I work with pretty large assemblies (2000+ parts) and it starts to get pretty slow when adding new parts/saaemblies. Any suggestions on how I can speed it up (without a new system!)?
I think I have a fairly decent system;
i7 3820@3.60Ghz
32mb ram
ATI Firepro V3800
solid state drive
I am running a single license installed locally but all my files are stored on a server.....not sure if this makes any difference.
Thank you for any help,
Colleen
Hi Colleen,
Yes, where the files reside makes a big difference-which is one of the reasons most PDM systems serve controlled copies of files to a local storage location. SolidWorks loads and re-reads the assembly and each component in it several times in an editing session and your ethernet cable can be a huge bottleneck for the software-especially if you're running other programs or streaming media through it at the same tiime. It's not to say that it can't be done, but you have to have fiber optic cables and switches and they need to be reserved for the engineering department.
I suggest conducting an experiment to see if you can speed up load, save and editing performance by copying files from your server to your workstation and then doing a comparrison load directly off the server.
Identify an assembly that's a good representation of the size and complexity you work with on a daily basis. Open it off of the server and note the load time. Goto the File pulldown menu and select "Pack and Go" and use that utility to copy the assembly tree to a location on your local machine. At that point, close SolidWorks and restart it (to flush the network-loaded assembly from memory) and open the local copy of the assembly. That should give you a good idea of whether network bandwidth is your issue.
Oh, one last thing. Before opening the local assembly, you want to make sure this check-box is populated
-and that the "referenced documents" search path in the "File Locations" panel does not have any network paths listed.
Good luck.