Ug NX5 Workstation

[Drinkin]

I use NX5 for free form design. When i make a change to one of the features it takes for ever to update all the other features. I am working on specing a new workstation and was wondering if ug use the video card or the cpu to crunch blend, and surfaces?

 

[JohnRBaker]

The CPU does all the math and the Graphics card displays the results. However, a fast CPU and a slow Graphics card is always better than a slow CPU and a fast Graphics card. That being said, the bulk of the actual model update performance will depend on the CPU and the amount of memory you have. Also dual-cores help, particularly with Boolean updates which could get significant on very large solid models.

The best advice is to spend as much as you can afford on the CPU itself (dual- versus single-core, clock speed, etc) AND memory. And fast hard drives can help as well. Then whatever you have left over, invest that in your graphics card, but whatever you do try to get one with no less than 128mb, unless of course you're also going to be playing games, then . . . ;-)



John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[WJakub]

John,
I am ready to upgrade my 4 yr old pc to accomodate
NX5's hearty appetite for resources. I also do mostly
free-form modeling and create some rather "heavy"
models. Since you recommend CPU power first can you give
us any tips on performance of say ...Duo-core vs Quad core?
Also realistically on a 32bit system does it make any sense
to have more than 2 gigs of RAM? I tend to have several
apps open at the same time.

thanks,
Walter

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"-
Arthur C. Clarke

 

[JohnRBaker]

Unless you will be running 2 or more 'heavy' apps at once, say CAD and FEA, a dual-core is probably adequate. As for memory, even with a 32-bit system you can directly address up to 3gb of memory for your applications. To accomplish this first install a full 4gb load of memory. Now the O.S. will 'steal' the first gb, leaving 3gb for your applciations, but you will only get full access if you set the extended memory option in Windows XP first.

Of course, if you move to a 64-bit system, even if you only install the 32-bit verion of NX, you can now leverage the theoretical limit of 4gb of memory as the O.S. will now run in the memory partition above where the 32-bit addressing ends.


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[WJakub]

Thanks John. What about running NX5 on the new Quad-core Macs? Can the machine be set up for 64 bit? How is the “bang for the buck? and will NX5 run in native Mac OSX yet? If not then when and how is the performance under Bootcamp?

thanks again,
Walter

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"-
Arthur C. Clarke

 

[JohnRBaker]

I have no personal experience running NX on a Mac (except when we were prototyping an early G4/G5 version of NX 4 since I'm a bit of Mac 'freak' and at the time I was bringing my iBook to work everyday) using 'Boot Camp' and Windows XP, but I know of some people how have and they seem happy with it.

As far as a 'native' version of NX on the Mac O.S., while we were hoping to have something ready for NX 5, it appears now that we won't be releasing anything until NX 6 and as you might expect, this will only be for Intel-based machines.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[WJakub]

Thanks again John. A couple more questions. I set the display preferences-faceting to extra-fine while I'm working as I need to evaluate surfaces as I create them. Is this a CPU or Video card intensive task?

Lastly if I am running a rendering task (Alias ImageStudio) simultaneously while modeling in NX5 would a quad-core processor be a significant advantage over a duo-core?

thanks again,
Walter

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"-
Arthur C. Clarke

 

[JohnRBaker]

I set the display preferences-faceting to extra-fine while I'm working as I need to evaluate surfaces as I create them. Is this a CPU or Video card intensive task?

Both, because first the software has to calculate the actual tesselation of the model based on your new tigher tolerance, and second, because the graphics card will now have jsut that many more facets to manage and refresh as you manipulate the display of the results. This is one of those cases where a little extra investment in both the CPU/Memory and the Graphices card will pay off.

Lastly if I am running a rendering task (Alias ImageStudio) simultaneously while modeling in NX5 would a quad-core processor be a significant advantage over a duo-core?

Only if you had already set the SMP switch in NX and you were doing some heavy Boolean updating, drafting hidden-line-calculation, faceting display updating in your NX session while your Imageware rendering process was running.


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[MacProRob]

Hi
I dont want to hyjack your thread....but here goes!
I have brought a MacPro (new 2008 spec one) and have set up using bootcamp the dual operating system feature and am running XP pro. I have installed UG NX2 onto this system.
All is well but in a model that i was working on, on my old system there appears to be some regenation issues...or something along those lines because basically there are "random" lines placed in the model, its kinda hard to explain without a picture but do you think that this was due to the Mac conflicting somehow? Or because I am running an old version of UG? Other than that the mac pro with a dual operating system is a great computer......
Regards
Rob

I have just noticed I can add a picture so I have tried to do...do you think the "lines" are there due to the components within the model?

 

[JohnRBaker]

Yes, I've seen that myself and am not sure what causes it, but I know it goes away eventually because of something that I do. If I see it again and I figure exactly what made it go away, I'll try and post it. BTW, I'm running on a Dell laptop with all the latest patches and updates.


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[DavidTolsma]

win 32 max 3Gig ram NX will see with the switch added. 4 Gig max Windows can see.

64 Bit can see more but depends on your usage profile

-Dave Tolsma

http://groups.google.com/group/NX_CAX/

 

[MacProRob]

Any ideas anyone?

 

[hudson888]

I started a thread about MacPro Notebooks a while back with the idea of changing to a laptop myself if it represents that only way licenses can be kept portable once dongles are seen off. I didn't get a whole lot of useful discussion about it and was somewhat disappointed. Now I may be glad that I have avoided these problems.

I have never had anything like this using NX-2 thru NX-5 on any Nvidia graphics cards on desktop of laptop machines that I have owned. I have a Sony Laptop Vaio, with an ATI card, which I know isn't really any good, and yet apart from the obvious performance penalty no major graphics problems. Yes like many we have had problems and sought to avoid ATI cards in the past.

If we have graphics problems it is usually with wireframe repaint not the shaded images. My only comment would be that it has the appearance of facet edges showing up inappropriately. Can you comment about whether if you turn on the facet edge display it look similar or not? Also what to you do to make it go away? We found that changing views and performing a repaint in doing so usually settles these graphics problems, but even going so far as to update and regenerate the displayed view after they occur does not remedy the problems we have had.

Best Regards

Hudson

 

[DavidTolsma]

licenses kept portable? If you have requested a license with the ability you can Check out a license through Flexlm.

-Dave Tolsma
Tolsnet LLC

http://groups.google.com/group/NX_CAX/

 

[hudson888]

Yes Dave, but if you read the fine print you can check it out for a period of time and then it has to stay on the other machine for the duration. That at least was one of the things on offer as we interpreted it. Not that we have investigated further or tried this because it just doesn't suit us.

We want to be able to move licenses around and between machines on an ad-hoc basis, so we can work at two or more different sites, and basically get higher hours of usage per license. With the dongle you were able to basically put it in your pocket and take the license home with you. With a laptop at least I'd have something portable and could serve the license by networking to a workstation at my destination if on occasion the files aren't considered portable for security reasons.

Regards

Hudson

 

[DavidTolsma]

NX5 does not allow you the ability to check it back in, so you are stuck with the license on that machine until it expires. Not sure what the minimum hours of checkout is.

-Dave Tolsma
Tolsnet LLC

http://groups.google.com/group/NX_CAX/

 

[hudson888]

Thanks Dave,

That's what I'm saying and hence the laptop workaround. A few of us are less than impressed that a change has been made which appears to reduce the amount of flexibility that we previously had. On the other hand when we have expressed this our local reps have made some overtures towards making accommodation where possible. We have managed to retain the dongles for NX-5 at least.

Best regards

Hudson