Sketchup's 3D processing speed when handling larger files

SketchUp
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I am using one of the earlier desktop version of Sketchup - Sketchup Make 2017.2.2555. Looking to upgrade, but for now I’m still on this version.

My 3D drawings are rather detailed and the size of the skp files often go over 150 MB. Sketchup becomes rather slow at not even halfway that filesize.

One of my current projects is 185 MB with 12,265,865 edges and 4,797,361 faces and Sketchup gets real sluggish and slow, even to do basic things.

Yes - there are a lot of components / within groups / within groups / within groups. It is necessary to keep things origanized.

I am on windows 10, 64 bit, AMD3950X (16 core), there is 128 GB RAM, and a Radeon Vega 64 graphics card.

I was wondering if Sketchup’s processing speed when handling larger files has improved much with the current paid versions?

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SketchUp has improved quite a bit but it’s also dependent on the hardware and there’s still a need to optimize your modeling. 12 million edges and nearly 5 million faces might still be a challenge with your computer.

I presume you are a hobbyist modeler since you are using 2017 Make. What kind of things are you modeling? My guess is your model could be lightened to make it work more easily.

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Thanks for your reply Dave!

I’ve been toughtful with how I drew certain things. Keeping things basic. But some of the items are detailed and they need to be. Helps me visualize.

I drew my house, and the most important furniture in it. Some of these are items that I designed, which I will be building soon. These are intricate designs and the detail on there is important to me.

Overall the drawing is optimized in terms of keeping the detail low and the efficiency of rendering all of it high. So the bulk of the drawing is actually rather basic / or at least doable and sensible in terms of detail. But yeah a handful of items are heavy in details.

One of two main items / components is a piece of furniture that as a seperate skp file is 95 MB in size. It has 3,483,823 edges and 1,379,431 faces. I imported this one in the bigger 185 MB file. There are two or three instances of this one within the drawing - although I will only be using one of them in the end. The other instances are in “hidden” setups within Sketchup (they have a different orientation, location, that kind of thing)

Not sure if more instances of a certain item / component create more load on the computer?

The other main item / component is an skp file of 58 MB with 472,749 adges and 169,101 faces. There are 4~6 of these in the drawing. Two of these instances matter, with again the other instances in “hidden” configurations of alternate setups.

While drawing and editing I keep the shade rendering off within Sketchup, and still it feels really sluggish.

I am hopeful that the handeling speed would be improved with the latest paid versions.

There are a lot of new features that I look forward to using in these new versions.

I especially was wondering if the newest versions of Sketchup could handle bigger files better and quicker.

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My answer is yes. For my workflow speed has definitely improved.

You can download a trial, load your model, see how it performs.

You’ll need a modern computer and graphics card to take advantage of it though…

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Yes, but the kind of models you say you make are still a challenge.

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@DaveR @Anssi - Great, and good to know. Thank you!

Loading that 185 MB project in this version of Sketchup Make 2017 takes 1min45sec from when I hit the “Start Using Sketchup” button in the opening dialogue box. I’m also curious how much that loading time would speed up on a more up-to-date computer with the latest Sketchup version.

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Download 2025 and use the trial period. Open the files for your self and see.

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According to my own personal and very anecdotal experience, I noticed 24’ to be quicker in smaller models but …slower… in larger models. I haven’t tested in 25’. I didn’t want to make a big thing and I think i only mentioned in in 1 thread around that time of its release. I chalked it up to be SKP migrating to a new graphics engine that presumably wasn’t well optimized yet but it was a real pain doing things like simply orbiting around heavy geometry to the point of it stalling out then waiting for it (the viewport) to be active only to move and have it re-stall out and rinse and repeat over and over making it near unusable and exceptionally painful to do some things. I had this experience on multiple models. The devs never can say what exactly is a too large model (and how exactly does it get spec’d as one) so we can trap for them but man do i feel it when it happens.

I have similar specs to your machine albeit a much newer GPU currently (but i did have a frontier edition at that time so almost the same build).

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That is interesting, thank you for sharing your experience!

There seems to be something fundamentally flaud with SKP when it comes to handling bigger models and the computation of their drawing in real time. As if it doesn’t scale well.

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That looks like the way to go. But I’m hesitant to download the trial version as it might interfere with my 2017 edition and its filing system. In case I decide to delete it again, sometimes that can lead to problems. I don’t want to risk the stability of what I have.

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It installs as its own program and everything should be separate. It should not overwrite anything - including plugins, shortcuts, etc. I have 22,24 and 25 installed.

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