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sw2003 Performance

sw2003 Performance

sw2003 Performance

(OP)
Today I installed SW2003 sp0.

Its quite a bit slower than sw2001plus.

I have not run any benchmarks on it, but the graphic is notisably slower.

It improved a bit when I checked the software accelerated opengl  checkbox, opende an assembly, closed it, and unchecked the box, but 2001plus is still much faster.

My config is as follows:

win2000 prof
athlon 1200
768 sdram
2x30Gb ide raid0 on dedicated card
Asus Geforce2 gts 32 mb ram, with quadro hack.

Virus checking is disabled at the moment.



RE: sw2003 Performance

Hello,

I think you are on the right track...

This appears to be graphics related. I am not familiar with the Quadro hack... but to fix this you can try...

1) Disable the virus checker
2) Uninstall the video driver
3) Install the latest video driver

Hope this helps.

cheers,

Joseph

RE: sw2003 Performance

(OP)
I have now installed the newest drivers , and reinstalled sw2003 with the antivirus software turned off.
This is the 41.09 drivers fro nvidia.

the performance is slightly petter, but still much worse than that of 2001plus.

I have tried and looked at the registry settings for solidworks, but I can not find any spesial setting there that sould cause this graphic performance degrade. It seems like SW have changed the opengl routines it is using in 2003 ,( I really have no clue on these things, I am just guessing ) because I am running both 2001 an 2003 on the same machine, with the same drivers and all. And of course the same setting internal in SW (At least I think so).

Does anyone know why it is so? anyone with similar problems ?

I have heard roumors that th perfomance of the prereleace version of 2003 had much better performance, espesially on the geforce line of cards. Can anyone confirm this?

  

RE: sw2003 Performance

If you are using a GF card I have found the latest driver to give bad pereformance for SW. I believe I use version 29.42 (Something like that) for omy home box. I have tried updating to the newer ones without much performance increase plus it just made more problems for other programs I used.

This is were I get my Nvidia Drivers at:
http://www.reactorcritical.com/download.shtml

Good Luck,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies
credence69@REMOVEhotmail.com
http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.3dmca.com

*When in doubt always check the help*

RE: sw2003 Performance

(OP)
To SBaugh

I have tried different drivers, and the problem seems to be there anyhow, that there is quite some difference between the 2001 and 2003 version.
Have you tried the Quadro hack? give me your mail an I will send you instructions and modified driver.

It worked wonders for me in the 2001plus version. The benchmark (only graphics run)went from 166 sek to 46sek !  Thats like 250% increase !

Thats with the 30.82 driver. The 41.09 is a little bit slower, 50sek benchmark.

I have not been able to benchmark th 2003 wersion, anyone have a tip on how to do it ?

Well, back to sw2003, It really annoys me that the performance is degraded, is this related to the GeForce cards only, or is Other cards affected as well? Now I tried a real Quadro card today, and the performance seem identical. The benchmarks for 2001 give the same result as with the softquadr card, and as far I can see, the performance is the same in 2003 as with th other card...

RE: sw2003 Performance

Hi...  related concerns...  I am running a fast Athlon, 765meg ram and the PNY (formerly ELSA)750 Quadro card which was offered at a discount on the SW site sseveral months ago.  Also running a 3D Connexion Space Mouse, (HIGHLY recommended). I run dual monitors off the PNY and usuually have other applications on the second monitor. This system ran flawlessly w/ 2001+.  With 2003 the program crashes out 1-3 times a day, with "unhandled error" messages.  I do a lot of saving.  Getting no where with my VAR (and they are trying) or SW.  I am not happy, (this is what I pay my maintenance fee for?).  Would greatly appreciate if anyone has any ideas.

RE: sw2003 Performance

My entire machine design department just recently added SolidWorks and shortly thereafter upgraded to SW2003. We also have experienced the program crashing 3-4 times per day with the same message. We even had on-site training from a SolidWorks engineer and witnessed his system crash 3 times during a one-and-a-half day training session. There seems to be a problem with the new release.

We have been very disappointed with the software in general.

RE: sw2003 Performance

I think depends on how the software is installed plus the computer. I have installed SW03 on all 3 of my computers and I have yet to crash. All 3 systems are running some similar but also some different hardware components and software components.

What is the error you are getting DaavidM?

Did you have antivirus disabled while installing?

What are your Box specs?

Do you have "Use software Open GL" on or off? (Located in tools\system options\Performance You must not have any files open to have access to adjusting it)

These are just some of many questions your VAR should be asking you or have you contacted Tech support on this issue of crashing?

Just some thoughts that come to my mind.

Best Regards and luck to your group,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies
credence69@REMOVEhotmail.com
http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.3dmca.com

*When in doubt always check the help*

RE: sw2003 Performance

Thanks for the comments SBaugh...

I am getting the "SolidWorks has terminated due to an unhandled error" message that I have seen several others post complaints about. Last night, my system crashed with this error and trashed my assembly so that when I opened it up again, it was filled with mate and rebuild errors that previously had not existed.

We have rather high end boxes:
P4 2.00 GHz Proc., 1G RAM, NVIDIA Quadro4 card with 1G RAM

We have been in touch with tech support and tried every combination of antivirus, Open GL, etc., etc., etc.

RE: sw2003 Performance

i've also seen this error on a regular basis.

out IT dept says they've been in touch with SolidWorks and has replied back to us that no one else seems to be having a problem.

from what i see here that doesn't seem to be the case.

RE: sw2003 Performance

Hi Guys,

I'm joining the fray a bit late here but we've noticed some speed differences with 2003 here as well with diminished performance.  And I've also seen the "SolidWorks has terminated due to an unhandled error" message a few time myself.

We're running dual-Athlons (1.7mhz) with 1GB RAM and Quadro4 video cards.  2001Plus worked great in this configuration.  With 2003 we're noticing dips in rebuild time and unhanlded error crashes in SolidWorks.

Unfortunately the only thing I have to offer right now is solidarity with the other users experiencing similar performance hits.  As it's not currently "killing us" we haven't screamed too loud to our VAR for resolution although we probably ought to.  It's not unreasonable to expect a software "upgrade" to not have an adverse affect on the way one works in my opinion.  Hopefully a service pack will be available in short order to address the issue.

Chris Gervais
Mechanical Designer
American Superconductor

RE: sw2003 Performance

Maybe I'll leave the SW2003 box on my desk for a few more weeks...

I thought that I recalled reading that you should completely uninstall the previous version of SW from your machine before installing 2003. But, for the life of me, I can not find it. For those who have problems, did you do this or did you simply install the upgrade?

DimensionalSolutions@Core.com
While I welcome e-mail messages, please post all thread activity in these forums for the benefit of all members.

RE: sw2003 Performance

I have both SW01+ and 03 on my machine and niether of them are causing me in problems. You can add 03 on your machine by simply doing a new install instead of an upgrade install. In fact I think a new install is better than using an upgrade. IMO

I run both 01+ and 03 at the same time without problems also...I have to now that I'm doing Tech support.

all & have a Merry Chirstmas,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies
credence69@REMOVEhotmail.com
http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.3dmca.com

*When in doubt always check the help*

RE: sw2003 Performance

"I thought that I recalled reading that you should completely uninstall the previous version of SW from your machine before installing 2003. But, for the life of me, I can not find it. For those who have problems, did you do this or did you simply install the upgrade?"

I wiped the 2001Plus installation and re-installed 2003 fresh.  I don't recall seeing anything specific regarding uninstalling the previous SolidWorks version but you may be correct.  You might remember seeing it mentioned during the installation routine where the user is notified that the preferred method of installation is now Windows Installer and that the Traditional Installation option won't be available in the next major release.

Initially, I did attempt to simply upgrade my existing installation using Windows Installer.  I found out though that I couldn't open any of my files in SolidWorks after this (as a side note I duplicated this behavior on another workstation so it appears to be an issue between Windows Installer and Traditional installation).  So I dumped the installation and started over fresh.

This seemed to work (aside from performance and unhandled error crashes) so like I said, I don't doubt that you probably came across the instruction to uninstall somewhere.

Chris Gervais
Mechanical Designer
American Superconductor

RE: sw2003 Performance

in SW 2003 also getting "SolidWorks has terminated due to an unhandled error" Dell Precision 330 1GB RAM Diamond Fire GL2 64MB RAM. also using a Spaceball. It appears when doing wire drawing rotations with the spaceball.  The system ran fine with SW2003 SP1 for months and just started acting up this week.

??

RE: sw2003 Performance

So I'll assume that you are using SW03 SP2.0 now.  If that is the case, it should be rather simple to revert back to SP1.0 to see if that fixes your problems.  If it does, then you can send off an email to SolidWorks.  You didn't mention what operating system you are running.

I just installed SP2.0 and so far, all seems well.

"The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

RE: sw2003 Performance

the OS is Windows 2K Pro. the "corrected" report I'm getting now is that they upgraded to 2003 and went straight to SP1. that's when the problems started. SP2 has the same problem.  so it appears to be associated with SW2003. other systems with different hardware configurations are not seeing it.  also, spaceball seems to be part of the problem. they can open a wire frame and do rotations with a regular mouse.

RE: sw2003 Performance

Try this method and see if that works for you. FAQ559-507

I have found it to work more often than reinstalling SW, which is sometimes the best answer for unhandled errors. I'm not crazy about giving that answer all the time, but that is why I always try this method first. If you do have to reinstall. FAQ559-488

As for the spaceball be sure you have the latest drivers. Also check out this thread if you haven't already Thread559-44890

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies
http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.3dmca.com
FAQ731-376
When in doubt, always check the help

RE: sw2003 Performance

I would see the unhandled error when I was running SW2001+ (sometimes several times a day), our IS guy working with our reseller and Solidworks was not able to fix the problem.  We tried new vid drivers, software openGL, moving the paging file all without success.  We recently upgraded to SW2003 and I haven't seen the error since.  I made sure to turn off anti-virus during the upgrade.. maybe this corrected the unhandled error???

As for performance, has anyone noticed a hit in opening or saving/closing?  I have a moderately sized assy (~500 parts) that seems to take ages to close.  SW2001+ was noticably faster.  I can literally leave my desk, get a coffee, meet a wife, raise a family, and retire before it finishes saving...ok, slight exageration, but I've seen save/close times well over 1 min in some cases.

RE: sw2003 Performance

Folks i am also going to come out of the shadows after monitoring this discussion group for a long time. We have been having the termination issues since we installed 2003. i have followed all of Scott Baugh, CSWP instructions and have had no good results. we are running dell 330 with a gig of ram quadro 2 with the nividia driver specified for sw, done all the installation gymnastics and still the perfomance is anemic but now i only crash about every two or three days, what a comfort. we have 20 seats at this facility and have been sw users for 8+ years. we are going to try S.P. 3.0 next. sw better get their act together, this is the worse release that they have put out.

RE: sw2003 Performance

FYI - our problem is the Spaceball.  The spaceball people are aware of the problem and say they are working on it.

RE: sw2003 Performance

Just to add more fuel..... er, I mean information.  We have not yet loaded SW2003 (it's a SmarTeam thing - we are still on SW2001+ until next week or so). However I am running it at home with no speed issues or other problems on XP Pro. (constantly updated).  I only have one real bitch so far - they took away the system option to open design tables in a separate window.  I can't have people picking that selection on the fly, due to some of the tools we have built here.

However.....  (and remember we are still on SW2001+) At work we are just installing new hardware and moving from Win2000 to XP.  We selected the fire GL2 because someone saw it recommended on the SW site.  Unfortunately they did not look at the date!!!  We have all manner of crash problems.  The speed went to molasses until we played with driver versions and XP SP's. (It is now fast enough... on some systems.... between crashes!).  After much investigation on manufacturer websites, in our IT dept., by experimentation and a Quado 4 750 loaner, plus help from our VAR (yes, they are very supportive) we have isolated it to the GL2 graphics card, not SolidWorks.  (I do have a SpaceBall at home, so I could bring it in and test that out also.) As to the Gforce problem, as I recall it is a "unified back-buffer" issue or somesuch technospeak. It seems to be related to XP also. NOTE: Nvidia has NO INTENTIONS OF FIXING IT, but you can maybe use an old driver version which has an option to handle that.  Believe it or not when my system crashed, XP sent me right to the page on their website!!! (So much for Microsoft bashing...) I guess they want you to move up to the next new product - that's marketing.... gotta learn to live with it or try another brand (and probably get bitten next year instead).

Interesting to note that even though our new systems are identical in all respects (and built in house) they exhibit different frequency and types of crashes - not just in SolidWorks.

BTW:  This whole discussion shows up old CAD industry catch 22 (I've been around the industry on all sides - fully 3D - since 1979).  Blame the CAD vendor!!!!  Well, I say if you make a graphics board that supposedly supports a standard, better make sure it does.  You can't blame the software manufacturer for using an extra feature of the standard in a new release (Ie. trying to give you those improvements you keep yelling for.)  You can blame the board manufacturer for claiming compatibility with software and not keeping the information up to date - or showing non-sense in their chart (eg. compatible with one rev of SW but not the next SP when it did not alter the graphics interface?).  You can't expect the software vendor to be able to undertake exhaustive testing of every hardware and OS combination out there.  That is an impossible task and unbelievably expensive, time consuming and imperfect.  Further more it's a symptom of a bigger problem.  We all want enhancements for all sorts of stuff, then later turn round and complain it's too complicated or or too slow or "they" don't support "my" hardware anymore.  Sometimes you have to understand that to move forward you have to leave something behind.  Understand that you are in a constant hardware upgrade path if you are using ANY capable CAD software today.  And you are going to find incompatibilities at times.  I hear the same types of issues from UG, CATIA, Pro E, AutoDuck, Solid Edge, etc. users.  Of course, a "Pro-E weenie" would probably not knowingly admit it to a "SoldWorks weenie" - we are all so damned protective of "our software" choice.  We all need to grow up, quit whining and be realistic (and I do mean "WE" - me included). We need to have some patience and do some thorough, scientific testing before blaming any source for the problems.  Don't just assume it's SolidWorks 2003 fault or Prisoner of Zelda version 5 million, or Pro-E rev 57.a.96.z, or Microsoft XP SP0 , or Photoshop 23 or whatever.  Things are getting so much more sophisticated so quickly these days it's sometimes a wonder anything works together.

OK, I promise to stay off my soapbox now.  I'm just appealing for us to sit back, put our emotions to one side and calmly debug the situation without preconceived ideas. Then maybe we can find the real root cause of the problems and help each-other and our vendors to figure it out.

One more suggestion for ANY major upgrade - software or hardware.  Do what we do - wait a while for the first set of obvious bugs to be dealt with, then test it out (really beat it up) out of the production environment before you commit to it.

PS: My apologies to AutoDesk - it's a personal thing....
  

RE: sw2003 Performance

(OP)
Love your input JNR !

I have just installed solidworks 2003 at home, and it flies!
my system is an athlon xp processor @ 2 GHz, NForce 2 motherboard, GeForce2 mx card, and 512 ram. Winxp pro. No anti virus instsalled at time of sw installation.
 My work pc has a bit slower prosessor ( athlon 1200 ), but moer ram, an a full fledged Geforce2 GTs card and win2000. After the last installation of sw2003, its a bit better, but nowhere neare the performance of my home machine, or 2001+

I downloaded the 2001 benchmark program ( swx benchmark v1.2) and run only the short graphics part. at home I get 26 seconds to complete, at work I get 42)

I t should be notet that the graphics cards have the infamous Quadro hack, wich allows them to use the quadro drivers, in fact making them quadro cards.

The unified back depth buffer was enabled on the drivers shipped with the asus GTs card, but was disabled on later drivers, hence the quadro hack to get the benfit of the newer drivers as well. I recomend it to any one loocking for a high Performance/price ratio.

Well.. I run the same drivers at home and work, and the difference in performance is enourmous. The front side bus and the processor speed is alot better on my home machine, (200 fsb = 400 ddr memory speed) and the operating system of course, might be the root of the problem.

Have anyone any benchmarks to contribute with? could be interesting to see what kind of systems are perfect for the software.

Heres a link to the benchmark site, If you deside to run it, remember that it was made for 2001+, and when run on 2003 you ned to convert the files it uses (loads of nice models and parts included    ) run the short version only. the long one tkes an eternity, at least on my machine...

http://www.specbench.org/gpc/apc.static/sw2001plus.html

lets see if something interesting comes from this  !!!

RE: sw2003 Performance

More News:

Thanks for the feedback, Mindnumb, I was hoping my comments would be taken in the spirit they were intended and no-one would go getting all huffy-n-grumpy.

For reference, my home system is just an Intel 1.4 GHz with 3/4 Gig memory and a TNT graphics card!!! (they must pay some of you guys way too much   ) and it flies on 2003 at least as fast as it did on 2001+.

Meanwhile back at work.....  Further investigation is showing interesting things.  Note we are still on 2001+.

The Quadro card has been tried in several apparently identical new systems.  We have now eliminated any purely graphical problems in SolidWorks - we did not have the correct driver version.  The latest on PNY.com is Version 31, but if you go to Nvidia, then to the Quadro product line FIRST, then to the driver downloads, you get a list of Partener Certified drivers for all manner of software complete with offical logos!.. even CATIA!! Obviously pick the SolidWorks one and it is version 28.something or thereabouts (currently).  My memory is not that good - too busy - Hey, you are all big boys and girls, you can find it.

Now we are still seeing crashes and there is no difference in this respect between the Quado and Fire GL2.  However we have definitely isolated it to specific circumstances.  It is NOT RELATED TO SOLIDWORKS.  It is related to a combination of XP, network access and new window operations (mostly on an open or close).  It happens with relative frequency in Lotus Notes (5 times yesterday on one system).  It does happen in SolidWorks, but only when SmartTeam (our PDM system) is accessing the network in combination with a new window operation.  It often completes the operation but XP goes instantly to 640/480 resolution and either crashes or reports recovery from a device failure and requests a reboot.  I even got it yesterday when I was downloading one of the drivers from the internet.  Most of the time solidWorks is not even open, though the more windows you have open (not necessarily active) the more frequent is seems to be.  Somewhere I recall seeing comment about turing off some XP features like cursor shadows, etc.  The guy who has the test Quadro right now went into System Properties and turned off all those check boxes ("soft font edges", etc., etc.)  (Control panel - System Props - Advanced, I think.) It now looks like Win2000, but so far it has been stable.  This does not offend me any - I always thought the standard XP interface was too cartoonish anyway - gimme them square corners!!!  I am going to try the same thing with my system running the Fire GL2.  If this solves the problem I'll let y'all know.  

Regards,
JNR

P.S. Hands up everyone who hates Lotus #%$*&^ Notes

\o/
 |
/ \   Its another personal thing...... If ya goin' to write something for the Windows environment, swallow ya pride and use the standard interface code they provide fer cryin' out loud.  Be consistent.  Oh yeah,.... and make sure it all actually works!!!

RE: sw2003 Performance

I still believe that a network related issue working in the background is also a possible cause of the some performance issues. I have noticed that when the network has a hiccup that the system with windows xp will show cpu usage shootup which results in some irregularities in SolidWorks. I do not know for a fact but it would be interesting how many people with problems are on what type of network software, peer to peer, novell ect... its just a thought.

RE: sw2003 Performance

(OP)
Greetings Good Men.

JNR.: This is only suggestions, I am no expert on these things. You probably are aware of the things I am about to mention regarding video cards, but all the same, here we go.
(hope no one notises my lack of knowlege on these things )

I am not competely convinced it is not an SW issue.

The reason you do not see much defference in speed might be the fact that you run a older video card. The Geforce series, and most newer cards, use "hardware transform and lightning" and it takes a load of work off the cpu as it generates the geometry displayed, not only shading the finished geometry.

Your tnt card does not have this function, so if the difference I am seeing is related to wether the geometry is generated by the card or the cpu, people runung in software mode, or with older cards like yours will not see the same issues.

I tried putting the software acceleration on both 2001+ and 2003, and the differense was not there longer. Both were equally slow
I am leaning towards the explanatoin that there might be som issues with the OpenGL instruction sets on some SW installations. A coworker of mine had the prerelease of 2003 installed earlier on, and it ran very good on his machine. (same specs as mine) I do not remember if he upgraded or fresh installed the official release, but the result was syrup and molasses. At sub zero.

It might of course be some other issues causing SW to figt for the same resources as Windows, but I think it still is related to SW as I se the problems on both win2000 an xp mentioned in this thread.  As for the network related crashes We had it for a whole week here at work, and it turned out to be related to some new aouto update virus patch for norman virus controll. (or norton? do not remember)I do not remember if this was server or client side problem. If  you are having chrashes opening things in solidworks from network locations, try copying it locally, and opening it. If this works, you probably have the same problems.

Just post  if you can´t find the soulution, I can ask my system admin for the fix.

Well.. back to the strictly perfomance related issues. Are the people with problems all running cards with hardware T&F (transform and lightening) ?  remember to post your hardware and software configs, as it might be closely related ti the issue. (might not, lets not close other paths to salvation...)




RE: sw2003 Performance

JNR,

Just a thought -

If your motherboards have an Intel chipset, make sure the Intel drivers are installed, not the Windows drivers (the OS will install Win drivers and make everything "appear" okay).  The kind of problems you describe point to something very fundamental and I've had this happen on one of my machines.

All the best,

Tim

RE: sw2003 Performance

(OP)
Thanks for the input tluxon !

I am fortunate enough to have a via chipset on my work computer. (via 133kt , I believe.) Via chipset drivers are up to date


To day I installed the SW 2.1 patch. Performance was superb ! At least on SW 2001+ level. Only problem, when I opened a sketch an started drawing a line, everything went to a staggering halt. system did not crash, an it completed the operation, but every screen update came in something like 45 sec !  My coworker experienced the exact same thing.

The soulution was to go back from the 41.09 drivers of Nvidia to the 30.82 ones. Sketch now vorks okay (allthough screen updates are slow as before the patch.) Subjectively, the performance seems a little better from before the patch, but nowhere near wath I saw with the 41.09 drivers from nvidia (exept for the little sketch problem %%&#¤%"#"#¤)  PS: these drivers are quadro hacked.

Allright then, just have to figure out why I cant have both good sketch and shaded performance at the same time



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