Which CPU and GPU for 3d mesh scan data in Rhino 7?

Rhino Windows Hardware
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Recently my Rhino 7 crashes multiple times a day (and sometimes Windows 10 freezes forever) while working with 3d mesh scan data, so I guess it’s time to upgrade to a new PC with modern CPU and GPU that hopefully will not crash as often. My current PC is from 2014 and 99% of the time Rhino 7 performs quite well with large NURBS files up to 2-2,5GB, however, 3d scan data burdens it with ease and every moving or rotating of such a 3d mesh model is followed by at least 2 seconds of a delay, which is very frustrating. Sometimes a simple moving of a mesh model with a few millimeters to adjust its position causes crashes. Also, Undo it super slow in this case, unlike the super responsive Undo while working with NURBS models.
I thought about upgrading my system RAM to 32GB, but noticed that Rhino 7 crashes right after more than 5-6GB of RAM are being used, despite the fact that I have a total of 16GB. Is that limit related to the system RAM or the video RAM (using Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti 6GB)? I try to avoid upgrading my video card with a new expensive model consisting 12GB or 16GB video RAM just to figure out that the crashes are still present and caused by something else. My RAM is old DDR3, so it may be a part of the problem.

Do you have any recommendations about what CPU and GPU are proven and capable to handle scenes with several 3d scan models of car panels with up to 10 million triangles in the scene without crashing every few minutes?

My current PC has the following hardware:
Intel Core™ i5-4460 at 3.2GHz
4x 4GB DDR3 RAM at 1600 MHz (12,1GB free)
Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti 6GB
SSD Samsung 860 Evo 250 GB, SATA III
Motherboard ASRock Z87 Killer

As I mentioned above, I’m super happy with my PC despite its age. It’s the 3d mesh models that cause the crashes, so I do some research to see if the issue is related to the old hardware OR there is some limiting factor in Rhino 7 itself. Thanks! :slight_smile:

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Graphics card is the key here for sure! I upgraded first to a 3070, and then to a 3080 for this very reason - a lot of my work is large laser scanned data sets. On my 3080, I’ve currently got a laser scan of a BAE-146 I’m working on that’s 18 million polygons. The 3080 spins that thing like a top, super smooth, no stability issues. If you can get a 3080, that would be my recommendation. Even with a 3080 you can still find the limit tho if the data is overly dense garbage - a vendor sent me some really ugly, overly dense data that was about 5 gigs - that choked my system.

-Sky

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Also should add - my new best practice when using laser scanned data is to put it in a Block, and then bring that block into your session as a reference. This way whenever you save the file, you’re not constantly saving a huge chunk of data that’s already been saved.

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That’s a really nice practice, thanks for the advice! I have been using blocks for quick modification and replacing of a huge amount of screws, but using it for importing 3d scan data sounds reasonable.

I figured out that the majority of crashes related to 3d scan data happen when I have 2 or 3 mesh models aligned to each other, so that that many of their triangles intersect to each other. If the meshes are put separately, the framerate is much faster, however, putting them in the same place causes a slowdown. Maybe something related to the Z-buffer? I use a few 3d scan data aligned together as there are areas that appear better in one scan while another one has another area scanned better. So, I combine all of those to get the best results.