably check driver
version and search for complaints associated with it.

Overclock? *chuckle* If this were my personal computer
I would never have bothered to purchase this card.

While I appreciate the responses, I am already aware of
numerous ways to make there be less to render (though it
doesn't seem to help). I am also aware that the video
card I have is really quite bad. What makes me wonder is
the 100% CPU usage when the graphics are chugging. It
makes me wonder if what little performance the video card
is capable of is really being used.

Then again, maybe it's normal for Pro/E to be CPU limited
while rotating? When spinning gets chunky, is your CPU
pegged?
 
Im running FX580 270.71

While spinning, ONE processor of CPU loads up - it is
most affected by having edges on - doubles the CPU load

As I load more parts into assembly GPU-Z shows the GPU
Load
going up - on small assemblies it might be 50%,
big assemblies 95%. Have you got continue refreshing
in background turned on
?

What NVIDIA driver are you running?

Check that ATI drivers were uninstalled.
Check that FX580 is running at PCI-E x16 V2.


Edited by: moriarty
 
Be sure that Pro is actually configured for opengl. Normally for cards that don't have sufficient memory and processors will utilize the system memory and processors as well. You should have somewhat sufficient resources albeit not ideal.
 
moriarty said:
You may also want to check that in Windoze

Performance>Visual Effects is set for best performance -

a lot of the fancy stuff robs clock cycles.

I second that. We got several new HP & Dell workstations recently and you could not do ANYTHING in Pro/E until we changed that.
 
altendky said:
Thanks for the thoughts. I have tried various things to speed up rendering (not photo rendering, just regular 3D) and none have made perceivable differences (including datums being on or off). The work-around is clearly simplified reps (which is what I do, along with just suffering). My concern is that the hardware is in fact capable of performing better and is simply sitting idle because of a bad driver or the like. Or, if it is really a video card perhaps I could buy one myself and get the IS group to allow me to install it. It just doesn't make sense that the going rate on my phone (which I use once every couple weeks) is the same as my video card... which I obviously use 7.9 out of 8 hours a day.


Did you just turn off the datums while spinning (hide) or did you turn them off as I stated. Hiding them does not have them same effect.


You should notice a substantial difference.
 
dross said:
Did you just turn off the datums while spinning (hide) or did you turn them off as I stated.


I thought that I had been good and done a quick before and after fps comparison with each of these options, but apparently not. It did make a significant difference (2x?) on the simp-rep I've got open now. I guess I'll have to make a map key for that since I do frequently spin to help identify the correct datums. Thanks for getting through to me.
Edited by: altendky
 
moriarty said:
Have you got continue refreshing
in background turned on
?


I half remember having set that, but due to loss of admin rights (was never supposed to have them) I can't run GPU-Z anymore. At least I figure that's the cause of the permissions error. :[ I understand that that certainly handicaps any debugging efforts.

moriarty said:
What NVIDIA driver are you running?


6.14.12.5896 dated 7/9/2010 from Windows device manager. From what I heard the card was bought because it was certified... but now we aren't running certified drivers? Looks like 6.14.11.8246 (May 28, 2009) is the certified driver.


http://www.ptc.com/WCMS/files/60076/en/dell_wf3.pdf

moriarty said:
Check that ATI drivers were uninstalled.
The "ATI Catalyst Install Manager" shows in add/remove programs. Is there some way other than updating a driver and manually selecting from list to see what drivers are still in the system? Again, permissions... I can't do that. :[


moriarty said:
Check that FX580 is running at PCI-E x16 V2.
Gen2 not V2, but otherwise yes.


Thanks for the continued interest and efforts. Without GPU-Z I'm not really sure where to go from here. I'll make mapkeys to switch from high performance to high quality graphics for when I do need the benefits of shaded edges and datums while spinning etc. But as to verifying the efficiency of the hardware setup... I dunno.
 
altendky said:
moriarty said:
Have you got continue refreshing
in background turned on
?


I half remember having set that, but due to loss of admin rights (was never supposed to have them) I can't run GPU-Z anymore. At least I figure that's the cause of the permissions error. :[ I understand that that certainly handicaps any debugging efforts.

moriarty said:
What NVIDIA driver are you running?


6.14.12.5896 dated 7/9/2010 from Windows device manager. From what I heard the card was bought because it was certified... but now we aren't running certified drivers? Looks like 6.14.11.8246 (May 28, 2009) is the certified driver.


http://www.ptc.com/WCMS/files/60076/en/dell_wf3.pdf

moriarty said:
Check that ATI drivers were uninstalled.
The "ATI Catalyst Install Manager" shows in add/remove programs. Is there some way other than updating a driver and manually selecting from list to see what drivers are still in the system? Again, permissions... I can't do that. :[


moriarty said:
Check that FX580 is running at PCI-E x16 V2.
Gen2 not V2, but otherwise yes.


Thanks for the continued interest and efforts. Without GPU-Z I'm not really sure where to go from here. I'll make mapkeys to switch from high performance to high quality graphics for when I do need the benefits of shaded edges and datums while spinning etc. But as to verifying the efficiency of the hardware setup... I dunno.


You are welcome. I am always looking for ways to improve the performance of Proe, especially while regenerating, it takes forever on some parts!
 
I think you dont have to install GPU-Z - try down loading
onto a stick and running it.

You should check whether DELL has a driver for the card as
well - also try the latest NVIDIA driver they usually work
fine.

The reason I mention running at PCI-E x16 V2 is that they
sometimes install at a lower speed - had to muck round in
BIOS for it to load correctly.
 
moriarty said:
I think you dont have to install GPU-Z - try down loading
onto a stick and running it.


The error is "Could not open Service Manager: Access is denied." It ran fine before.
 

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