Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
(OP)
I was just wondering if anyone could let me know if the problems with large assembly drawing performance have been resolved with SP 2.1. I have a test set up with SP1 installed and had some nasty problems with large assembly drawings crashing or not even opening. Those problems were not there in SP0. Does 2.1 eliminate these problems? I don't feel like rendering my machine useless for 1-2 hours to install 2.1 only to find out it doesn't solve my problems - terrible productivity. Thanks in advance.
Pete Yodis
Pete Yodis






RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
since you keep mentioning to keep TEMP folder clean I become curious what is the mechanism that causes SW to crash when there are files in the TEMP folder?
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
Windows controls this folder and all the data that goes into it. I'm not sure how much stuff can be stored in there I know it varies between computers (I'm sure it's a Windows setting somewhere). But when you start exceeding the amount of allocated space(and since SW is so demanding) that 9 times out of 10 this will cause SW to crash.
Windows doesn't delete the information automatically and SW shouldn't be responsible for cleaning it out either. This is something that Windows should do, but since they and want to sell you more software. I'm sure that's why it's not an automatic process.
I hope this help... Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
Cleaning the temp folder hasnt significantly reduced crashes from our experience but we do it regular just to reduce the risk.
I am glad other folks are now reporting poor performance as we have complained from day 1.
I am just about to update to 2.1 so will see how it compares.
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
Actually i'm having the problem just now.. i've wasted the past hour with this problem..
so any of you who are upgrading.. Good Luck!!.. is all i can say..
PS. have been wondering if my system needs to be upgraded.. am running a P4 1.8, 786 RAM, Quadro FX 500.. is that way below the average of what you all are running??
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
Your machine has about twice the horsepower mine does - pathetic, I know. However, the software should not have instabilities regardless what your machine is (obviously within reason). I am able to open drawings fine in 2003 here. When I converted a copy of my data and opened in 2004, I began to have problems. SolidWorks 2004 is just plain slower than previous versions. I don't know what it is, but my assumption is all the added eye candy graphics stuff along with all the other data being added to the files because of added features. Irregardless, not being able to open drawings in a new version/release that worked fine in a release just prior is absolutely unacceptable no matter what machine you are running. I too have lost faith in SolidWorks and have been very disappointed with 2004. They are not realizing the losses in productivity that they are incurring. Terrible productivity. I am not one to rant or complain such as others on other news groups, but this definitely calls for it. My company's subscription money went right down the drain. That subscription money is paid to make the software better and in turn make us more productive, but this year it has been wasted by making us more unproductive. Case in point is the new WI installer method that gobbles up hours of time for each install. SolidWorks needs to right the ship in order to restore their customers' faith that their subscription money is actually going to making the software more productive, and the only way to do that is with fixing what’s broken/slowing us down in 2004 and making 2005 better. I'll be keeping a close eye on the SPs for 2004 and 2005 as it comes out to determine if I want to invest or waste another years worth of subscription.
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
As for the WI installer and losing Faith read this from the SW NG at www.topica.com:
Everyone thinks that this is SolidWorks doing, but is does not all fall on their shoulders. Part of being Microsoft certified is that the compliant software use the Windows Installer. I can see that SolidWorks development will fix this or find a real cool work around. SolidWorks always trives to put out the best and fix other peoples problems. Does everyone remember the zoom/z-clipping issue that Windows 98/ME had, SolidWorks wrote software to fix that. When companies ran out to buy video card based on price and not quality (no hardware OpenGL), SolidWorks wrote software to bypass the hardware and use software OpenGL.
About Piracy, back in the day SolidWorks did lock the seats serial number to the computer ID and that lasted to the first SP of that version. It made it too cumbersome to move to a new computer or if you had to re-format your hard drive. The community complained and SolidWorks listened.
Last SP you only had to use just CD 1 now you have to use CD 1 and CD 3, the reason for this is because of the bug fix for the PDF writer. The WI utilizes information from the original install files to fix (rewrite) the corrupted files.
Everyone is justified in their concerns on the long load times, I too am concerned. However, I know that SolidWorks will do everything within its power to right this issue, it is only a matter of time. I know that SolidWorks has ALWAYS done right by it's community. This is a new step, using WI, and they just need the time to get the kinks out.
James Ortiz
I couldn't say it any better than James did. I agree with James on this statement.
The other thing I'm goin to suggest is in this FAQ559-884 - I just made it so hopefully it will be avaialble.
Best Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
Cleaning both folders daily and defragging routinely (daily sometimes, especially after a crash!!). Keeps the PC healthy.
Also, hardware is very important!!!!! I've done many tests with various motherboards/graphics/ram/cpu's in the last three months because of all the crashes (blew the budget for the year). There is a very noticable stability issue with SW 2004 when mixing certain motherboards/graphic/ram and CPU's. I have found that anything with an 845/850 chipset and an Intel 'A&B' series CPU or anything from Dell will have problems.
So for those asking: running a 2.8(C), ASUS P4C800, OCZ High Perf., 750XGL, Raptor Hdrive. NO CRASHES!!!! in 7 weeks (even o'clocked 10%).
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
It should be cleaned out, but it's not as important to clean out unless you start running out of HDD space.
Defrag your HDD is not needed on a daily basis. It should be maybe 1 a month depending on much you move files to and from your HDD.
Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
Before whe invest in new 3D software, we want some hard evidence if it is beter in performing than Inventor.
Greetz,
Johnny
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
Also, as t2design mentioned, certain combinations of components don't play nice together. I had an ancient P3 666 Mhz until a month ago and rarely crashed it. Very stable, albeit slow. The new AMD Opteron screams on two machines, ASUS SK8N and SK8V motherboards. The one with the SK8V would ocassionally crash without reason (usually with the screen saver going and no SW running), but that seemed to be a registry issue. (I ran Registry First Aid last week and it hasn't happened again--yet.)
My installation of SW 2004 took ~45 minutes on the new machine and upgrade from 0.0 to 2.1 was about 25 minutes--much faster than what I've been hearing with other people. (?)
Jeff Mowry
Industrial Designhaus, LLC
http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
Pete Yodis
RE: Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1
My installation of SW 2004 took ~45 minutes on the new machine and upgrade from 0.0 to 2.1 was about 25 minutes--much faster than what I've been hearing with other people. (?)
The reason it's faster is because SW shut off some type of logging when installing the SP. That's why you don't see the slow install times.
From the SW website under Customer Bulletins:
To help diagnose installation problems, the Service Pack 2.1 installation had the verbose diagnostic logging feature enabled. This feature caused an increase in the time to apply sp 2.1 To remedy this problem, sp 2.1 downloaded on or after 4 February 2004 now has logging disabled by default. You will find this significantly reduces the time to install sp 2.1.
The only change is to the sp 2.1 installation program itself, and the resulting SolidWorks sp 2.1 installation is functionally identical to the previous version. Therefore, customers with sp 2.1 already installed do not need to download and reapply this Service Pack.
Regards,
Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376