So. So. Slow any tips to make A-Cad run faster?

I'm currently running A-Cad 2009 with an 3rd party program called "MAP Cad Mech." It’s a 3d Mechanical BIM software.

OS Name Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Enterprise

Version 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1 Build 6001

System Manufacturer Hewlett-Packard

System Model HP xw8600 Workstation

System Type x64-based PC

Processor Intel® Xeon® CPU X5472 @ 3.00GHz, 3000 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

BIOS Version/Date Hewlett-Packard 786F5 v01.32, 10/15/2008

SMBIOS Version 2.5

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB

Total Physical Memory 4.00 GB

Available Physical Memory 6.07 GB

Total Virtual Memory 16.0 GB

Available Virtual Memory 14.1 GB

Graphics Card Info

NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800

Driver Version: 182.08

Total available graphics: 3328 MB

Dedicated video memory: 1536 MB

System video memory: 0MB

Shared system memory: 1792 MB

Bus: PCI Express x 16 Gen 2

File I'm working with.

14 MB DWG that was an RVT 3d file. Things in his drawing are so slow its irritating to just open it. Are there settings in A-Cad to help its 3D functions run faster and smother?

Do you have Hardware acceleration turned on? type 3DCONFIG to see if you are or not.

and that is a VERY stout computer. you are running top of the line, honestly.

I think you have been "Vistamized" by your OS as I see no reason, system-wise, why you would be having such a hard time dealing with a 14MB 3D file.

Does this drawing have any Xrefs attached?

Has the drawing been purged?

Read through this similar thread paying particular attention to page 2 where a number suggestions are given for speeding AutoCAD up.

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?t=28916&highlight=2009+slow

StykFacE,

I believe the Hardware acceleration is turned on. Do you see anything that could be improved? Please see attached. There looks like there is a Update. I will try that when I can get someone with admin. rights over here.

ReMark,

No Xrefs and it has been purged. I will check out the link you provided here in a bit. The drawing will be getting larger if I can work with it. This is the first large file I have opened monitor, tower, screen and A-Cad up grade. And I was like this can't be right. This thing should be faster than this.

Thanks again for the ideas Please keep them coming.

Brian

If there's an update, get it. Also, click the "View Tune Log" button and make sure it says that your hardware is Certified.

You may have to look at making some tweaks to the OS itself. Do you subscribe to PC World? The magazine recently ran an article (maybe two?) about how to make Vista run faster.

Is your 3rd party software suited to Vanilla 2009? From a quick Google search it seemed to be linked heavily to Building Systems 2007, although I've only had a very brief look...

jus generally google search it theirs different was and means of making your system run faster when using acad, to many ways to list.

Also, I don't care what you have as far as performance in a computer, its not good to run in a "rendered" visual style. I work in wireframe unless I absolutely NEED to see what's going on, and I have a pretty stout machine myself.

Brian_MMC,

I was a Vista user.

I had to go BACK to XP, because no matter what (I even installed a new Graphics Card thinking that was going to help) AutoCAD Architecture was sooooooooooooooooooo slow!!! I couldnt draw!!

My best advice would to install XP!!

Best Move I have EVER made!!

Hopes this help!!

-Steven Huseman

Thanks for all the info.

Do any of you know of a way to make A-Cad use more than 1 processor at a time? The affinity is set for all 4 of them but Cad maxes out one and then stalls out and starts eating up the memory and still just sits there. Any thing would be great.

Thanks in advance.

Do any of you know of a way to make A-Cad use more than 1 processor at a time?

Check your Help files for information on the WHIPTHREAD variable.

You can also start having slow-downs and autocad-related problems if your hard drive hasn't been defragmented in a while. With 2009, I was having all kinds of problems. Autocad was actually just closing in the middle of me working on a something with no error messages and no warnings. What a nightmare!

Also, I realized that my video card driver was very outdated. Whether or not an outdated vidcard driver would slowdown autocad, I'm not sure. But It probably can't hurt to check and be up to date.

Then there's multitasking. Some drawing files can get pretty resource-intensive. And other programs running at the same time Autocad is running can create a big resource drain on things like system memory. If I ever work on really big drawing files I always close all the stuff running in the background I'm not needing or using. Things like Quicktime and adobe background programs. Even if it only frees up just a little bit of much-needed resources, it can make a big difference.

Another issue can be background spyware scans and/or virus-scans that have been either programmed to run at specific times and dates or are set, by default, to run during work hours. And sometimes these scans will take place on your computer while running in the system tray (just depending on the program) and it won't tell you it's even scanning anything until AFTER the scan is complete. Always good to check all your security software to make sure no scans are scheduled during work hours. I set all mine to like 3am or something.

-ChriS

Cad64 thanks for the tip on the Whipthread command. It is currently set to 1

"Regeneration multithreaded processing only; regeneration processing is distributed across two processors on a multiprocessor machine."

I will try the other options.

Thanks for the help.

would this apply to a multi core processor? i am running a Xeon 5150 2.66GHz (for whatever reason). I checked Intel and it is a Dual Core (available in quad but we're cheap).

would this apply to a multi core processor? i am running a Xeon 5150 2.66GHz (for whatever reason). I checked Intel and it is a Dual Core (available in quad but we're cheap).

Yes, it would. I've had this issue is quite a few computers now.

what variable would you recommend? its set currently to 1. I'll try 3 and see what happens.

what variable would you recommend? its set currently to 1. I'll try 3 and see what happens.

Just keep an eye on it if you do. I used that setting once, hoping to use more than 1 of my 4 cores.

It took me months and several severe Autocad-crashes with a lot of work lost before i discovered it was the whipthread setting that caused it. Never again!