I would like to get some advice for the decision for a new PD:
How important is it to have a Geforce or Radeon graphics card? Or is an integrated card like Intel® UHD Grafik P630 in conjuction, with an i9 processor, also sufficient to have a good performance with CDR?
Regards
Rüdiger
I've been keeping track of CorelDRAW performance and system configurations for decades. I regularly run 1.5GB files in memory. Configuration is a big deal if you do heavy lifting with your system.
I run an ASUS Main board, an i9 9900, a Samsung 1TB SSD, 64 GB of RAM, a 6GB NVidia graphics card (a true NVidia) as the core configuration.
Any AMD processor or Raedon video card is risky with CorelDRAW as is a Xeon processor. AMD for some reason in many systems has display refresh and complex file handling issues. Those who have been regularly successful with AMD systems are high level technicians and in every successful case it takes them quite some time, weeks to months. In some cases they use one driver for one software and another on a daily basis.
I have come to suspect that Xeon systems that have issues are lacking capability in the mainboard BUSS. However I have never seen one used as a graphic work station that I could examine close enough to find out, most of them are 3D rendering stations or servers although the i9 is displacing them in 3D.
The graphics card performance with CorelDRAW is significant part of the configuration. I only have 1 unit with an Intel on board graphics card and it's an i5 laptop. In my opinion with my work load any laptop is a non starter, performance for the cost fall significantly behind a desktop as does color image editing. The Intel UHD P630 performance is mediocre at best.
Make sure if you choose NVidia that it's a true NVidia card and not an NVidia chipset card. I would avoid top of the line gaming cards, if you use a laptop make sure you can disable the onboard graphics card in the bios otherwise many time Draw resorts to the onboard card. .
Are you sure the graphics card has any real impact on CorelDRAW performance?
I understand that something has to, at least, reasonably support a 4K monitor or several these days (say, 1080 + 4K + 1080 here), but I haven't really seen any tangible difference between a NVIDIA GTX series card (so about 4 years old) or, what is currently here, a RTX 2060.
I have been testing this a good deal, enabling the "Use GPU for vector previews" in settings, testing some files with HUGE amounts of vector objects, running some fairly complex macros, etc.
Basically, no difference.
Strangely enough there are places where the older 2018 does things faster than 2020 (at least in Macros). So CorelDRAW's claims of massively improved performance have to be taken with a little grain of salt. Some things in 2020 were, say, twice as fast. But then others were five times faster in 2018.
It depends on what you do and use a laptop that cannot disable the on board card most times will not use the add on card. So poor performance.
A desktop or laptop that only handles simple vectors most likely will not notice a difference, many sticker makers and simple sign designs fit this description. This is a vast amount of CoreoDRAW users.
Now move to a complex vector with 15,000 to 40,000 nodes and the game changes. Also image editing, I work with ASP-C, Full Frame and Medium Format RAW files from 24 to 50 MB. As 16 bit RGB tif files they can easily be 60MB+ files each.
Tuesday I was working on a 32 page brochure, I had a Draw file with 65 of these images in it open and all effects were rendered at 400 DPI. Simultaneously I had 10 more images open in Photo-PAINT and PaintShop Pro open with a few files and the system worked smoothly. Draw and Photo-PAINT worked normally without delays in redraw. The 6GB NVidia is significantly faster then my 4GB card on the system right beside this one.
I also do large donor walls, in excess of 100 feet x 25 feet. Loads of effects, many simple vectors, images and several complex vectors with tens of thousands of nodes. The mock up files can be 10 pages and run up to 2GB. The 6GB NVidia delivers an advantage.
I've been doing this since the early 90's and I've built a bunch of systems. If you're building a system is an extra $100 a big deal? It is if your work is not system stressing. If you work your systems hard in my experiance with improved performance you're going to recover that $100 on the first day.
So the question I always ask was, do I want to limit myself? I always bought better gear, increased and diversified my work. It's not all roses, bigger opportunities mean bigger risk but also bigger paydays.
First of all, Happy Holidays! Second, thanks for such an extended reply.
We mostly deal with pure vector files, so that's where I have noticed very little impact from graphics card power and/or having the Use GPU for vector previews enabled or not.
Like was mentioned, I was looking into ways of improving performance and recently asked my colleagues to send the worst files they have ever had speed wise. For example, one of the files had some 30 objects with about 1000 PowerClipped objects inside each. And despite those objects being just single-colored logos someone had forgotten to weld each logo element (or even better their entire batch, even if it would take forever the first time) and instead those were grouped.
So, in the end we had 5000 separate objects inside each parent object. A total of about 155 000 nodes in each. Having 30 base objects results in about 4 650 000 nodes in the file. Slowdown is real with such a file. Pan the canvas, 5 second wait icon. Zoom in, 5 second wait icon. Enter a PowrClip, wait half a minute. Etc.
Perhaps I am asking too much, but that is a pain to use.
As for image editing, I absolutely agree that more RAM and a batter video card will make life easier 100%.
But this conversation actually gave men an idea on how to ease the pain here a little... Might make a macro which saves the original content as a temp file nearby, then converts the overly detailed PowerClip contents into a small preview bitmap image. That should be MUCH faster to display (and possibly use that GPU power).
Then, when it comes to export, use the macro to bring all the slow vector content back. Will need to test it, but sounds like an interesting thing to try... Thanks for the inspiration!
I have to say I've seen serious issues with processing edits with some power clips. I use them quite a bit but my use has never put me in a situation where I have poor performance with my files. I ued to have a test file that was awful, with an on going discussion on this forum there was solution that improved performance but old age has temporarily kicked that out of my head. Now thanks to you I have to look it up!
I never do repetitive tasks in any quantity that has provided any efficient use of Macros so I have very little experiance with them.
I'm in a position now that 99.99999% of my work involves all high end work, conventional print, digital print of all types manufacturing processes, complex color management, process control and problem solving. It's a very weird business model, some jobs run on for more than 2 years. I have a few charity clients that get gifts of regular work but I tend toward helping people not organizations. The traditional graphics/sign work has become a passing management fancy.
Well, you are putting your experience to a good use, which is the way it, ideally, should be.
I was doing a little bit of testing for this idea of temporarily converting powerclip contents to low resolution bitmaps and once again came upon some strange approach by CorelDRAW.
If we have very complex objects on a different page and simple one shape objects on the other. Dealing with the simple objects is still going to be slow unless the complex object on the whole different page is removed.
Why is something on a different page affecting anything on the current one at all? Admittedly this was happening with 2018, so perhaps in 2020 fixing it is a part of those promised massive performance improvements. Will have to look into it.
After our discussion I found the Powerclipped file I mentioned and it is 4 pages and I've observed the same problem you have observed. If the last 3 pages were deleted the process of editing the power clip was improved. Also the process in 2020 was improved over 2018 but not much.
I'm with you there should be no reason that a complex set of unedited objects on a different page should affect editing on an active page.
Worse then this I've got files fare more complex than this test file that do not exhibit this problem. I'm going to examine the differences between my construction techniques and those used in the test file.
You've ruined my life! Now I spend my days in a padded graphics studio trying to figure out why when you turn off a monitor there is still a light on the power button!