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64 Bits

G

Gaspar

Alibre Super User
64 Bits

AMD has its 64 bit processor on the market, Intel says it wont be long for theirs and all this means Win64 is on its way.

What about Alibre? Has any one heard of any project to start working on AD64? :!:

At the very top of my wish list is faster performance. I can't wait for a quantum leap in speed like what we saw from 16 bits to 32 bits.

If you have any news on this regard, they are more than welcome!
 
J

jwknecht

Alibre Super User
64bit discussion on the Yahoo groups site

Gaspar,

On the Yahoo Groups Site, we had some discussion and shared some information. I posted on that site, the email that I received in response from Alibre. Basically, if I remember their response correctly, they had no current activity in support of 64bit and depend on their supply chain and partner companies. It was going to be at least a year off. Of note, Microsoft is supporting 64bit at the OS server level and has a beta version for XP (check out MS site for information on benefits of 64bit). I have the new AMD chip in my notebook, so when Windows, Alibre, and other software support 64bit I will be ready to go (as it is, the AMD is running the 32bit applications fine). In addition to the performance increase we will see with 64bit, the memory the 64bit hardware supports is huge compared to the limits we hit now (more power)!
 
G

Gaspar

Alibre Super User


Thanks for your input John,

If I could put pressure on our very busy developers at Alibre, it would be, without the slightest doubt, to be ready to launch AD64 as soon as hardware and OS are available :!:
 
swertel

swertel

Alibre Super User


Don't forget, Alibre can't really utilize 64 bit until the OS does. It doesn't matter how fast Alibre works until MS gets there.

I would like to see Alibre kicking butt on new and improved features until Win64 is released. Then work on 64 Alibre within the next release cycle.
 
C

cclark440

Alibre Super User


I agree with swertel. Alibre should concentrate on improving what is already here, not worrying about a technology that has yet to be seen.

Don’t get me wrong Alibre will need to port to 64bit sometime, but there time is better spent improving the current architecture.
 
G

Gaspar

Alibre Super User


Let me try to make my point.

I think the difference in our opinions lies in how heavily we are using the software.

When you work with big assemblies, or complex imported geometries, it can take 1 full minute for AD to engage sketch mode, then usually more than that to extrude the sketch, etc. It's a nightmare :shock:

We are running reasonably good PCs (2.8 Ghz, PIV, 1 GB RAM, 128 MB video) and have done bench marking with Inventor and Catia importing the same assemblies and finding very similar response times.

Our conclusion is that 3D modeling is still somehow on top of today's available hardware (mundane hardware). If some of you remember how it was with ACad V10 and 286 PCs, it didn't take much of a drawing to slow the system down, but now, any PIII, 1 Ghz PC can handle the latest version of the software and manage as big a drawing as you want without much problem (not a map of your city :wink: ). I think the same will happen with 3D modeling. Eventualy, hardware will be able to cope with its demands for processing power and memory.

We do smaller jobs, but the ones shown in the images are pretty common. This is why, for us, the most desirable enhacement is speed, and as far as I can see, 64 bits is our best shot :D

Ok guys, I'm not trying to compete with anyone else's ideas, but I did want to make clear why I have high hopes on 64 bit technology.

NOTE: If these images slow dial up users too much or are considered as non adequate, please let me know and I will take delete them right away. I just wanted to make my point and its always nice to show one's work to collegues :wink:


Fixture for front door of VW NB
MAG1.jpg


Fixture for a plastic cover of the same door
MAG2.jpg


Welder for truck axles
MAG4.jpg


Actual welder for truck axles
MAG3.jpg
 
G

Gaspar

Alibre Super User


For sure Mibe :mrgreen:

I must say the following:

1) The car parts are automaker's files (Catia native)
2) The fixture parts that mimic the a car part, were modeled as a solid block from the car part in Catia, then imported into Alibre for mechanical design (the Catia part is usually subhired as 2 hours of consulting work)
3) Everything else is Alibre native

:?: Comodore 64 :?: That was the first computer I laid my hands on during college... Nice image buddy!
 
usicad.support

usicad.support

Member
64 bit usefull ?

To my mind, native 64 bit is not usefull for now, because AD doesn't need more than 2 Gb of RAM to work.
What is more important is the overall speed of the computer.
I run AD on a Athlon64 3200+ (2 GHz) cpu with 2x512 Mo DDRAM 400 MHz dual channel and a nForce3 chipset.
Aida32 measure a 2940 Mo/s speed for memory read.
Athlon64fx51 with nForce3pro150 give 5400 Mo/s !!!!
The other important point is that AD (and most other CAD/CAM) do not use dual CPU. On a P4HT or any future dual core CPU (anounced for early 2005 by AMD and Intel), AD use only one pipeline, then half the maximum power.
This is the reason why I bought an AMD instead of an Intel. Not for 64bits, only for one huge pipeline intead of 2 smaller ones.
I think memory bandwidth and cpu's pipeline bandwidth are the 2 keypoints.

regards
Stephane
 
G

Gaspar

Alibre Super User


Hi,

Could you explain this further on?

As far as I understand (not being a computer expert) 64 bits is how many bits are processed in parallel, and therefore, I interpret it as doubling the size of the pipeline (considering our actual 32 bits).

One of our machines is an Athlon 2200 with 1Gb DDR RAM, Nvidia 400GLX 64Mb video. It gets just as slow as the PIV 2.8 Ghz (same everything else). And when I say slow, I mean VERY slow. This is of course, only when working with a big assembly like the machine shown above.

Thanks.
 
usicad.support

usicad.support

Member


Let's say what is important for speed :

- cpu core speed (of course)
- pipeline efficienty
- memory bandwidth

Intel P4 have a VERY fast core BUT, IMO, only Xeon have a huge bandwidth that can feed this core. Secondly, P4 core is so fast that Intel put 2 pipelines (called hyperthreading) to feed the core. Each pipeline use half of the available clock-cycle. Alibre is not multithreaded, so it will use only one pipeline, i.e. one half the maximum power.
AMD ATHLON have a slower core (MHz speaking), but only one pipeline (with less stages), but execute instructions more efficiently. AMD64 have an integrated memory controler that increase the memory bandwith, so the CPU can scan more memory at the same time.

64 bits computing is not that important (IMO) by itself, because we do not need more than 2 Gb of memory right now. AMD64 is interesting because it use clock-cycle better than P4HT (IMO again), as long as Alibre (and other cad/cam) are single-threaded.

Keep in mind that next generation CPU will be dual-core, so multithreading will soon become very important.

regard
stephane
 
G

Gaspar

Alibre Super User


Thanks :D

Very interesting.

Now, if you were chief of developers at Alibre and you were told that your main resposibility is to make the software as fast as actual (or inconming) hardware can let it be. What would you focus on?
 
C

Cameraman

Senior Member


Gaspar said:
. . . Now, if you were chief of developers at Alibre and you were told that your main resposibility is to make the software as fast as actual (or inconming) hardware can let it be. What would you focus on?
Click to expand...

Aha . . . perhaps that is the issue here . . . if you were chief of developers at Alibre, would you in fact make it your main responsibility to maximize AD's ability to use the latest hardware? I'm not so sure that I would. There are many factors in the equation -- things like the resources required to make the leap to multi-threaded, supporting multiple versions of the the software, and the like . . .

I understand that it's easy for me to be patient because my assemblies are relatively simple (less than 60 or 70 parts in most cases), and I will admit that I haven't studied the trade-off between assembly size, operator time, and software/hardware costs, but I'm pretty happy with the price-performance ratio that AD provides.

Regards,
Greg :D
 
usicad.support

usicad.support

Member


hello

Running the cutting edge hardware is not necessary.
Multithread can be introduced smoothly, but IMO It would be a mistake to forget it.
I think that speed increase can come out of algorithm optimization.
(some CAM softwares are x2 faster on the same hardware just by changing algorithm implementation !).
"Profiling" the code may be the first step.

regards
 
G

Gaspar

Alibre Super User


Thanks Stephane! Not being a computer expert I find your info very interesting/useful :)

Hey Greg, I think that if I were the chief of developement, as you say, I would have to consider a good number of things. I also think AD has been very clever about how they have handled the overall "AD Experience". My question was to direct Stephane into what I wanted to know. I agree with you that "what" particular issue, or set of issues is a priority needs to be thought in depth.

As for my interest in speed, its just that one thing I'd like to see happening is to be able to FLY as one designs and let your own head be the constraint, not the CPU. At the moment, we have bad problems with some assembies (not all, of course).

I'm not even blaming it on the software. I haven't got the faintest idea about what is the bottle neck at the moment: software or hardware. :wink:
 
C

Cameraman

Senior Member


Yeah, your point is well taken, Gaspar . . . but I sure hope my head never has to get into the efficiency loop or I will be in BIG trouble :?

Regards,
Greg :D
 
D

dvanzet

New Member


We also experience performance issues at my engineering office. We have brought Alibre basically to a halt with some of our larger assemblies. Our products are fairly simple (typically 60 to 200 parts) I can't imagine trying to use Alibre with large complex assemblies. I don't know if other M-CAD packages are similar in performance with respect to speed or not. So I also would benefit immediatly from performance enhancments, much more than feature enhancments.
 
P

peterepeat

Member
AMD64/WinXP-64Bit/Alibre...not yet

Hi,
I recently changed my pc over to a A64 2800+ (1.8GHz), and kept the 1G of PC2700 memory from my last PC.
I loaded up the XP x64 edition from microsoft (beta) and discovered the following:
1. Drivers seem to be hard to come by. I eventually found drivers for my graphics (Radeon9550), network (3com gigabit lan), but no luck on the inkjet printers I had.
2. The A64 may natively run 32 bit code efficiently, just dont expect XP x64 to know about it. Generally most programs give the 'not intended for this platform' warning and will not run at all.
3. I could install turbocad 10.5
4. I could not install Alibre. The MS java install didnt work

By the way I also installed the Sun pre release x64 Java 1.5 SE . I imagine it is pretty well optimised to use the 64 bit OS.

Speaking of java, if Alibre is written in Java (albeit Microsoft's 'interpretation' of it), maybe the port to other platforms (x64, Linux x64, Linux i386 etc) is possible?
ps. after not being able to run much (and missing alibre), its back to 32 bit land (for the OS anyway) for a while longer.

Regards,
Peter
 
G

Gaspar

Alibre Super User


Thanks for the info Peter!

Sorry 64bit didn't work for now :?

Does any one know if AD64 is being worked on?

Honestly, I wouldn't really care if its the only software running on my computer as long as it runs FAST... hear the wind slam your ears as you zip through your models....

:mrgreen: (AD64 official pet)
 
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