Viewports : Speedup tips ?

[Maven]

Any viewport troubles can be directly related to you graphx card. You can also try increasing your page file size to at least 3 times your Physical memory size and also make the min and max value the same number. I would also say to get more RAM than 256 at least get another 256.

[Oktavian]

- Geometry hiding is (as you said) a good point.
- More RAM is also reasonable.
- The Geforce2 MX400 isn't a bad cards but just a bit out of date, maybe you could try to tune it to a Softquadro.

... but as leonec said, viewport-troubles relate allways to your graphic card.

[LoTekK]

- Geometry hiding is (as you said) a good point
I have similar problems, owing to the fact that my computer's kinda in need of a massive upgrade. I've actually tried, on several occasions, to hide every bit of geometry but the part I'm working on, but it doesn't seem to speed up the viewport at all. Any other ways around this, besides a hardware upgrade?

[Rivendale]

you can turn off degradation override, so that your model becomes wireframe when you rotate or move the viewport The keyboard shortcut is o. Best thing is to hide the stuff you're not working with though.

[Schnupps]

If you model a lot with edit poly you should put a mesh select or edit mesh on top of your modifier stack. A edit mesh is much faster than an edit poly, you can right click on it and select turn off while rendering.
@celticdog you will archive a big perfomance boost with additional 256mb of ram. 256 are just to few.

Schnupps

[peanut]

256 Megs of ram is Poor

im under 1500 and im still complaining that its not fast enough :)

[NikLG]

One thing I have found ( though it doesn't really help in massive scenes ) is to make sure that all viewports are in wireframe mode ( except maybe the one you are working in ). It speeds things up a tad, even if you are just working in 1 maximized viewport.
Or is that just me ?

[Baldrick]

Disabling viewports can help as well as MAX won't bother updating all the viewports each time you do something.

[celticdog]

Thanks for the replies guys. I've been looking for an excuse to buy a new box and I think you've helped me decide. I could start screwing around with the edit mesh and stuff but I think I'm tired of watching my scene dissappear everytime I rotate the viewport. Remember the scene in "Office Space" where the guys beat the sh!t out of the fax machine? I'll do that first. Maybe I'll video tape it and post it here!

[visualboo]

There's a bunch of stuff you can do.

1) Do what Schnupps said. If you're working with editable poly then try putting a edit mesh on top.
example (http://www.visualboo.com/movies/helpers/viewport%20speed%20trick.swf)

2) Convert everything from editable poly to editable mesh that your finished working with/don't need poly tools for, or at least temporarily convert them until you need the tools again.

3) Deffinitely upgrade your GFX card. Memory will only help if your running out of it. So try and keep up on your systems stats.

4) Showing edged faces (F4) will slow things down quite a bit. Try using Display Selected with Edged Faces. I bind that to ctrl + alt + e.

5) shoot.. there's a lot more. Do you want me to list more?

[EricChadwick]

One thing not mentioned is the Fast View Nth Faces option, for me its nicer than bounding box degradation, I still get an approximation of my mesh shapes.

Viewport Config > Rendering Method > Rendering Options > Fast View Nth Faces checkbox/spinner.

[celticdog]

There, thats better. Now, I'll soon reach a point where a new video card will be necessary, more memory, etc. and then even all the tricks won't be enough.
What if I were to get a new workstation with dual 3 gig, 2 or 3 gigs of memory, and a kickass card. Just out of curiosity, at what point would it start bogging down when modeling? 200,000 polys? 800,000 polys?

[TOMMY 3D FREAK]

Hi,

It seems to me that a lot of you guys work with multiple viewports. I have, from the start, forced myself to use only one viewport at a time (you can only focus on one thing at the time right?). This increases viewport speed, but it also forces you to work with shortcut's. If you assign your shortcut's in a good way, you'll switch smoothly between views (in one viewport) just by using shortcut's. Maybee this is not the standard, but it works for me. Is this the wrong way to work?


Greets,

tommy 3d freak

[Maven]

I also work that way. There is no wrong way to work. If if is comfortable to you then it is right.

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