What's the fastest ldraw editor?

[Warren Elsmore]

A bit of a wierd question, maybe, but what's the fastest ldraw editor? On any platform?

I'm wondering because the project I'm working on right now has a massive ldraw file. 25Mb and well over 100,000 parts. LeoCAD takes almost an hour just to open the file on my MacBook. Even a brand new M1 MacBook takes 3 seconds to redraw it if I change angles.

Would this be much quicker on a PC or in another editor? Would I need to shell out for a chunky graphics card? I have a lot of editing to do so I'm willing to look at any option!

[Jaco van der Molen]

A bit of a wierd question, maybe, but what's the fastest ldraw editor? On any platform?

I'm wondering because the project I'm working on right now has a massive ldraw file. 25Mb and well over 100,000 parts. LeoCAD takes almost an hour just to open the file on my MacBook. Even a brand new M1 MacBook takes 3 seconds to redraw it if I change angles.

Would this be much quicker on a PC or in another editor? Would I need to shell out for a chunky graphics card? I have a lot of editing to do so I'm willing to look at any option!

OK, that is pretty big.
I think LDCad for windows can handle that kind of file just fine.
However, the largest file I have is 16.000 bricks and LDCad loads and draws that in 43 ms.

Though LeoCad should be able to load faster too on a Mac I think. Do you have the latest version?

[Warren Elsmore]

OK, that is pretty big.
I think LDCad for windows can handle that kind of file just fine.
However, the largest file I have is 16.000 bricks and LDCad loads and draws that in 43 ms.

Though LeoCad should be able to load faster too on a Mac I think. Do you have the latest version?

We're on the latest version, yes. It is a big file :-) 

Does LDCad use the GPU? LeoCad is a great program, but I don't think it can use the GPU to render, at least on a Mac. In 99.99% of cases that isn't a problem of course! ;-)

[Michael Horvath]

A bit of a wierd question, maybe, but what's the fastest ldraw editor? On any platform?

I'm wondering because the project I'm working on right now has a massive ldraw file. 25Mb and well over 100,000 parts. LeoCAD takes almost an hour just to open the file on my MacBook. Even a brand new M1 MacBook takes 3 seconds to redraw it if I change angles.

Would this be much quicker on a PC or in another editor? Would I need to shell out for a chunky graphics card? I have a lot of editing to do so I'm willing to look at any option!

MLCad is the fastest from a usability standpoint IMO. Menus and keyboard hotkeys are much quicker/more responsive. LDCad lags everywhere with large models. (You'll notice this when you try editing your model.) But, MLCad has bugs so you probably should not use it.

You could also try LeoCAD which lies somewhere in between IIRC. I like it a lot. But it has far clipping issues with large models so I have been unable to make use of it.

You'll find that all the tools have caveats and tradeoffs. You kind of have to juggle them all. (And there are dozens of tools in total!)

[Roland Melkert]

MLCad is the fastest from a usability standpoint IMO. Menus and keyboard hotkeys are much quicker/more responsive. LDCad lags everywhere with large models. (You'll notice this when you try editing your model.) But, MLCad has bugs so you probably should not use it.

No offense but if MLCad is faster in rendering then LDCad you have a serious driver problem, as MLCad uses CPU only rendering where LDCad uses OpenGL.

You might even be using the software rendering pipeline of OpenGL.

[Warren Elsmore]

No offense but if MLCad is faster in rendering then LDCad you have a serious driver problem, as MLCad uses CPU only rendering where LDCad uses OpenGL.

You might even be using the software rendering pipeline of OpenGL.

Ah - that is interesting. LeoCAD also only uses the CPU and seeing as it's single threaded that's an obvious limitation. I may have to try LDCad on Windows rather than my Mac.

[Travis Cobbs]

Ah - that is interesting. LeoCAD also only uses the CPU and seeing as it's single threaded that's an obvious limitation. I may have to try LDCad on Windows rather than my Mac.

I'm pretty sure LeoCAD uses OpenGL.

[Michael Horvath]

No offense but if MLCad is faster in rendering then LDCad you have a serious driver problem, as MLCad uses CPU only rendering where LDCad uses OpenGL.

You might even be using the software rendering pipeline of OpenGL.

Who said it renders faster? I said the menus and commands are faster. In LDCad there is menu and mouse lag (when viewing large models) that does not exist in MLCad (nor in LDView or LeoCAD).