Will a new computer help?

Jon Dieterlen · Post by **Jon Dieterlen** » Mon, Apr 26 2010, 8:48PM

I am contemplating a new computer, but am am wondering if it will solve the problems I have been having.

The LDE is jerky and slow. I am having trouble sticking the nodes. Selecting parts or cabinets is delayed. I can get a couple clicks ahead of my self if I am not careful.

Printing in the LDE is going OK.

Saving takes a long time, and going from Room layout to LDE or CE is slow.

Seems the biggest problem for me is the LDE. Maybe because I spent the better part of today making the shop drawings for a 25 cabinet custom kitchen. The drawing consist of a plan view, 3 elevations, and individual drawings of 25 cabinets.

I really am having trouble getting the nodes to select. I hover over the point, and nothing. Then it will appear and disappear before I can click it. The longer I work in the software, the slower it gets.

I am using a laptop w/1 gig RAM, AMD 64 4000+ processor, ATI Radeon X600 graphics.

I know this is seriously underpowered, but it was OK before V6.

I was thinking a Dell precision M6400 m4500 w/4gig RAM and quadro fx 1800 or 2700 graphics.

I don't mind upgrading, but I don't want to waste the time and money, if I won't see very significant improvements in the performance.

Let me know others are getting along with there systems.

Thanks, Jon

Donald Thomson · Post by **Donald Thomson** » Mon, Apr 26 2010, 11:17PM

In a word, NO. I've got a pretty high end machine with a quad core processor, 8GB RAM running Windows 7 Pro (64-bit), a high end graphics card with multiple GPU's and 1GB memory on the graphics card and eCabs is still SLOW and jerky.

When I go to place a cabinet in a room it's like eCabs needs a Cray super computer to keep functioning. Moving a cabinet around is really SLOW and jerky. I can move the cursor to move the cabinet and it takes a few seconds for the cabinet to catch up with the cursor. Accurate positioning is a real challenge. After placing a couple of cabinets in a room layout I notice I have to save the job, shut eCabs down, then reboot my computer because somewhere in the move-a-cabinet-code major things are happening to kill the machine. Putting cabinets in a room is my least favorite operation because it takes so VERYYYYYYY long to accomplish it.

I'm really hoping that the next build focuses on performance enhancement. I know that the HOOPS code library used in eCabs is not the most stable or optimized platform to write an application on, but I think eCabs is locked into it. I feel bad for the Thermwood programmers who have to work with this code library. (I was a computer programmer for almost 20 years).

So, save your money unless you have other programs that could benefit from the computer upgrade.

Nick M Singer · Post by **Nick M Singer** » Tue, Apr 27 2010, 1:11AM

Donald I would venture that something else is wrong. My system does not match up to yours but falls well within the recommended spec and everything is smooth and quick. I certainly dont experience the problems you are having

Rick Deskins · Post by **Rick Deskins** » Tue, Apr 27 2010, 6:13AM

Have you tried updating your video card driver from ATI's website?

Kerry Fullington · Post by **Kerry Fullington** » Tue, Apr 27 2010, 6:27AM

Rick,

I feel their pain. I still can't rotate a job in custom layout using the mouse. If I render the job I can rotate using the sliders.
In the LDE there are nodes that just won't come up unless I zoom in like a microscope.
I have had numerous video card driver updates since the release of V6 and none have helped. (I am on the latest released about a week ago)
Selecting nodes in the LDE my cursor flashes constantly so I tried slowing the hardware acceleration with no positive results.
Performance of V 6 for me just generally sucks.

Kerry

Donald Thomson · Post by **Donald Thomson** » Tue, Apr 27 2010, 10:12AM

Rick,

All of my system drivers are up to date. I check for updates every 10 days.

I have no problems with any other applications I run on my machine. CAM 3D design software (heavy graphics), CAD software (medium graphics), accounting software, video editing software (heavy graphics), image editing software (heavy graphics). MS Office (which everyone knows is a resource HOG): they all perform really, really well, especially since I upgraded to Win 7 (64-bit) several months ago.

I don't think it's my machine. If even one other application was performing or behaving badly, the first thing I'd do is make sure my machine was all in order, but this just isn't the case.

Kenneth Rychlik · Post by **Kenneth Rychlik** » Tue, Apr 27 2010, 12:10PM

Jon,

It may help a little bit, but I have twice the pc you have and it is a turtle with ecabs.

Kenneth

Josh Rayburn · Post by **Josh Rayburn** » Tue, Apr 27 2010, 12:39PM

Well, Kerry - you said it...It does suck indeed! I am very grateful that it got better since the beta printing days though.....
jnr

Bryan J Tanner · Post by **Bryan J Tanner** » Tue, Apr 27 2010, 12:42PM

Jon

Just a thought, what have you got running in the background???

Often windows has many programs and services you don't need running in the back ground. How long does it take for your commuter to startup? Longer than it used to?

I'd look at that before upgrading.

I upgraded earlier this year, and the results have been surpurb! Though the memory leakage is still a problem.... You still need to restart often.

Josh Rayburn · Post by **Josh Rayburn** » Tue, Apr 27 2010, 1:55PM

It's true that restarting helps. On Kerry's advice, I've been restarting mid day as a general practice and it has made a big difference. Thanks to Kerry again - so Jon - have you tried to restart at intervals and if so, have you noticed a general increase in performance after a restart?
jnr

Donald Thomson · Post by **Donald Thomson** » Tue, Apr 27 2010, 2:46PM

I've noticed a performance improvement upon restart. However, as soon as I start placing cabinets into the room again, performance goes into the dumper. I seem to need to restart after about every 2 or 3 cabinets as performance gets abysmal and it's impossible to work anymore.

Josh Rayburn · Post by **Josh Rayburn** » Tue, Apr 27 2010, 3:03PM

Same here Donald, I can work in the CE all day long with no issues, but as soon as I go from the room or the batch to the CE and back, it's like going from a racetrack onto the cross bronx expressway with two lanes closed.
jnr

Donald Thomson · Post by **Donald Thomson** » Tue, Apr 27 2010, 5:32PM

Me thinks we might have stumbled across and area for the Thermwood guys to take a look at?

Jon Dieterlen · Post by **Jon Dieterlen** » Tue, Apr 27 2010, 8:37PM

Thank's for the input everyone. That is exactly the information I was wanting. I don't have much trouble placing cabinets, I have however, had some really funky things happen with counter tops. Extra tops have appeared, and it takes some innovative manuevers to get rid of them.

Sounds like most of the problems I am having would not necessarily be solved with a new computer.

I have tried to update the ATI driver, but it appears ATI does'nt support the X600 anymore.

Jon

Rob Davis · Post by **Rob Davis** » Wed, Apr 28 2010, 8:46AM

This may be irrelevant to some of you who use this for presentations, but maybe Thermwood is monitoring this thread (hopefully). We use eCabs primarily to program our machine and we rarely if ever place cabinets in a room or do pictures, etc. We "build" cabinets, group them as a job, save the job and write CNC and send to machine. That said, we do not have the severe slowing problems some of you report when going to place cabinets in a room. So maybe the really bad slowing is something related to the rendering or room placement or related. I know this is no help to you who use it for that purpose but just offering an observation.
We see V6 as slower by far than previous versions and there are bugs we experience and have obtained work arounds for, but we do not seem to experience the REALLY slow stuff others are reporting. We wait 10 seconds versus hearing others waiting minutes for their stuff.
Just our anectdotal observation to maybe help Thermwood solve the issue...
Rob

Thermwood / eCabinet Systems

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