Solidworks runs slow in assembly

[gregcon]

Need help I am working with sw2005 on a HP xw4300 workstation pentium4 3.4 Gb processor with 2Gb of ram, graphic card is nvidia FX1400, the problem is when working in an assembly with 170 total components - 157 parts - 67 unique parts - 13 sub-assemblies it runs very slow even to zoom and rotate the assembly is really slow, have played about with some of the settings in the options display but did not help has to be something major needs changed as the spec on the workstation is ok and the graphics card is on solidworks list , have applied material properties and colour to each part so to determine the final weights and CG , I have also deleted all the mates and fixed each part in the assembly once I know its ok , have only been working with sw for short period of time , but know from working with proe assemblies this can not be correct I reckon the final assembly will contain between 1000 to 1500 assemblies I can't see how this will work based on the performance on a small assembly , any help would we great ,

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

This could be caused by so many things, both individually or in combination with each other.

Are you working over a network?
Does the network have a bottleneck?
Have you tried opening a local copy of the files?
Do you have any large feature patterns in any of the parts?
Do you have any large component patterns in any of the assys?
Does the assy or sub-assys or parts have in-context features?
Do you have any sweeps, helices, etc?
Have you used the Task Manager (or other process logger) to see what the CPU/RAM/VM usage is?
Are all the parts & sub-assys saved at the current SW version before opening?



Helpful SW websites FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions FAQ559-1091

 

[dezignstuff]

This combination of hardware should work well, and that size assembly shouldn't behave that way.

In addition to what CorBlimey says, here are some other things to check:

- see if using large assembly mode improves things
- is Use Software OpenGL turned on (tools, options, performance), if so, turn it off
- has hardware acceleration for the video card been turned off?
- are you using the driver version recommended by SW?
- copy the files locally, although this shouldn't have any influence on rotating the model
- reboot the machine and try it again
- if you are trying to rotate while it is opening and just showing preview, it could act like you describe
- how high is image quality set?
- is anti-aliasing turned on?
- do you have parts/features that are really small compared to the overall size of the assembly?

- do you have a lot of assembly features?
- do you have a lot of in-context features?
- do you have a lot of component patterns?

Mates to this sort of thing can cause problems, but you said you deleted the mates, and even these problems shouldn't hurt the display.