I’ve been using SketchUp for a while now and have started to notice some performance issues, especially when working on larger and more complex projects. It’s becoming a bit frustrating, and I’m considering upgrading some components of my workstation to see if it can help improve SketchUp’s performance.
Before I take the plunge and invest in new hardware, I wanted to reach out to this community and ask if any of you have experienced significant improvements in SketchUp’s performance after upgrading your workstation components. Whether it’s upgrading your CPU, GPU, RAM, or any other component, I’d love to hear about your experiences.
Up to a point, GPU improves performance significantly. Past a point you won’t be able to tell the difference.
I had a GTX Titan X 12Gb and now am working with a RTX 3090 with 24Gb. I did’t feel the difference yet.
If you don’t have a dedicated GPU or if you have one without enough memory you will. If I render in the viewport it makes a huge difference. If I’d have a complex model that would hit my previous 12Gb limit, I would certainly feel that the RTX would be better, but overall, Sketchup graphics are not that complex that the Titan was significantly slower than the new one.
In terms of CPU. You will only feel the difference if you improve single core speed from your current CPU.
Neither RAM or VRAM will usually affect speed. It just allows you to throw more stuff into your computer. However, if you do hit the threshold you will be really feeling a hit in performance. It might be the case.
The component that mostly affects Sketchup speed is a fast SSD. If you have one, saving times will reduce drastically and your autosaves might become seamless. The saving mechanics also changed a couple of releases ago, and are faster.
Your profile says you are using a version that does not exist. What version are you really using? It’s also a bit vague on what your current hardware is. Before you make the switch to new hardware, it would be worth looking at your modeling methods. The vast majority of users who seem to have performance issues benefit from optimizing their modeling process. You could share a typical SketchUp model with us and that could help us help you. So would clarifying your forum profile.
Since you are asking about hardware I’ll move your thread to the correct category.
The biggest performance boost is modelling everything yourself and not using anything from the 3D Warehouse. 97,3% of model lag is due to model bloat.
The amount of dross SketchUp has to process can be viewed in the Model Info>Statistics window when the Show nested components box is checked. When the edge or face count runs into millions the model is slow whatever the hardware.
SketchUp, like all 3D modelling applications, is single-threaded so all its data has to go through a single CPU process. So a fast CPU with a good single-threaded performance is the most important component. The graphics card, beyond very basic specs, spends much of its time waiting for data from the CPU.
Last year when my son was still in tech school and using Make 17 for some of his MET designs, he upgraded his PC with a new video card. This is what he had and went to and these were the benchmarks. Your milage may vary.
I wonder what model geometry does to benchmark results. The model the benchmark uses is not particularly heavy. My guess is that the more of everything a model has, the less significant the graphics card becomes.
What are your current specs? One of the components that can speed up your pc a lot is the SSD, also if you want to upgrade your gpu you should check if your cpu can handle it without bottlenecking it.
