Absurd CPU and GPU usage on idle

[Joao Prates]

Hi all,

 

I needed to do some comparisons between several project options, and noticed there is no way to have several projects open at the same time except to open PV*SOL for each one... not so good...

The worst came when with only 3 project versions opened I could definitely notice a huge performance hit on my computer, even though nothing was being done on them.

Opening task manager to see what exactly was causing this huger overload, this info showed up:

The 3 opened projects were all above 17% CPU usage, plus even higher GPU usage, and this while sitting there idle on the 3D "cable plan" tab.

I then exited the 3D module on each one, and the resource usage got back to what it is supposed to be when idle, i.e. near zero, CPU, GPU, and even low memory usage:

I have been told there won't be any changes on the 3D module for at least 1,5 years to come (optimistically speaking).

This absurd performance and resource usages are, in my view, something that needs urgent looking into, we can't wait weeks for it to be fixed, let alone years.

To be clear, this thread is not about using 3 program instances at the same time, it is about one single instance taking 20% CPU and GPU while doing nothing.

Please fix this ASAP.

Thank you.

[developer_mh]

Dear Joao,

when the 3D visualisation is open, the DirectX component is used to render the scene constantly. This causes the CPU and GPU load. If you want to avoid PV*SOL using the CPU and GPU while being idle, just close the 3D environment, as you already found out.

Kind regards,

Martin

[Joao Prates]

Dear Martin,

If in the future you experience brake failure in your brand new auto, and your car manufacturer support line tells you "well if you don't want to experience brake failure and crash the car then just don't drive it", I hope you remember your current answer and realize how it feels on this end.

Your nickname is developer_mh, which presumably tells us you're a software developer.

As software developer you should know what multitasking is, and how to do healthy resource usage management. Windows introduced preemptive multitasking in its core on Windows NT 3 back in the 90's, and believe it or not, people have been taking advantage of it since then (for 30 years).

When you have your software (PVSOL) running on a given machine, you can NOT take its resources for granted just for your program, simply because people might, and most probably are, using the computer to do other tasks while your program is running.

For example I quite often am running photogrammetry and 3D processing, processes that in some cases take hours or even days to process, in the background.

The last thing I want is to have PVSOL eating up my CPU and GPU without a reason!

Just tell me: Why are you rendering the scene constantly even without any user input? If the scene did not change, why render it again and again? What's the point?

If we are running a shading simulation animating the course of the sun in the sky or anything else that changes the view, then yes please do render, otherwise don't.

Using between 20% and 40% of the CPU and GPU literally ALL THE TIME even when we're just staring at the screen is not acceptable, and you know it.

If you fix it, we all gain, your software gets better, it's a win-win situation.

Kind regards,

Joao Prates

[developer_mh]

Dear Joao,

thank you for your feedback. I was not saying that I do not know what multitasking is, and I also do not need reprehension from your side. I was just saying that you already found a work-around to a problem that probably won't be fixed in the next releases.

There are a lot of feature requests from customers, and yours will be handled with the same priority as all the others. We prioritize the features and bugs according to our rating system and plan the releases accordingly. Since we have a non-infinite amount of team members, we can't take care of all items. I am sure that this is understandable.

If you don't like the software, you are free to give it back and your money will be refunded. We do our best to develop a software that helps people to design PV plants. If it doesn't meet your expectations in this intensity, I guess you will be better off giving it back.

Kind regards,

Martin

[Joao Prates]

I won't comment this last post of yours Martin, it's best if I don't.