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What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

(OP)
  We are growing large in file size (100 mb) and we seem to be running into very slow speeds on our computers and I wanted to see what other people are using for computer specs before we spend alot of money to find out that we are heading in the wrong direction.

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

How much RAM do your current systems have?  And are you using up all your RAM at this point (sounds like that could be why you're having slow speeds).

Search this forum for "RAM" and you'll see some recent posts regarding this issue.

I recently added another 1GB of RAM (for a total of 3GB now), plus enabled the /3GB switch because I ran into some huge assemblies that were sucking up my RAM.  This combination was inexpensive and solved my problems.

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe trumps reason.

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

(OP)
We have 4 GB of memory with the three GB switch, ati v3100 video card 128mb, windows Xp, 80 hard drive. We are growing large in file size (100 mb) and we seem to be running into very slow speeds on our computers and I wanted to see what other people are using for computer specs before we spend alot of money to find out that we are heading in the wrong direction.

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

What sort of processor do you have?  That's probably the biggest factor regarding speed if you're not running out of RAM.

I'm running an AMD FX-60 (64-bit, dual-core) chip with an nVidia FX-1400 graphics card (256MB memory, I think).  Dual 160GB SATA drives.  So far, so good.  The coputer was built by Xi Computer.

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe trumps reason.

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

When you say you're speed is slow, what do you mean? Is it slow to open? Is it slow to rotate? Add/delete features?
Are your video drivers up to date?

My present computer is a Dell M90 (specs in my signature) and it works great. My last set up had a Pentium 'D' dual core, 2 GB RAM, nVidia Quadro 3400...never had a problem with it, either.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
CAD Administrator
SW '07 SP1.0, Dell M90, Intel 2 Duo Core, 2MB RAM, nVidia 2500M

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

(OP)
I have a Intel Pentium d 3.2 ghz dual processor.

The slow downs we are having here is that we have about eight configurations in the assembly so that when we create the drawings we can build up frames in steps for ease of the welders to have a clear picture and we have seperate sheets for each configuration in one drawing file. The big slow downs are flipping between sheets in the drawing, saving, rebuilding, and opening it can take up to 10 to 15 minutes or longer. Also dimensioning the parts can take up to two minutes to get one dimesion.

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

What kind of graphics card are you using? Are you working locally or off your network?

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
CAD Administrator
SW '07 SP1.0, Dell M90, Intel 2 Duo Core, 2MB RAM, nVidia 2500M

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

(OP)
ati v3100 video card 128mb and it doesn't seem to matter if I am working locally or on the network.

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

We have had trouble with the ATI v3100 cards.  I just replaced four of them with nVidia Quadro FX 560's.  They are much better.  They are faster and stable.  The specs say that they have 3 times the memory bandwidth over the ATI card that you have.  Not saying that this is the cause of your issue, but it would help other aspects at the least.  Is your assembly file 100 MB?  And you have 8 configurations in the assembly file?  And you have a multisheet drawing of this assembly file?  And your drawing contains views of all 8 configurations?  How many parts are in your assembly?  I think you may be asking a lot out of this data set.  If the assembly has a fair amount of parts, then I don't know how much time you could realistically reduce.  I would imagine some, but you could be pushing the limits somewhat and expecting results that may not be realistic.

Pete

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

(OP)
The assembly file 100 MB and I have 8 configurations in the assembly file.  And I have a multisheet drawing of this assembly file and my drawing contains views of all 8 configurations but one configuration per sheet. With about 250 parts in the assembly.
   Would it benfit me to save each configuration off as a sub-assembly then assemble them in a full assembly then hide show components in the drawing? does anyone have any experience with this?

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

First, I agree with Pete, the ATI cards aren't any good. The fact that it doesn't seem to matter if you're working locally or off the network suggests that it's a hardware issue. More often than not, working locally is many times faster than trying to pull info from the network.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
CAD Administrator
SW '07 SP1.0, Dell M90, Intel 2 Duo Core, 2MB RAM, nVidia 2500M

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

Drawing rebuild time was addressed in SW2006 when a seperate process was started just for drawing view updating freeing up the main SW process for other tasks.

When we were using 2005, we had found out that the time required for drawing views to update was directly proportional to the processor speed. We proved this out by running the same update on the same drawing on an old worksation and on a new workstation during our hardware upgrade.

Remember...
       "If you don't use your head,            
                   your going to have to use your feet."

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

rrummell,

   When you are updating your drawing, check your task manager - how much memory are you using?  I know you have the 3G/B switch enabled.  Also, do you have the Userva=2900 swtich also enabled?  By checking the memory useage, we could tell whether you are just running out of memory - which would tell you whether it might make sense to have more than 4GB ram with a 64 bit version of SolidWorks runnning in XP 64 bit edition.  If its not that, then get rid of the intel P4 processors.  They are slow compared to the new Core 2 Duo processors or some of the AMD Athlon 64 or Opteron processors.  You could always find a more qualified machine to benchmark this data set and record the times to compare it against your machine.  Computer vendors, other users on the forums, or your VAR may be willing to do this for you.  

Pete

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

can you suspend auto rebuild and set components in the assembly to lightweight.

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

Lightweight is controlled by the Tools\Options\System Options menu - look under Assemlbies and performance for Lightweight mode. You can also select Lightweight whan you do a File\Open

You cannot suspend a rebuild to my knowledge.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

If you bring the number of components down for large assembyly mode you can suspend rebuild:

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

Thanks rfus! I missed that option!

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

(OP)
  I have done the suspend rebuild and the lightweight option and that didn't help, but we replaced my ATI V3100 video card b/c it doesn't have a approved solidworks 2007 driver with a FX 1400. I am seeing improvements in speed and I also have been round triping parts by saving them off as a parasolid and re-importing them for parts such as grating and thread plates.

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

It appears that SolidWorks has certified driver version 8.163.1 for Fire GL V3100 for use with SolidWorks 2007.

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

rrummell,

You mention that you have grating and thread plates in your assemblies.  How much detail do you have in those parts?

That could be what is hurting you in your drawings.  The parts that have a large number of patterned features really drain resources.  Having to render them in wireframe in a drawing can really push your system.

Can you show those views as a solid instead of wirframe mode?  The solid views will render quicker then wireframe mode.  You may also experiment with suppressing those parts in your assembly, then seeing what the drawing performance is.

When I have a drawing that is taking a while to work with I will often temporarely show all the views in solid mode, then switch over to wireframe when the drawing is done and ready for the last saves and printing of the pdf's for release.

You are very likely running out of virtual memory and going to a 64 bit operating system will probably help with drawing speed.  Drawings are the most resource intensive task of all the work we do in SolidWorks.

Anna Wood
SW06 SP4.1 x64, WinXP x64
Dell Precision 380, Pentium D940, 4 Gigs RAM, FX3450
www.auerprecision.com

RE: What computer hardware is working well with working with 100 mb files?

A couple of thoughts...

   You could use display states to do what Anna is suggesting.  You could also create a simplified configuration of parts that have a significant number of surfaces (such as a part with a high number of patterned features).  You would then use the simplified configuration of the part in the assemblies where they are used.  This would lessen the number of surfaces shown in your assembly model and relieve your computer from the burden of rendering and updating all those surfaces.  If you have SolidWorks Professional, or if you have access to the SolidWorks Utilities add-in, then there is a tool that helps with geometry simplification for cases such as these.  It will build a configuration in your part file(s) and de-feature your part automatically where it can to simplify the geometry.  You can do this at the assembly level and have SolidWorks create simplified configurations in the part files.  This would do the bulk of the work.  You could then go into each part file and change how parts are simplified or strip away even more features to simplify the config at the part level.  Don't know if this applies to your situation, but thought I would mention, as round-tripping parts breaks the associativity to the real part file that defines the geometry.  If creating a simplified config could help, then you might not need to round trip.

Pete

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