CloudCompare forum

Hi Daniel;
First let me say a huge thank you for this amazing tool. I've only recently started using it and I'm learning something new every day.

I'm looking for some help in working out where the bottle necks on my current computer is, and what I should be looking for in my next machine?
It seems like I should aim for max RAM size as a priority, but is ram speed important? (ie. does the program thrash ram much?)
It looks like some functions hammer the CPU, while others don't (GPU or Ram limited?).

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Kind Regards
Del.

Hi,

I'm not an expert on the subject but here's my point of view :
- RAM : you will need a lot if you want to treat huge files (combination of several TLS for example)
- CPU : the more expensive the faster (NOT a linear curve), an old CPU will get you the same results, it will give it later
- GPU : most likely critical if you want to load huge files (through the GUI). Some functions most likely rely on the use of GPU for faster computations
- Linux will be faster than Windows (very dataset and application dependent, it also relies on how "clean" your OS is, experiences proved to be up to 50% faster with Lubuntu), although some of the plugins are not compatible (see : http://www.danielgm.net/cc/release/)

I agree for most of the points, apart that we don't use the GPU for any calculation (we only use it for display: the more memory you have on the GPU, the faster the display will be).

And for the CPU it's good to have lots of cores as most of the big algorithms are run in parallel. The computations are generally simple for each point so you don't need a top notch CPU, but the more cores it has, the more points will be processed in parallel.

Quick comment:
. GPU: no need to invest in a quadro Nvidia professional card. Cloudcompare does not benefit from it. Better to invest in a good gaming graphic card with at least 4gb memory. I've recently upgraded to a Geforce 1070 with 8Gb and it's really great. It can handle navigation in 3D with point clouds of 200 millions easily. Just make sure it fits in your computer and that the power supply can handle it
. In your configuration, I'd definitely consider using a 512 Go or 1To SSD...makes a big difference when you need to save/load big files

Now, I didn't realized the Linux version was much faster. Are you really comparing on exactly the same computer with the same operations ? That's something worth considering, especially for batch processing.

Dimitri

I did some Ubuntu/Windows 7 experiments on old school PC with a dual boot (same data, same material). You know, the kind of pc that needs 15min to boot on windows while Ubuntu starts under 1 min, saving hundreds of MB of RAM. Then i did a Ubuntu/Lubuntu comparison, which saves even more RAM for the later one. If you're treating small datasets on a recent computer, with a well maintained Windows OS, the difference is likely much less noticeable.

Thanks for the precision on the GPU, it might save a few hundred $ in my next buy ;-)

Ok, so you are not sure that the windows version was actually not limited by the available RAM. If windows starts to swap, of course, CC becomes a nightmare to use. The question is more whether there's a significant difference while you don't have this limitation.