Why So Slow?

[JayDeeCA]

Hi all

I'm working on some architectural plans which were first drawn in AutoCad LT 2004. A couple of months ago I moved to 2008 and have been using it since to develop the drawings. Over the last month the plans have been taking longer and longer to open - now up to about 20 minutes for some!

To investigate the problem, I have diligently purged all drawings, simplified the drawn information etc. My latest tactic was to save one of the plans and all its references down to the 2004 version. These drawings now open instantly in 2004, but still take forever in 2008. I have also saved versions on my desktop, with no change in performance, which rules out network problems.

Please, please help. If you have any ideas what the problem might be with 2008, I'd be very grateful.

[Alan Cullen]

I can only suggest two options at this stage.

1. Try recover/audit.

2. write the entire drawing out to a block (making sure there are no layers frozen)

[RobDraw]

Try to copy and paste all the objects to a new file. This will eliminate any empty entities.

To find out if you have any:
Open the properties box.
Thaw and turn on all layers.
Select the enire drawing and note the total number of objects.
Then press Ctrl and A at the same time to select all. This will select all objects in the drawing. Look at the total number of objects. Has it gotten larger? If so, you have empty entities in your drawing.

To find out how many of each:
Deselect all by holding the shift key while doing a crossing window over the entire drawing.
Click the drop down list at the top of the properties box and you will see an inventory of empty entities.

I'm still not quite sure how this happens but I see it on a regular basis but not in my files. :roll:

[Hedgehog]

Are the files sizes getting bigger? Does this happen with new files started in, & saved in 2008 ( as 2008 )?

[rustysilo]

I'd go with Alan's advice and run a recover on the file. That will likely fix it.

[SLW210]

Try _purge as well.

I have improved a lot of large files by using _WBLOCK.

[JayDeeCA]

Thanks so much for the suggestions.

I tried recover/audit, but to no avail.

The file sizes aren't becoming unreasonbly large (1.5MB?) or increasing exponentially, unlike the opening time for the files. I don't think it is happening with new files started in and saved in 2008.

The one thing that did seem to work was to copy the information into a new file, identify the empty objects and delete them. This was quite a long process, though and with so many drawings (hundreds!) to clean up, we will have to tackle that much later.

As a stop-gap solution, we have decided to save all the drawings and papersheets down to 2004 and use our old version of 2004. Seems a shame, but what else can I do?

Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

J

[SLW210]

Thanks so much for the suggestions.

I tried recover/audit, but to no avail.

The file sizes aren't becoming unreasonbly large (1.5MB?) or increasing exponentially, unlike the opening time for the files. I don't think it is happening with new files started in and saved in 2008.

The one thing that did seem to work was to copy the information into a new file, identify the empty objects and delete them. This was quite a long process, though and with so many drawings (hundreds!) to clean up, we will have to tackle that much later.

As a stop-gap solution, we have decided to save all the drawings and papersheets down to 2004 and use our old version of 2004. Seems a shame, but what else can I do?

Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

J

Just _WBLOCK them. It will take care of removing at least most of the unwanted objects.

[Hedgehog]

As SLW says, or you can use COPYBASE (using 0,0 as the basepoint) & copy/paste 'em into a new drawing... that way you can take the paperspace viewports & everything with only a few commands (remembering to activate the viewports in the new drawing).

[Alan Cullen]

That's fine, as long as you don't have other issues in the drawing.
Only this afternoon I found on one drawing I had to work on, that there were a whole heap of unrelated wipeouts. They just don't get purged. You just have to track back through the drawing, and try to find these hidden things. It is a long and a slow process. Blocking out is not the ultimate answer. I guess the real answer is with experience. If you have the experience, then you have a much better chance.

Sorry I can't be more help. :roll:

[rustysilo]

If the unwanted objects are unique to the rest of the dwg you can use qselect to single them out. This may make the operation quicker.

You might also want to try turning on attribute display to see if there are some empty attributes floating around.

Another thing to look at would be your incremental save percentage variable. If it is set to a high number that could cause the file to balloon. From what you've said it doesn't really sound like this is the issue though.