Which Computer Specs Are Important For PDF Measuring Software?

Bverb on 09/06/2021 - 13:02

I am currently working in the construction industry and doing some upskilling in my personal time with online courses.

My course involves using Bluebeam software to do measuring on PDF construction drawings.

Very quickly, my laptop starts to struggle as I try move around the page once I have added some layers of measurement to the sheets. It becomes very difficult and slow to keep measuring.

And if it is related, once I have a few PDFs open in Adobe, it will give me the message "Error loading stream" and the pages will all go white.

What specs are important in a computer to allow it to keep running smoothly in Bluebeam during measuring.

Current specs:

     Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 18362) (18362.19h1_release.190318-1202)
             Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
  System Manufacturer: LENOVO
         System Model: 20NGCTO1WW
                 BIOS: R0YET34W (1.17 ) (type: UEFI)
            Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8565U CPU @ 1.80GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.0GHz
               Memory: 16384MB RAM
  Available OS Memory: 16192MB RAM
Computing

Comments

  • Tech5 on 09/06/2021 - 13:20

    Can you run the software, do what you do, then check task manager for % usage of GPU/RAM/CPU? Also run coretemp as well to see what temperature is

    • Bverb on 09/06/2021 - 14:09

      I just did a test with a few measurements til it only started to slow down

      Not as bad as it gets if I keep going

      Power usage becomes "Very High" when scrolling around the page, CPU usage goes up to about 15%, GPU none and Memory usiage is about 200MB

      Chrome sits at about 600MB Memory

  • AndyC1 on 09/06/2021 - 13:24
    +1

    Run the app and check the resource via the MS Resource Manager, not via Task Manager as RM it will give you more details of what resource are being taxed.

    I also suggest google 'Adobe "Error loading stream"' to see what causes the error message with the Adobe application you are using.

  • Jolakot on 09/06/2021 - 13:26
    +1

    What version of Bluebeam Revu are you using?

    For 2018 and below, you really need to max out single thread CPU performance, 32-64GB of RAM and a very fast SSD. So a top-top-tier Intel CPU (10th or 11th gen i7 or i9), lots of RAM and a good SSD.

    For 2019 and above, an nVidia GPU can be used for hardware acceleration with the right settings, which will blitz through most tasks and take the load off the CPU. So a good CPU, lots of RAM, good SSD and a dedicated GPU.

    • Bverb on 09/06/2021 - 14:13

      It's Version 2018.6

      So I gather that ALL my specs are too crap for this version by what you're saying?

      I'm not sure what you mean by max out single thread CPU performance though

      • Jolakot on 09/06/2021 - 16:23
        +1

        Your specs are fine as a general workstation laptop, but Bluebeam is a horribly optimized piece of software, so you're going to need to go high end.
        Ideally move to a desktop, you're going to struggle on any laptop under $2500.

        In most modern CPUs, each core has 2 threads, called hyperthreading. If you have 8 cores, so 16 threads, and a task can only be worked on by 1 thread, then 15 of those threads and 7 of those cores are only useful for letting that one thread have 100% focus of that core. In the same way that 9 women can't make a baby in 1 month.

        A well designed piece of software will be designed to let each unit of work be split up and worked on with those other threads. 9 women can't make a baby in 1 month, but they can make 9 babies in 9 months, so really it's just how the workload is defined.

        In this case, Bluebeam 2018 is only using one thread for most of its work, so you need to make the core hosting that thread as strong as possible to increase the speed of it.

        Going overboard with cores won't help you much at all, so a Ryzen 5600x will be almost as good as an Ryzen 5950x as AMD only really adds more cores (3% better single-core performance 5600x vs 5950x), but on the Intel side an i9-11900K is way superior than an i5-11600K for single-core (15% better single-core performance).

        In terms of specs, go for something similar to:
        CPU: Ryzen 5600x or i9-11900K
        RAM: 32GB or 64GB
        SSD: 512GB/1TB NVMe
        GPU (mandatory if you go for AMD, optional for Intel): 1660ti/3060ti, diminishing returns after 1660ti

        • Bverb on 09/06/2021 - 16:48

          Thanks for the explanation appreciate it

          Looking into getting a newer Bluebeam and also looking at desktops now

  • Mechz on 09/06/2021 - 13:51
    -1

    Pay for a virtual machine in the cloud (couple bucks per month) and do the hard work there.

    • Indomietable on 09/06/2021 - 16:56

      On demand cloud VM is almost always more expensive than local machine.

      • Mechz on 09/06/2021 - 17:10

        If you're just doing some study for a month or 2, I don't think you can get better value.

        • Indomietable on 09/06/2021 - 17:29
          +1

          Makes sense. You 'll need to install the software from scratch if you want to use it hourly.
          p3.2xlarge ( 8 CPU / 61GB RAM ) on AWS cost $US4.6 for 1 hour

          If you want to keep it for a month thats $US 3312 about $4.3k.

  • tight-ass on 09/06/2021 - 14:02

    I use Bluebeam Revu 2020 at work and Revu 2019 at home, working with mostly A1 drawings in PDF format.

    Bluebeam can be pretty taxing on a CPU.

    I upgraded my home PC to a AMD 5950X with 64GB of RAM and it runs without any issues and everything loads up instantly when you open Bluebeam. Previously I had an Intel i7 6700k with 32GB of RAM and it was often sluggish, especially when you stitch 20-30 A1 drawings. My work laptop really bogs down - i7-8650U with only 16GB of RAM.

    I've found that some issues can be avoided or improved by 'flattening' the drawing in Bluebeam first before attempting to view/open in other programs such as Adobe reader etc..

    • Bverb on 09/06/2021 - 14:15

      Wow those are some crazy specs

      I would consider buying a desktop for Bluebeam, I guess I just need a good CPU and lots of RAM?

      Can you give any further details on requirements for CPU etc?

      • tight-ass on 09/06/2021 - 14:23

        Looking at the minimum and recommended specifications on their website would indicate the specs you have would suffice, however this doesn't appear to be the case.

        I'm not 100% certain what specs you need to ensure it all runs smoothly, however the following would be my guesstimate:
        64 bit OS
        Min 32GB RAM
        Core i7 or 5900/5950X

        I don't think the graphics card you have makes much of a difference. I'm using a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 G5 4 GB MINI ITX OC Video Card in my home PC. This was also recently upgraded as the old graphics card couldn't run dual 4k monitors.

  • DJR9000 on 09/06/2021 - 16:12

    i assume you've gone through this?

    https://support.bluebeam.com/articles/revu-tips-for-improvin…

  • Indomietable on 09/06/2021 - 19:43

    i7-8565U

    I think this is the Bottleneck.
    i7 U on laptop perform worst than current desktop i3.

    https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i7-8565U-vs-Intel…

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