Global Mapper v25.0

Nvidia Quadro GPU utilization

Hello, 

I've actually brought this up on this forum before, I ran a trial of the software quite a while back and was having GeoTIFF orthomosiac rendering slowly issues on my Quadro card. It was recommended to update to a new version that had come out that same day, there was an improvement but wasnt smooth like I was expecting. Anyway, time went on and my company didnt buy me a license for GM yet. So, fast forward and I'm back on this train, running a trial of v20.1, and trying hard to convince my company to purchase a license and become a GM reseller (we are a drone/survey reseller), I am the pilot and demo/data processing tech. 

Long story short, it still seems to render ortho photos slowly. Like rendering lag as I zoom in and out. I am using for a sample what I would consider to be a smaller orthophoto, and is a georeferenced 1.5 GB GeoTIFF image. As a reference, if I simply open the image in Windows Photo viewer, i can zoom in and out butter smooth! zero lag whatsoever. I open it in GM, and it has a lag inbetween each zoom attempt. It's not smooth at all. It only takes about 1-2 seconds per zoom attempt with my mouse scroll, but this is a smaller file and I'd think it can handle it better, am I wrong?

Reason I am asking for help though is perhaps it is due to the laptop I am using, which has Intel chipset graphics, as well as the Nvidia Quadro card. I usually have to use the Nvidia control panel to force any software I use to open with the Quadro card. I use the Nvidia system tray to show me that the app is or is not running. It seems that it is NOT running on the quadro, or at least is not showing this. 

To test this, I open the GPU activity, open and close the program, nothing happens or changes. As a reference, if I open Agisoft Metashape, it immediately shows up in the GPU activity, telling me it is properly running on the video card. I try several other software's I use, they open on the Quadro card fine too.

Doesnt matter what I do I can't get Global Mapper to show up on the GPU activity, so wondering if this is why it has a lag? I sure hope it doesnt sound picky me complaining about 1 second lag on zooming, but it's very "chunky" as it zooms in and out and tries to render it. If Windows Photo viewer is smooth, why is Global Mapper not? So just wondering if something else needs to be set, or some suggestions. 

See screenshot. 

I only have a few days left on this trial to try and resolve before we decide to purchase. 

Laptop = HP Zbook G2, Core i7 CPU, 32 GB RAM, Nvidia Quadro K5100M

Thanks in advance!






Answers

  • JeffH@BMG
    JeffH@BMG Global Mapper Developer Trusted User
    Hi orellius,

    Thanks for the suggestion. Currently in Global Mapper (up through the new 21.0 release), only the 3D viewer uses the GPU. There are a number of processes that we believe could be enhanced by using the GPU, and we've had other customers requesting similar enhancements. We have several tickets open for this sort of improvement already, but it's not the sort of thing we can apply automatically to our entire code base. This is more like the case with threading operations: we'd need to implement them on a case-by-case basis. We don't have a timeline for this work at this time, but I imagine that it would be the sort of major feature that we'd trumpet in our release notes. I'll add a link to to this topics to one of our relevant tickets, and we'll reply back here if we implement this.

    Best regards,

    ~Jeff
  • @JeffH@BMG

    This appears to be a chronic issue with the Quadro cards.  I'm on my 2nd laptop workstation in 2 years, both of which have had issues NOT using the high end Quadro. I can't say exactly what the issue is but it appears to be an architecture issue.  While GM is now my main go-to for GIS processing, I still use AutoCAD/Carlson for other design work that is much more detail oriented. I have the same issue in both of those programs as I do in GM.