The ultimate GH machine

After having some gratifying success in GH my attention turns to making GH run faster. It seems that it does not take very many components to start bogging down GH speed. I am considering upgrading my computer. I was wondering how the "ultimate" GH computer might set up. Are two screens worth the investment? What speed of processor would you recommend? Does it make more sense for 32 bit or 64 bit. How much ram does it take to start diminishing returns? Do graphic cards make a difference. I don't have all the money in the world so please describe your ultimate GH computer in order of priority as to what is most cost effective to make GH run faster. Are there other things that help the speed? Thanks for dreaming here with me a bit.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Suryansh Chandra on November 17, 2009 at 4:46pm

A fast computer helps for sure, but more than anything else, its about how you make your definitions work. I have often noticed that if you take care with sequencing your operations right, and obviously minimizing the number of operations needed to get to something, it helps a great deal.

This doesn't just mean reducing the number of components on the canvas, because each component doesn't consume the same amount of processing. For instance a simple number addition component is a zillion times lighter than a morph component that is propagating one polysurface object onto a complex degree 3 surface 5000 times (say a facade). All mathematical operations/objects (+,-,/,*,lines/circles/vectors/planes, etc etc) consume far less memory than any geometric operation/object.

I have used a pony with 1gb ram, 1 core, 32 bit, 2.something GHz to run things, and have also been fortunate enough to use a 8 core, 12gb, 3.something Ghz monster, and they have both managed to run out of memory.

Permalink Reply by Manuel on November 17, 2009 at 9:58pm

David said that multiples cores aren't supported.. so if your resources are limited, I recommend you a two core cpu (one for rhino-grasshopper and the other for the operative system). Vray for 3dsmax support multiple cores, buy i don't know if this applied in rhino. So multiple cores is good for renders but bad for working in grasshopper (only use one cpu).

I think is like this:
1.- cpu speed is critical (the fastest you can buy)
2.- cpu speed
3.- cpu speed
4.- ram (4gb, 8gb max)
5.- video: no integrated, 256-512gb, opengl support for fast visualizations (especially if you like to rotate the camera a lot) and with dual view support for the two screens (I always use nvidia cards and i dont have problems). I dont know if a profesional card like a nvidia quadro or a ati firegl will work with rhino-grasshopper.

- 64bit OS: yes (windows 7 64bits works really nice).
- two screens: yes, extreme helpful working in grasshopper.

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on November 18, 2009 at 4:09am