Graphics Performance IC 2017 v IC 2016

[Karen Bond]

I have been using the latest Ironcad 2017 PU1 and I have updated my graphics card driver. I now notice that when I open a scene with a lot of parts/assemblies in (say 300 parts), I find that the graphics performance (frame rate) slows down as I rotate the scene when all the objects are within view.

 

Zooming in so that some of the objects are not in view speeds up the frame rate. I had no lack of graphics performance in IC 2016 with this scene, and I have set up IC 2017 with all the same settings as I had in IC 2016.

 

However, I have noticed that what is causing the problem is having the simple shadow option enabled in the screen properties. Disabling this feature brings it back to the same performance as in IC 2016.

 

Has there been any enhancement in this feature to cause it to have this effect?

 

Also, when I was using IC 2016, I used to have the frame rate constantly on show in the top left corner of the screen. In IC 2017, I notice that you have added a line of text to this frame rate number. Is it possible to switch off this additional text without removing the whole frame rate display, as I find it quite distracting?

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

[IronKevin]

Hi Karen,

 

Can you send us your .ics file?

[CHAN]

We have tested many thousands of parts. IC2017 performance is much better. So 300 parts should be ok. That is better to let us have your files to address this problem. Would you like upload your files?

Now i give you a few tips that may help you. Please check and try those options.

Try the "disable some realistic effects automatically". If that works not well, to check "Hide small parts automatically". As a reminder, to set same lowest frame rate and max culling when you test the file in both ic2016 and ic2017.

[Karen Bond]

I have created two new files, one in IC 2016 and one in IC 2017.

 

IC 2016 with simple shadow enabled showed an fps around 30 when showing both blank and holed face.

 

IC 2017 with simple shadow enabled showed an fps around 25 when showing blank faces and when the holed face was visible, the fps dropped to about 6.

 

On switching the simple shadow off, this improved to an fps of 25 on blank and holed faces.

 

All these fps values were given when all blocks were visible. I have also deleted the xml files and reloaded the defaults with no change. I have already tried most options including the ones you describe, without any improvement.

 

As a work around, I can switch off the simple shadow when the scene gets busy and use the reflection effect instead, without any performance loss.

 

As for my second question, is there a way of switching off the additional text on the fps display?

 

Thanks for your support.

SIMPLE_SHADOW_2016.ics

SIMPLE_SHADOW_2017.ics

[CHAN]

Thanks for your information.

I found the issue in Ironcad2016. The shadow result has a fault. I attached a picture to explain it. In Ironcad2016, you can get correct shadow after switch render mode to "shaded" and switch back to "shaded with edge". Or to click "Tools | Regenerate display". After that, the render result is same as one in Ironcad2017.

Ok, now we compare the performance. Ironcad2017 is much faster. If the "Disable realistic" is checked, it will performance 3 times above faster in my machine.

 

As your second question, now you can't do that. This fps display is mostly used for collecting debug information. And it will slightly slow the graphics performance as well.

[Karen Bond]

 

Thank you for investigating this issue. I have read your comments and have disabled all the realistic options and I can see that it does produce a faster fps than IC 2016.

 

Therefore, I understand now that it is up to the user to set the options correctly for the amount of detail in the scene, to get the best quality/performance.

 

Thanks again.