For Sketchup 2017 Make is there a way to increase the RAM it uses so it can handle more complex shapes? I have an old computer and a new computer which is far superior, and with Sketchup they run just as slowly. Anyway to make it demand more resources?
How large is your model ?
Do you use Shadows, Profiles On, Textured Rendering, in short, any demanding rendering settings.
Even a simple model containing millions of repetitive simple components can put even a very fast computer to a crawl.
SketchUp’s speed is not just depending on RAM. Single core speed of your processor has a lot of influence. Maybe your newer computer has more cores but about the same single core speed…
You can look them up here: PassMark CPU Benchmarks - Single Thread Performance
As far as I know, SketchUp always uses as much virtual memory as needed (based on the model and the program’s internal data structures etc.). I doubt that SketchUp tries to be clever with managing its process address space with custom paging schemes or similar techniques to request less memory of the operating system than is needed for the complete model representation.
2 Likes
Some objects might contain 250000 surfaces. I hate decimating them down and ruining detail. Computer freeezes everyday I try to combine 2 objects.
A single object with 250000 faces is huge! I regularly create entire models with a fraction of that number of faces. It sounds like you are trying to use a surface modeler (SketchUp) like a nurbs modeler. To get the most out of SketchUp you will want to keep the poly-count down.
1 Like
I agree with @TheOnlyAaron 250,000 faces for a single object seems excessive. This entire model, which is intentionally modeled with a lot of faces is less than 363k faces.
2 Likes
What made you conclude that the problem is with the amount of RAM SketchUp is using? Have you checked the Task Manager to see how much it is using and whether your system’s real memory is exceeded, which would force virtual memory swapping and slow things down? As others have noted, SketchUp is not known as a memory hog. It is far more likely that the CPU and GPU are struggling to handle your immense model.
?
In your screenshot I see a 2, a 6 and a 3 but in different order, 362k.
They count differently over there.
3 Likes
Fixt. Coffee hadn’t kicked in yet.
3 Likes
I wish I had a computer that could cope with 250,000 faces. Mine struggles at about 10. That’s 10 not 10k.
5 Likes
When detailing with high detail objects I only need to do large processes like merging objects together and deleting redundant stuff. I don’t try to do sculpting micro stuff. Wish there was a way to increase processing for a short amount of time. Do only super computers routinely deal in quarter million surfaces?
You can manually get windows to give SketchUp priority over other applications, but the reality is your are probably simply maxing out what your processor can do and there is nothing left for it to give.
I’m thinking of upgrading my iMac and passing my current one down to my wife.
Is a 10-core 10th-generation Intel Core i9 processor better than the iMac with the Apple M1 chip 8-core CPU and up to 8‑core GPU? It’s a little difficult to tell which are which from the chart: PassMark CPU Benchmarks - Single Thread Performance but it looks like that clock speed, model & core count are actually worse even though Apple is charging more for the 27" model iMac, probably because it is larger 27" vs. 24" (a larger screen with Sketch-Up is definitely a plus!).
I have no hands-on experience with either your current iMac or the new M1 (or will it be M2?) version. Performance wise, there is better opportunity for cooling down in a desktop than a laptop, so the iMac will likely outperform a similarly configured MacBook, but that remains to be verified once real hardware comes out.
As always, number of cores is irrelevant to SketchUp.
The one thing I can say for sure is that your choice of RAM is even more important with Apple silicon because there is no possibility of increasing it later. Apple silicon shares memory between the CPU and GPU, so you need to think in terms of their total, not separately.
The Apple Silicon Mac might be better future proofing than the Intel one. People here have been posting positive things about the performance of SketchUp 2022 on the new Mac hardware now that it runs there natively, without Rosetta emulation.
1 Like